Chinese science fiction and space adventure film "The Wandering Earth 2" has become a certified blockbuster. Within two weeks after release, box office receipts worldwide reached nearly 500 million U.S. dollars. Here's another stunner: Some of the futuristic technologies in the film, actually already exist, and most of them are made in China. Our Cao Chufeng has more.
In the future world of "The Wandering Earth,", machines and artificial intelligence infiltrate almost every part of human lives.
And I was stunned to see exactly the same robots from the "future," running around in a real life company in Shenzhen.
ZHAO WANQIU Co-Founder, Youibot Robotics Co., Ltd. "When they first saw our robots, the director's team said they didn't know robots in real life have been developed to such a stage, and it already feels like science fiction."
ZHAO WANQIU Co-Founder, Youibot Robotics Co., Ltd. "This is an inspection robot, it is used for daily inspection work on the moon and earth base in the movie. In real life, it is also used for inspection. You can see the two 'eyes' on the robot. They capture any dysfunctions they see in a plant, and its 'brain' will send them to the control room."
Zhao's company provided 14 different types of mobile robots for the movie. He told me he thinks that one day, mobile robots might just be as widely used in reality as in the movie. And China has a great environment for their development.
ZHAO WANQIU Co-Founder, Youibot Robotics Co., Ltd. "There is a very broad application market in China for mobile robots, which provides opportunities for enterprise like us to actually fulfil their values."
While robots might be essential in the future, earphones and headphones will also be often used in the eyes of the "Wandering Earth" director. And an audio equipment company in Dongguan, specially designed some futuristic looking ones for the film.
RONG BO Manager, Designing Department EDIFIER Technology Co.,Ltd. "In the context of doomsday, reliability of devices is particularly important. We deliberately used many simple lines, and strong looking panels, to highlight the audio devices' reliability."
YAO JIAXING Manager, Designing Department EDIFIER Technology Co.,Ltd. "This is my draft design, and it was inspired by a pair of shoes made 20 years ago, that has some sci-fi elements."
"What elements of the shoes were incorporated into the headphones?"
"I've extracted the edgy lines of the shoes, so you rarely see anything too fussy on these headphones."
The majority of the audio devices in the film are actually props, and are not user-friendly in reality. But in reality, audio devices produced in China are widely used both at home and aboard.
WEN YU Vice President, EDIFIER Technology Co.,Ltd. "Take speakers as an example. Over 80 percent of them are now made in China. Some of the audio devices produced by our company, are ranking very high on a foreign customer rating website."
CAO CHUFENG Dongguan "Some of the tech gadgets in the movie really exist now in China, while many others are works in progress. Interviewing the scientists and designers gave me hope, that one day all the high tech in the movie might just come true. Cao Chufeng, CGTN, Guangdong Province."
Source: CGTN
