The strategic cooperation between Wasu and Alibaba has been upgraded in an all-round way, with the launch of "Huashu Meow"

 The two high-tech Hangzhou enterprises continue to join forces with deeper cooperation and broader business.

Recently, Wasu Digital TV Media Group Co., Ltd. and Alibaba (China) Co., Ltd. signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Xixi Park of Alibaba. Both parties will build on the advantages of their respective resources to develop new infrastructure, new technologies, new scenarios, and new "Media" and other fields, comprehensively improve the level of strategic cooperation. The site also released by both parties to create a joint wisdom home court scene new service - "the number of China meow."

At the ceremony, Alibaba and Wasu signed a strategic cooperation agreement. The persons in charge of both parties respectively introduced and demonstrated the content of strategic cooperation, new scenarios of smart homes and technical capabilities, and jointly launched product cooperation in new scenarios of smart homes.

Strategic cooperation in-depth advancement of the four "new" areas

Over the years, Wasu and Alibaba have carried out in-depth cooperation in various business levels such as Internet TV broadcast control, Youku content, Alibaba Cloud CDN and Internet technology, and have achieved fruitful results. The next five years will be a critical period for my country to further implement the "14th Five-Year Plan" and accelerate the transformation and upgrading of a digital and intelligent society. This will also bring new development opportunities for both parties in the field of digital economy. Based on a common vision for the development of a digital economy, a sound foundation for cooperation, and unique resource advantages, the two parties reached a consensus on comprehensively improving the strategic partnership in the new era, and reached a consensus on the specific content of comprehensively improving strategic cooperation.

Alibaba Group is committed to continuously deepening the corporate strategy of "data intelligence, network collaboration"; Wasu Group, as a leader in the field of smart radio and television, proposed a new round of strategic development of "intelligent radio and television integrated operator, digital economy service provider" Positioning. Combining their actual conditions, the two parties clarified the specific content of this comprehensive promotion of strategic cooperation——

In the field of "new infrastructure", it mainly includes cooperation in cloud computing, basic network, edge computing, industrial Internet of things and smart terminals; in the field of "new technology", it focuses on exploring new technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and digital twins. Application scenarios, especially the use of blockchain technology in various fields of media convergence and radio and television; in the field of "new media", including license broadcast control services, high-definition video production, entertainment content services and the expansion of operators’ private network channels Cooperate with the general content of local life; in terms of "new scenarios", the focus is on the joint development of in-depth business cooperation on new scenarios such as smart homes and digital governance, future communities , and urban governance.

"Huashu Meow" will start a new life of smart home

At the scene, Huashu and Alibaba are jointly developing and testing a new scene innovation service for smart homes—the "Huashu Miao" series debuted. The service plan with Ali Dharma hospital operator force to support the cloud, through the "wake-up joint optimization" blind source separation "" "fluidized cloud" technology, for different terminal types, the "cloud meow" "meow big" "small With different services and terminal modes such as "meow", relying on the conditions of Wasu's broadband private network, we are committed to creating a new type of smart home services and application scenarios that combine true cloud and terminal.

In the future, "Huashu Meow" plans to integrate all of Wasu’s own businesses such as TV channels, on-demand and information services, Ali ecological businesses such as Youku, Tmall Elf, and local life services (e.g. Are you hungry), as well as families such as smart homes. Internet of Things services are expected to achieve product enhancement, user experience and service enhancement in the home scenario.

Through “new infrastructure”, “new consumption” will be stimulated, “new services” will be provided, “new governance” will be promoted, and “new track” will be developed.

As two large enterprises that grew up in Hangzhou and developed in Hangzhou, Wasu Group and Alibaba Group will comprehensively enhance their strategic cooperation this time, which will not only enhance the core competitiveness of the two companies in the field of digital economy, but will also strive to create a " "Important Window" and Hangzhou's construction of "National Digital Economy First City" and "National Digital Governance First City" play a positive role in satisfying the people's yearning for a better life.

Focusing on the 10 trillion square meter wall construction market, "Dafang Intelligence" released the new DF061 intelligent wall treatment robot

 The DF061 intelligent wall treatment robot is a construction cooperation mode based on the mobile Internet, which can replace 80%-95% of manual labor to complete the 0m-9m wall treatment construction work.

China's annual new construction area accounts for half of the world's total. From 2018 to 2030, the average annual new housing demand in China's urban areas is as high as 1.08 billion-13.4 billion square meters. It is estimated that in 2020, the total expenditure on home decoration in China will exceed 2.5 trillion yuan, of which wall treatment accounts for about 5%-8%. It is a huge market with a scale of 125-200 billion yuan, and this does not include industry, commerce, and logistics. Wall treatment of industrial plant building.

Looking at developed countries around the world, most of the wall treatment market adopts traditional manual treatment methods. However, the traditional method of manual wall painting is not only inefficient, faces labor shortages and high costs, but also poses hidden dangers to the safety of construction workers in dangerous environments. Take the United Kingdom as an example. The annual wall painting market is more than 4 billion pounds. Compared with 1970, the labor efficiency of wall painting has not increased, but has decreased by 0.5%. Therefore, the global market urgently needs a practical, reliable and fully automated manual replacement product for wall treatment.

At present, construction robots around the world are basically in the R&D and start-up stage, and have not been used for large-scale commercial use, and the robots used in building wall treatment are even rarer. However, as labor costs in the field of construction continue to increase, and issues such as construction safety and dust pollution have always been the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of construction companies, the construction market has an increasing demand for intelligent construction and manual replacement. The market urgently needs intelligent construction robots that can achieve standardization, high precision, and adapt to the harsh environment of the construction site.

The DF061 intelligent wall treatment robot recently launched by "Dafang Intelligence" interviewed by 36Kr is a construction cooperation model based on mobile Internet, which can replace 80%-95% of manual construction of 0m-9m wall treatment operation.

The hardware iteration of "Dafang Smart" has made great progress in the past six months. A single machine is composed of 360 kg and 100% steel and aluminum parts 6 months ago. It has become a single machine with 180 kg and 25% of the parts using titanium alloy and Carbon fiber has achieved "weight loss success". The robot is equipped with "5G Internet + AIoM robot" technology, and cloud software services are installed in the robot hardware equipment, allowing customers to perform integrated control of parameter input, project management and process monitoring through a mobile app.

The product builds machine perception capabilities through 29 sensors, including 12 laser sensor controllers for adjusting the operation module and speed control; 10 photoelectric sensor sensor controllers to ensure the accuracy of the robot operation process and prevent the robot operation process The loss; 4 pressure sensor controllers ensure that standing and stretching freely; 2 visual feedback controllers control reasonable and moderate application of paint; 1 gyro balance sensor to ensure the stability of robot walking. At the same time, the robot also has a multi-dimensional motion system composed of 25 motors: 6 servo motors achieve a motion accuracy of 0.1 mm; a four-dimensional robotic arm composed of 6 stepper motors and reducers completes the construction requirements of 2 70 degrees in a 3-dimensional space ; 8 balance motors ensure balance and support when the construction height exceeds three meters.

In a real work scene with a large amount of ground deposits, the general construction work area will clear obstacles in advance. If deposits are found on the construction route, DF061 will give a real-time alarm and remind the operator to remove the ground deposits. Before applying DF061 for construction at this stage, surveyors will take pictures of the construction site and generate CAD scene diagrams of the construction site through the software. If there are drainage pipes, smoke detectors, power distribution boxes, doors and windows and other objects that need to avoid construction, they will be automatically identified Afterwards, a construction simulation animation is generated and handed over to the operator to review the construction route. DF061 is equipped with 3D imaging navigation. The construction route is generated on the basis of house CAD images by an independent patented wall processing algorithm, and then DF061 is downloaded and executed from the cloud to realize autonomous navigation. During the implementation process, obstacle avoidance is based on real-time adjustment of laser and microwave sensors. In the future, SLAM panoramic construction navigation will be gradually realized.

 DF061 Intelligent Wall Processing Robot Picture

Compared with traditional manual operations, the use of generous and intelligent robot operations can greatly reduce costs and increase efficiency. Specifically, if we take Shenzhen wall treatment and construction as an example, the daily salary of painters is about 400-500 RMB, and it takes 10 people 15 days to finish and paint a wall with an area of ​​about 5000 square meters, not including processing walls over 3 meters. The cost of scaffolding and material loss is required for the surface. According to research articles published in international journals, if wall processing robots are used, the construction efficiency should be increased by at least 60% and a certain percentage of material loss should be saved.

36 Krypton learned that from the construction practice data of the "Dafang Intelligent" DF061 intelligent wall treatment robot for nearly half a year, under the same construction effect, the overall efficiency of the robot to complete the wall treatment is 3-4 times higher than that of manual work. Save 50%-70% labor cost and 15% material cost. DF061 is used to polish and paint 5000 square meters of wall surface, which can be completed by one machine in 2 days, which can improve construction efficiency and improve construction safety.

In terms of team development, the R&D focus of the core R&D team of "Dafang Smart" has undergone iterations and upgrades from 1.0 to 3.0. In the 1.0 era, relying on the technical talents of hardware design in the team and the manufacturing advantages of Dongguan area, the robot performance matching and basic assembly were realized; in the 2.0 era, the optimized configuration of hardware in the supply chain was completed by matching suitable and mature suppliers in the market; Up to now, the founder and core R&D team continue to polish the product, and the algorithm optimization of the software system has been tested and debugged in practice.

Promote the use of point of view, "generous and intelligent" tell krypton 36, DF061 intelligent robot wall treatment has been completed in the Pearl River Delta region, including Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center underground garage more polished construction practice, including spraying, and has received from the airport hangar , Intentional orders from customers in areas such as wineries and factories will focus on the construction of the interior and exterior walls of the factory buildings of 6 meters and above. According to the residential indoor spraying demand on the market, the DF041 intelligent wall robot for 3-4 meters operation will also be developed. In the future, we will continue to provide services for partners in the Pearl River Delta, develop partners in the Yangtze River Delta around Shanghai, and provide training for surveying and mapping engineers and machine operators for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei partners with Beijing as the core. At present, the generous R&D personnel of the DF061 intelligent wall treatment robot provide on-site assistance during the operation, and timely find the problems in the construction to debug and optimize the algorithm, making the robot increasingly perfect. In the verification with the customers that have cooperated, the algorithm optimization and model debugging in the software system have been used to solve the problems of uneven spraying, uneven movement caused by uneven ground, and delay of nozzles and lifting rods.

"Dafang Intelligence" told 36Kr that the founder Deng Yu is a serial entrepreneur with deep software and hardware development experience and a deep understanding of marketing methods. It is expected that the planned business model is to recruit regional agents to achieve revenue growth through equipment leasing and project contracting and sharing. It will continue to rely on the advantages of China's manufacturing industry to launch new models with multiple functions and applications in the next 3-5 years Robots are used to replace manual work in the field of building decoration.

In the field of building decoration, wall treatment is one of the largest parts. In addition to the construction area of ​​about tens of billions of square meters per year in my country, the completed buildings in use also need to repaint the interior and exterior walls. Therefore, A considerable part of the nation's annual labor force of more than 50 million construction industry is engaged in wall treatment. At present, the companies involved in building wall treatment include Bo Zhilin and Transforma Robotics, but the products have not yet been promoted on a large scale. In addition, some large domestic real estate developers will also invest heavily in the development of wall spray robots based on their own needs. However, because the prototypes produced are only for the operating environment and operating requirements of their own buildings, the products are not marketable.

Construction sites are full of many uncontrollable factors and have complex and harsh environment characteristics such as a lot of dust and high humidity. In the future, intelligent construction robots want to overcome these difficulties and there is still a long way to go for large-scale application in the construction industry. Faced with strong market upgrade demands and technological breakthroughs in industries such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing big data, self-propelled robot product technology will continue to change, which will become a good opportunity for the construction industry to upgrade digital and intelligent.

DJI: Unmanned Vehicles

 DJI hopes to become an artificial intelligence company.

1. Unmanned aerial vehicles are essentially a niche market that cannot be truly "popularized", and DJI is "seeking defeat alone";

2. DJI needs to find another large enough area with room for imagination to support a valuation of 166 billion yuan;

3. In the field of autonomous driving, DJI is very likely to follow Huawei's route in the field of smart cars and provide related solutions for other manufacturers with its technological advantages.

Since 2020, rumors about DJI layoffs have never stopped.

After flying for more than ten years, the drone giant seems to have come to the corner of the alley. According to sources in the drone industry chain, the demand for consumer drones has declined this year, and overcapacity and large inventory are the main reasons for DJI's layoffs.

According to a Reuters report in August, the sales and marketing department is the "hit area", and founder Wang Tao asked to cut marketing and sales staff by two-thirds.

In contrast to layoffs, DJI is vigorously recruiting people related to autonomous driving.

Source: DJI official website

The official website shows that DJI is currently recruiting hardware engineers in automotive electronics, software engineers in the direction of intelligent driving, and even expanding to professionals in system security. The work location is not limited to Shenzhen, Shanghai is also within the scope of recruitment.

“In terms of autonomous driving, DJI has always had recruitment needs.” An auto industry headhunter told Yiou, “The demand for algorithms is the greatest.” Throw an olive branch.

Since 2015, the news of DJI's development of autonomous driving has been circulating in the industry, and some investors even said that DJI will invest 30% of its research and development in this field in the future. In this regard, DJI has repeatedly denied that, Xie Tiandi, the director of public relations, once came forward to clarify: "The company has not preset commercial goals in terms of autonomous driving."

However, during CES in early 2020, DJI's internally incubated subsidiary Livox (Lanwo Technology), with its two low-priced lidar products, Horizon (Horizon) and Tele-15 (Long-range 15), opened the mystery of DJI's autonomous driving. A corner. After that, DJI's official caliber of denial of autonomous driving seemed to be slightly lax.

Today's large-scale recruitment is more like an important signal for DJI to accelerate its pace in this field. According to industry insiders, DJI divides the autonomous driving department according to the L3/L4 standard, and may announce the latest development of autonomous driving in the near future.

DJI is already a drone giant, why should it enter a new field? Is it going to tell a similar story?

Flying to the "top" drone market

Looking at the global drone market, if DJI claims to be number two, no one would dare to be number one. Even the Wall Street Journal, which rarely praises Chinese technology companies, has taken the initiative to label DJI as "the first Chinese company to become a pioneer in the world's major technology consumer products."

14 years after its establishment, DJI now controls more than 80% of the global consumer drone market, with a valuation of more than 166 billion yuan, ranking seventh in the "2020 China Unicorn List TOP100" and is the only one. Chinese technology giants that monopolize the global market.

The industry usually compares DJI to Apple. But in the eyes of industry insiders, there is no rival like "Samsung" in the field of consumer drones. This time led the United States to initiate infringement lawsuits against it, accusing DJI of violating Article 337 of the "Tariff Act of 1930" that prohibits unfair competition or trade practices.

Although exempted from the ban after two years of investigation, DJI, as the leader, still cannot sit back and relax.

"DJI's success lies in the creation of the unprofessional unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) market." Frost & Sullivan analyst Michael Blaze once concluded. But the problem is that DJI is too focused on this market and has no competitors.

Today, drones are still a niche market. On the consumer side, only a small number of people have the opportunity to become large users of drones. DJI is attracting more players by continuously reducing unit prices, while competing with friends. In the field of consumer drones, demand growth brought about by consumption upgrades is not obvious, and the instability of the flight restriction policy has exacerbated the uncertainty of the market.

"The consumer drone market is so big, and DJI is already the king. From a commercial point of view, few giant manufacturers will challenge it in this field." Some insiders pointed out.

DJI is indeed seeking defeat alone, which has also become an obstacle to the popularization of drones. "Only when the real competitors of DJI appear, drones can go out of the niche market and go to the masses." Xie Tiandi once said.

According to IDC's forecast in 2018, the global market for consumer and corporate drones is USD 9 billion, and the average annual growth rate for the next 5 years is expected to be about 30%. According to this calculation, the overall size of the drone market in 2020 is approximately US$15.21 billion. According to Gartner's forecast, this figure drops to 11.2 billion U.S. dollars, of which at least 50% of the scale belongs to industry-grade drones. This means that the market for consumer drones has been further compressed.

Wang Tao seemed to have a hunch. In an interview in 2016, he stated that the drone market is about to be saturated, and DJI's revenue will reach its peak at 20 billion yuan.

Today, DJI's revenue has already exceeded 20 billion yuan, but this revenue is obviously unable to support its 166 billion yuan valuation.

"Emerging industries" surfaced

DJI is seeking new breakthroughs, and it first sets its sights on industry applications.

Second half of 2015, Dajiang into the legislature, business applications department, industry-oriented enterprises to provide professional solutions. At present, DJI has launched corresponding products in the fields of public security, energy, construction, infrastructure, surveying and mapping, power, oil and gas. The Prospective Industry Research Institute predicts that the industry scale of industrial drones will be about 45 billion yuan in 2025, with an average growth rate of about 30%.

But after all, industrial drones are different from consumer drones. In addition to technology, prices and sales systems are the focus of DJI's need to re-pull.

In addition, Dajiang also actively explore the field of imaging systems equipment, ground equipment release hand holding cloud camera spiritual eye, the camera platform Zen and so on.

But strictly speaking, both industrial drones and imaging system equipment are still in the scope of drones. In essence, DJI is still that DJI, and has not stepped out of its comfort zone. DJI needs to find a new area that is large enough and has enough room for imagination as a new growth point for its revenue and valuation.

DJI once mentioned the ideal future revenue structure in a financing material sent to investment institutions: 50% are drones, 25% are from the imaging sector, and 25% are from new businesses.

What is the new business? DJI clearly mentioned the medical imaging AI market and the education market, and at the same time vaguely stated that there are also artificial intelligence "emerging industries" centered on vision, algorithms, image processing, and integrated chip technology. In 2019, DJI has launched the first educational robot mecha master RoboMaster S1 to test the field of robot education.

But some people in the industry think this is DJI's "obscure approach": "DJI will not announce what it wants to do. The direction announced to the outside world is likely to mislead competitors."

Since its development, DJI has not caused much splash in the medical imaging AI market and education market, which may confirm the conjectures of the above-mentioned people. At the same time, the mysterious "emerging industries" that DJI has avoided talking about seem to gradually surface.

During CES in early 2020, DJI's internally incubated subsidiary Livox (Lanwo Technology) released two lidar products, Horizon (Horizon) and Tele-15 (Long-distance 15), which provide services for L3/L4 autonomous vehicles. These two rotating mirror lidars have attracted the attention of the industry with "non-mainstream" technical routes and low prices below 10,000 yuan.

There is very little public information about Livox. It is said that the original intention of Livox was that DJI hopes to carry self-developed lidar on industrial drones, but the team found that the autonomous driving industry is a broader market during the research and development process, and Livox's research line has also become vehicle lidar. .

DJI has always been a company that "does not want to say more".

Since 2015, the industry has continued to report about DJI’s entry into the autonomous driving field, which DJI has repeatedly denied. Until 2020, Livox officially launched two products, the rumors can be regarded as a real hammer. In fact, Livox was founded in 2016, and has been steadily "doing" it for 4 years when it made its public debut.

According to industry insiders, with low prices, Livox's products have now gained part of the market share.

What is the imagination of autonomous driving?

Since the beginning of this year, DJI has gradually "relaxed" on autonomous driving. When receiving inquiries about the automotive field, DJI reversed its previous veto attitude and responded: "The exploration of applying technology to the automotive field has made some progress."

Recently, a large number of recruitment information updated by DJI on major websites have added a reliable basis to the rumors of its research and development of autonomous driving technology.

According to Yiou's understanding, similar to Baidu 's IDG (Intelligent Driving Business Group), DJI internally divides autonomous driving into mass-production autonomous driving and forward-looking autonomous driving. The former focuses on the research and development of L3 autonomous driving technology. , The direction of the latter is L4. It is not yet clear whether there are also intelligent transportation related businesses.

Perhaps even earlier, DJI began preparations to build an autonomous driving business team.

In 2015, its Silicon Valley R&D center introduced former Tesla engineer Darren Liccardo as the vice president of global engineering. According to LinkedIn information, Dai Lun established an ADAS engineering team during his tenure at Tesla and also served as the head of the autonomous driving technology research and development team at BMW.

After Darren left in 2017, DJI fell into silence in autonomous driving. It was only recently that it found clues in its recruitment information and Livox's actions.

For DJI, autonomous driving is naturally more imaginative than the drone market. According to estimates by Soochow Securities, the size of the autonomous driving market will be 84.4 billion yuan in 2020, and it will reach 225 billion yuan in 2025. This figure is only for the domestic ADAS market, not to mention the broader L4 autonomous driving field where the "money" scene is broader.

In the past two years, the development of autonomous driving in China has indeed experienced a low point. However, since the beginning of this year, companies such as Xiaoma Zhixing , Uisee Technology , and Tage Zhixing have obtained new financing and new progress in commercialization, which proves that autonomous driving is still an area worthy of long-term investment.

The reason why autonomous driving has been underappreciated is largely due to its commercialization problems. This is precisely the part that DJI "don't care about". Some DJI executives described it like this: "DJI is like a huge laboratory. Product development is linked by technology research and development, and commercial projects are less than 1/3 of the laboratory."

This technology-first spirit is inherited from founder Wang Tao. In the early days of entrepreneurship, he did not think too much about the business model, but he kept improving the details of the product.

DJI has a strong internal engineer culture. In its R&D logic, the direction of commercialization has never been the first consideration. The R&D team believes that it is impossible to do R&D after pre-setting the commercialization direction.

Luo Zhenhua, the president of DJI, once pointed out the company's operational thinking-when developing products, DJI first seeks technological breakthroughs. Once this stage is reached, clear market needs will emerge.

Another Huawei?

Technically speaking, the perception part is still the most difficult problem for autonomous driving today. In the past, DJI has accumulated rich experience in visual recognition.

When Phantom 4 was released in 2016, Wang Tao pointed out its essence with a sentence "Welcome to the era of computer vision". At the same time, DJI changed its description from "Flying Camera" to "Flying Robot", further demonstrating artificial intelligence ambitions. Then the "Royal" Mavic Pro released by it was the first time that deep learning technology was applied to drones to strengthen intelligent functions.

"DJI has a technical foundation." Some insiders analyzed, "Although the application scenario can be migrated from drones to unmanned driving, it is also very difficult. If you want to do a good job, it is no less than developing a new one. 'Elf' products."

According to the website of the State Intellectual Property Office, DJI has also obtained patents related to autonomous vehicles while applying for patents related to drones. Such as control methods, control devices and vehicles for automatic driving; determination of installation parameters of on-board imaging devices and driving control methods and equipment.

Source: State Intellectual Property Office website 

In the field of autonomous driving, DJI also has "rely on". Li Zexiang, director of DJI, led the founding of the autonomous driving company Xidi Zhijia in 2017 . The company completed the A++ round of financing of over 100 million yuan led by Liangjiang Fund this year, and is accelerating the implementation of new autonomous driving fund business.

Li Zexiang is a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Wang Tao's mentor. Because of his early investment and dedication to DJI, he was called the "Incubator" of DJI by the outside world. After DJI enters the field of autonomous driving, in what ways will Li Zexiang help the student Wang Tao again, which is also an "Easter egg" left to the outside world.

There is very little public information about DJI's autonomous driving. Yiou guessed that in the field of autonomous driving, DJI is likely to try to follow Huawei's route in the automotive industry-not building cars, but empowering OEMs through a variety of smart car solutions.

At the end of October, Huawei released the smart car solution brand "HI", which includes a computing and communication architecture, smart cockpit, smart driving, smart networking, smart car cloud services, smart electric five communication systems, as well as millimeter wave radar and laser More than 30 intelligent components such as radar and camera.

"HI" is built on the advantages of Huawei's ICT technology, and DJI's pursuit of technology is also the consensus of the industry.

Throughout the history of DJI's product development, it generally starts from the subsystems and then gradually develops to the finished system. The same is true from flight control systems to aerial drones, from suspended gimbals to handheld gimbals. According to the existing lidar products, DJI is bound to introduce more system products and technology-related solutions in the future.

Because of the high-paying and high-pressure corporate culture, some people call DJI the "Little Huawei". In the automotive field, DJI may also become "another Huawei."

Conclusion

In the past, DJI created the consumer drone market on its own. The persistent pursuit of technology has allowed it to accumulate more than 5,000 patent information, thus having absolute technical barriers and the right to speak. Almost any company that wants to make drones must obtain a patent license from DJI.

But Wang Tao did not limit DJI to the field of drones. From its exploration in multiple fields, it can be seen that DJI hopes to become an artificial intelligence company.

Autonomous driving is an in-depth exploration in this field. If it succeeds, DJI's valuation is bound to take another step.