The Key to the Ubiquitous World

In the Tzar era, certain words were frequently mentioned. They could even be called buzzwords. Ubiquitous was one such term. Its meaning was simple: a concept combining computing with the idea that God exists everywhere, allowing anyone to use a computer anytime, anywhere, through any device. Yet it was no brand-new coinage in 1999. The concept itself had first been proposed in 1974 by Professor Nicholas Negroponte of MIT. Later, in 1988, Mark Weiser, then working at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, expanded it into a network-based pervasive computing environment. The problem was that the technology of the time could not support it. No one had figured out what applications would run on computers scattered everywhere, nor had anyone seriously considered applications tailored for ubiquitous computing. It was little more than the vague notion that having computers everywhere, all connected, must surely be a good thing.

Yoo Jae-won borrowed the concept of ubiquitous computing to help every employee in the ID Group understand the strategy for the new millennium.

“The internet has now reached the point where we can say it has been popularized. In the United States, broadband internet is available to businesses, schools, and most households. A clear example is that even the smaller games released by our ID Entertainment support internet multiplayer.”

The employees filling the auditorium focused their eyes and ears on Yoo Jae-won. As a result, they all nodded in agreement. This was the headquarters of ID Technology, after all, so two-thirds of those seated were developers whose primary mission was internet technology development. They easily related to his words.

“But something still feels lacking to say the world has changed dramatically. People use the internet at home and meet anonymous users on 2ch boards or in games, yet they still need that cumbersome device called a computer.”

The employees felt a sense of dissonance at Yoo Jae-won’s words. After all, it was Yoo Jae-won who had reached this point by selling computer software. Regardless, he continued.

“There is the term ‘terminal.’ It refers to the device at the very end of a vast network system—the gadget used by the majority of people. Right now, ‘terminal’ means a PC. It is also the device on which the core capabilities of our ID Group are concentrated.”

At his words, the New Egg PC appeared on the screen. The all-in-one PC that had swept the world had become a symbol in itself. Game recommended specifications were even set based on the New Egg. Even the lowest-priced New Egg outperformed most assembled PCs.

“But even that New Egg faces many difficulties in realizing ubiquitous computing. It was made small and compact, yet it is still a PC.”

After listing the drawbacks of PCs, Yoo Jae-won pulled something from his pocket. It was an object the size of a palm, about one centimeter thick, with a chrome-like silver back. A large LCD display module was attached to the front. It was the T-Touch Phone, scheduled for release in the first half of 1999.

“The true ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ubiquitous terminal will be handled by mobile communication devices with powerful performance like the T-Touch Phone.”

Yoo Jae-won neatly flipped the concept of ubiquitous computing. If you always carry a phone with computing power comparable to a computer, that in itself is ubiquitous, he explained.

“Of course, it is true that it falls two percent short of true ubiquitous computing. But everyone can predict that mobile device performance will rise over time, just as PCs have advanced. And that is precisely the mission of our ID Group.”

The employees in the auditorium all agreed. ID Technology was the company that had instantly become the world’s second-largest terminal manufacturer with the Tiffany Phone series. Though the giant Nokia made first place impossible, they took pride in producing the world’s finest mobile phones. The T-Touch Phone in Yoo Jae-won’s hand was no different. They could confidently say it was at least one generation ahead of Nokia, Motorola, and the rest. Its LCD screen was twice the size of the Tiffany Phone 2’s and featured a pressure-sensitive touchscreen. He had wanted to include a capacitive touchscreen, but the technology was not yet ready. Even so, they were doing their best to improve the pressure-sensitive version so it could be used with fingers alone—optimizing pressure detection range, accuracy, and error correction through software. At the very least, it could handle swipe-to-unlock without issue.

“Imagine a world where T-Touch Phones are mass-distributed.”

At his words, the screen changed. The ubiquitous computing diagram now showed a central mainframe icon representing a massive server, surrounded by connected PCs. Below this, icons of people holding T-Touch Phones appeared, adding another layer.

“With the T-Touch Phone’s large LCD screen, people will be able to access the internet anywhere—cafes, outdoors, wherever they go after leaving home. In other words, ID Talk messenger will be usable anywhere.”

The audience showed disappointed reactions. Most simply nodded absentmindedly. After all, even with the Tiffany Phone 2 it was already possible to go online outdoors. The screen was small and inconvenient to view, and data speeds were slow, but the quality was not so poor as to be unusable. Fortunately, Yoo Jae-won had predicted this level of reaction. That was why he had arranged such a grand event.

“For those who still find ubiquitous computing vague, let me give you another hint.”

Yoo Jae-won gestured, and the slide changed. The mainframe and PC icons gradually shrank and disappeared, replaced by a fluffy cloud icon—a cloud server. Instead, the number of people holding T-Touch Phones increased, and they connected through the cloud server to form a single network.

“When people gather in one space, we call it a society. So what do we call it when high-performance phones like the T-Touch Phone allow people to gather beyond space through high-speed internet? I will name it the Social Network System. This is the ultimate form of ubiquitous computing.”

The concept of the Social Network System had finally appeared in the world.

The next day, the vision Yoo Jae-won had unveiled was reported in North American daily newspapers. Although the presentation had been for ID Group employees, several journalists had been present. As IT specialists, they could understand roughly half of what he said. The concept of SNS, appearing for the first time, was especially groundbreaking. However, because Yoo Jae-won had deliberately hidden the core elements—smartphones and social network services—the message came across somewhat vaguely.

“Still, we cannot openly give hints to competitors who are watching with fire in their eyes.”

He had connected ubiquitous computing to SNS, but that was not entirely accurate. IoT would actually align better with the expansion of ubiquitous computing. What mattered was that the tool to realize SNS was a mobile device, and right now that device was the T-Touch Phone. Therefore, Yoo Jae-won urged his employees not to be satisfied with the T-Touch Phone and to think about the next generation of even more advanced devices.

Strictly speaking, the T-Touch Phone was a smartphone. It featured a mobile application processor, several times more memory than a feature phone, and a base 128-megabyte flash memory storage. It also included the App Store that had been demonstrated with the Livepod. Yet there were still shortcomings that prevented it from being called a true smartphone. First, there was the limitation of 2G data speeds. It also lacked GPS, accelerometer, and gyroscope sensors, reducing its utility. Above all, there were no services that properly supported SNS. That was why, following his request for employees to imagine the generation ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠after the T-Touch Phone, he announced an idea contest to actually implement the still-conceptual SNS. If someone brought a solid idea, he promised to nurture it as an in-house venture with full support.

ID Group’s in-house venture support policy was highly attractive. P Market, which had started as an in-house venture, had become America’s number-one used-goods trading site. It had moved beyond simply listing used items; small businesses now registered their own products for direct online sales. As a result, P Market’s selection grew increasingly impressive, naturally drawing more customers until it had matured into a full-scale shopping mall. Amazon, which began as an online bookstore, was following a similar path, but P Market’s expansion speed was far faster. After all, Amazon.com, which operated its own servers, had to be cautious with internet traffic management. Although ID Technology and many other companies offered cloud server services, Amazon’s CEO insisted on maintaining his own servers. While cloud servers were easier to scale and less expensive at the moment, he had early on recognized the difficulties of customization and the risk of total service dependency. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Therefore, they were building services on their own servers and had to minimize unnecessary waste. Consequently, Amazon.com’s product listings remained text-heavy and simple in structure.

In contrast, P Market enjoyed ID Group’s full support. Its greatest advantage was cloud servers and virtually unlimited data transfer capacity. Sellers on P Market could use high-resolution photos to showcase their products. At first, unsure how to use the generous storage, they simply uploaded photos taken with digital cameras. Now, professional designers created scroll-style brochures. Buyers could review large amounts of information and purchase with confidence, naturally increasing sales.

The success of in-house ventures did not stop there. There was the Half-Life team led by Gabe Newell, who had moved from Android’s Alpha team to register a game development proposal as an in-house venture. Half-Life was an FPS similar to ID Software’s Doom and Wolfenstein, yet its style was completely different. It implemented story progression, interaction with various objects, and cutscenes directly on the in-game screen, revolutionizing the FPS genre.

Just as he had fully sponsored in-house ventures before, Yoo Jae-won intended to throw his full weight behind any proper SNS service idea.

“Twitter or Facebook would be asking too much, wouldn’t it? YouTube is out of the question.”

He naturally listed the representative SNS companies that would connect people in the 21st century. But with the SNS concept only just announced, a flood of highly polished ideas was unlikely to appear immediately.

“I Love School is probably the best we can hope for right now.”

Still, anything was fine. You cannot fill your stomach with the first spoonful. What mattered was that both the SNS service carrying the SNS concept and the mobile device allowing people to access that service would come under the ID Group name.

“It would be an empire.”

The achievements ID Group had already accomplished were remarkable enough. If they also secured mobile devices represented by smartphones and the crucial SNS services that would run on them, it would not be an exaggeration to call it a digital empire. But this would not be easy. Although Yoo Jae-won possessed extraordinary abilities through regression, he was still only one individual. The cutting-edge future technologies sleeping in his mind could not yet be matched by current computer technology. CPUs running at 1 GHz were finally becoming mainstream, but the process nodes had not yet reached the nanometer scale. In the end, Yoo Jae-won too had to build products using currently available components, and at present that limit was the T-Touch Phone. That also meant competitors who saw the T-Touch Phone would have a very high probability of producing copycat devices. Even if they combined slightly inferior parts while monopolizing a few essential components, they could still create something reasonably usable, if not the best. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Especially Steve Jobs of Apple would be highly likely to conceive of a smartphone several years earlier than originally planned after seeing the announced T-Touch Phone.

In the end, there was only one answer. Maximize the given conditions and run faster than everyone else! The only way to maintain the empire was to keep pedaling furiously, as if riding a unicycle that would topple the moment you stopped.

Ding!

While Yoo Jae-won was brooding in his study, an alarm sounded from his iWorks computer. A message had arrived via ID Talk.

“Hm?”

Reflexively checking the message, Yoo Jae-won let out a sound of confusion. He had assumed it was from Tiffany or Kim Dae-seok, but it was not. The sender was the Russia branch manager, and within the urgent tone of the message lay Putin’s courteous invitation—an invitation from the man who would become the true Tzar of 21st-century Russia, not merely as a simple modifier like “digital empire.”