The day of the press conference began and Penny was a little nervous about it from early morning. She was hoping everything would go as planned, without any problems and the public would like their product. Fortunately she wasn’t the one who would be doing the presentation and the reporters will not be able to see how nervous she was. After a hot shower and a healthy breakfast, she changed into appropriate clothes and went to the venue, where people were already gathering despite the event being hours later. Penny walked around the gathering crowd, inspected the equipment for problems, examined how well everything was installed and generally kept herself busy until the event began.

When the moment arrived, the doors of the building opened and her team walked out in front of the reporters gathered in front, ready to listen and then ask their questions. Patricia, their PR person, walked in front of the others and lifted a microphone up, starting the press conference.

-Ladies and gentlemen of the press, welcome to the second press conference of Tinker Toy Technologies. I am sure it is a big surprise for a small and new toy company to call for the attention of the press, but what we have to present to you today is certain to surprise and amaze a few of you. Since the presentation of our hover board and scooters, our people worked countless hours to make new innovations and now, barely two months later, we have two new products to present to you.-

Patricia waved for an assistant to approach and bring the first toy in front of her, then with a flourish of her wrist, she unveiled what was hidden in a box. On a square tray stood a mouth and nose, looking quite realistic and strange, which quieted the gathered crown, stopping any murmur and sound. They didn’t know what they were looking at and so, didn’t know how to react to the unveiled toy. That is when the CMO resumed speaking to the crowd with a lot of enthusiasm.

-You are probably wondering what is so special about these mouth and nose toys. Let me explain it to you simply. The mouth contains technology that can taste and differentiate taste like a human mouth and the nose can do the same with smells. We spent the last month compiling a database of flavors and smells for the two to recognize when detected.-

She waited a few seconds for everyone to realize what she said means, before hands started going up, the reporters ready to ask for answers to questions they weren’t sure they wanted answered. If some of the answers were as they expected, this could turn out to be so much more than a toy, it wouldn’t even be funny. Patricia chose one of the reporters and one by one they started asking and she answering.

-How strong is the ability of the nose to detect smells compared to a human, pig or a dog?-

-We haven’t run comparison tests, but my notes say there are 5 censors in the toy nose all put on setting 1 of ten to be as sensitive as a human nose and there is place for ten times as much censors in there, so if I have to guess the nose can be from 100 to a 1000 times stronger than a human nose. But we don’t know for sure, because we haven’t cranked them to the max before.-

-Can they detect the smell and taste of poisons, drugs or explosives?-

-If the smell and taste can be registered, they can smell and taste them. Our testers fed the mouth every element from the periodic table they could feed it and after testing further, we discovered the mouth could detect even tasteless poisons, so we believe the rest are also possible in the future. We just don’t have drugs and explosives to register in the database.-

-Is it possible for the nose to detect types of cancer like some dogs can?-

-We believe it is possible, but we haven’t tested the device outside of the lab and with some volunteers and none of them had cancer for us to test.-

-I have a question. How could you use this kind of technology in toys? Isn’t this waste of potential and revenue?-

-Our CEO, who is also our head of R&D is a little eccentric and wanted to make toys that could taste and smell things, so she made toys that could taste and smell things and now we are presenting them to you. What you use them for is entirely up to the end user.-

The last answer made everyone present shut up and ponder on what was just said. The CEO was a little eccentric, but even eccentricities had to have a limit. Just how strange must you be to make a technology with so many potential applications and then waste it on a toy? After the shock of the answer dissipated there were a few more mundane questions asked and answers given and it was time for the product that everyone was gathered here for to be presented.

-The thing I will show you next is our main reason for gathering here. At first we were planning to present it to the game expo being held today, but our CEO was inspired two weeks ago to build something new and exciting and we had to change our plans. Ahem, anyways, the building behind me has been renovated with the latest technology made by our company, but before we were even planning to do anything like this, we build the world’s first game console using holograms and next generation movement reading software. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the HoloCon.-

As she presented the console, the doors behind her disappeared and were replaced by an expansive meadow covered with flowers, which looked so real, half the crown wondered for a second if they were teleported somewhere else. After a few seconds, a man walked through the hologram carrying a console, which he left with Patricia, then excused himself and walked right back inside the building, through the hologram again.

-Were you all surprised? This is our air projected hologram technology at work. It doesn’t need dark space or mist or other bothersome condition to work, which means you don’t need a monitor to play our game console either. Now, let me demonstrate how to play a game on it.-

Patricia activated the game console and the hologram behind her disappeared and was replaced by the beginning of a movie in the public domain. She explained how the game worked, played a scene as closely to the original movie as she could and was awarded points, then the demo started another game, where she had to control the character with hand gestures, followed by a game where she used a game controller.

-As you can see, there are a lot of ways to control the characters in game, both the classic controller and the movement recognition on the body. But the most reliable way and the one making you a part of the game and its world is this!-

Patricia removed her coat to reveal her wearing a full body haptic suit and almost as soon as she did, the demo changed to a fighting game and she assumed a fighting pose against her opponent. The two exchanged a few jabs and kicks, every hit landed, visibly showing on the haptic suit and shown by the way it got in the way of her movements. And every hit she landed made the hologram react as if it had hit a real person. Then after a while, Patricia created space between herself and her opponent and quickly made a few signs with her hands, creating a glowing ball to appear between them. It was a special move, the romance of many geek’s fantasies. She shot the ball of energy at the enemy and saw a big K.O. sign appear over his head. She was breathing heavily, not accustomed to moving so much during presentations, but continued despite that.

-And our game console isn’t made just for the indoor types, as you clearly saw. The different peripheral devices for the console make it possible for you to enter and be a part of the world in the game. Some of you may think what happened was a rehearsed choreography between me and the hologram, but I can assure you it was not. We have arranged a few consoles inside you will be able to test to verify for yourselves later. Now however, it is time for me to present to you the last innovation for the day. As I said earlier, the building behind me has been equipped with holographic projectors and movement recognition and with the permission of some big names in the tabletop game industry, we turned it into a wonderland for tabletop players and Live Action Role Players. Welcome to the Tabletop Game Center.-

Patricia led the crowd inside the building and started explaining how games were played, from where the DMs were controlling the environment and the different games they had signed cooperation with. The building was modified to be able to host 10 games simultaneously, but before showing them how the campaigns were run, she arranged for some consoles to be brought in, for the reporters to test and evaluate. And an hour later, when everyone had their turn, she arranged for a group of guest D&D players to play a campaign in front of the reporters and show them how things would work when they opened for business. The reporters reactions varied from speechless to ones with hundred questions and even ones who couldn’t believe this tech had come this far, as in they believed everything was fake, but time would prove them wrong.

And this is pretty much where I will stop torturing myself and my readers with my awful writing and just write that the rest of the event went smoothly, everyone was satisfied with the results and a lot of good articles were written for the news.

The next day the company started receiving calls to ask about the products and a lot of pre-orders were logged on the company website. The factory was in the process of filling and exceeding the initial orders and everything was going according to plan. They even send a few consoles to reviewers before the official release date to stir up some more interest and now they just had to wait for the sales to catch fire or tank to the ground.