博士英语多维教程通达课文解释及课后答案！Unit 1 What Will BeBackground InformationLanguage PointsKey to Exercises1.We’ve now acknowledged some fundamental ancient human forces and the ways they will affect and be affected by the Information Marketplace. And throughout the course of this book we’ve answered the questions we raised at the very beginning. So it is time to finally consider the greatest transformation that the Information Marketplace ha to offer. To get to it, let’s reconstruct the growing crescendo of key discoveries we have made, which together describe “what will be.”2.We began with a simple but far-reaching model of the future world of information as an Information Marketplace, where people and their computers will buy, sell, and freely exchange information. Our first discovery was that this Information Marketplace can indeed be built on a technological foundation: the information infrastructure. We went on to explore the many human-machine interfaces people will use to get in and out of this new edifice, from virtual reality and fancy bodysuits to the lowly keyboard, and singled out speech interfaces as perhaps the most significant and imminent. We explored the pipes that will carry our information and the ways we will bend them to give us the speed, reliability, and security we need. We also saw how a vast array of new shared software tools will evolve on this infrastructure, shifting the attention of the entire software business from individual to interconnected computers. The arrival of this foundation is certain, but it could be delayed by a decade or more if the key players continue their wars for control and their indifference toward the shared infrastructure they all need. We saw too that there won’t be just a handful of winners that will survive t hese wars; the terrain is vast, rich, and full of challenges for almost every supplier and consumer of information to be a winner.3.Our second major discovery was that the Information Marketplace will dramaticallyaffect people and organizations on a wide scale. Besides its many uses in commerce, office work, and manufacturing it will also improve health care, provide new ways to shop, enable professional and social encounters across the globe and generally permeate the thousands of thins we do in the course of our daily lives. It will help us pursue old and new pleasures, and it will encourage new art forms, which may be criticized but will move art forward, as new tools have always done. It will also improve education and training first in specific and established ways and later through breakthroughs that are confidently awaited. Human organizations from tiny companies to entire national governments will benefit too, because so much of the work they do is information work.4.Putting all these detailed uses in perspective, we came to realize that they are different faces of two major new forces: electronic bulldozers and electronic proximity. Each has broad consequences for society. The electronic bulldozers’ effect is primarily economic, increasing human productivity in both our personal lives and the workplace. The rapid, widespread distribution of information in the form of info-nouns (text, photos, sounds, video) and especially info-verbs (human and machine work on information) is one simple way in which productivity will increase. Automatization is the other powerful effector; machine-to-machine exchanges will off-loaded human brain work the way machines of the Industrial Revolution off-loaded muscle work. We concluded, however, that to enjoy the productivity benefits we will have to avoid and correct certain technological and human pitfalls.5.To better understand the economic impact of the Information Marketplace, we explored the value of information and its consequences. This led us to a few troublesome discoveries: the huge amount of info-junk we’ll have to work hard to avoid and the gap between rich and poor nations (and people) that will increase if we do nothing to stop it. Other economic consequences were less clear, like the unemployment rate ov er the long run, which we can’t fore cast even though we can foresee many new types of jobs.6.Another important discovery from these explorations was the power of the Information Marketplace to customize information and information work to different huma n and organizational needs. To leverage this power, we’ll need to make our machines considerably easier to use that they are today. With increased productivityand customization, we can look forward to a larger array of better, cheaper. More customized products and services that will reach us even faster than before. More important, by making machines easier to use and giving ourselves the ability to fashion software painlessly and rapidly, we can fulfill the promise of the Information Age to tailor the new technologies to our individual human and organizational purposes, rather than the other way around.7.The second of the two major forces --- electronic proximity --- will increase bya thousand times the number of people we can easily reach and will bring people together across space and time. Many social consequences, good and bad, will arise as this new proximity distributes powers of control from central authorities to the many hands of the world’s people. Groupwork and telework will further help impro ve human productivity. Democracy will spread, as will people’s knowledge of one another’s beliefs, wishes, and problems. The voiceless millions of the world will come to be heard and be better understood, provided that the wealthy nations help the less wealthy ones enter the Information Club. Ethnic groups may become more cohesive, as people belonging to a certain tribe use the Information Marketplace to bind themselves together regardless of where they may be. At the same time. The Information Marketplace will help shared cultures grow in nations that thrive on diversity.And though we need not change our legal framework in any major way to accommodate the Information Marketplace, different nations will need to cooperate on shared conventions for security, billing, and other transnational issues that will surely arise as shared information crosses international barriers. On another level, electronic proximity will foster a shared universal culture, a thin veneer on top of all the world’s individual national cultures. We hope that this ecumenical property of the Information Marketplace to enhance the co-existence of nationalistic identity and international community will help us understand one another and stay peaceful.8.Our exploration then brought us squarely before human emotions and human relationships. We discovered that they will pass only partially through eh Information Marketplace. Physical proximity will still be necessary to consummate these emotions and recharge the batteries that will sustain human relationships between virtual encounters. Finally, we discovered that the primitive forces of the cave that lie at the roots of our emotions and passions do not pass through theInformation Marketplace; deep down, our psyches know that 1s and 0s cannot love, nurture, hurt, or kill us at a distance. Because many of our most valued actions and decisions involve these forces like trust, love, and fear --- the information world will not be a substitute for the physical world.9.Given all these possibilities for change, we considered what might happen when they bump up against the ancient human beings that we are and have been for thousands of years. Predictably, we discovered that we will have difficulty coping with the increased social and technological complexity and overload brought forth by the Information Marketplace. Though we will be potentially close to hundreds of millions of people, we will be able to deal with only a very few of them at any given time. Yet we saw that we might be able to reduce some of these complexity problems by making the artifacts of the Information Age easier to use --- a primary goal for the technologists of the twenty-first century.10.The Information Marketplace will make of us urban villagers --- half urban sophisticate, roaming the virtual globe, and half villager, spending more time at home and tending to family, friends, and the routines of the neighborhood. If our psyches tilt toward the crowded urban info-city, we will become more jaded, more oriented toward the self, and more indifferent, fickle, and casual in our relationships with others, as well as less tightly connected to our families and friends. If we tilt toward the village, we may be surprised by a resurgence of more closely knit families rooted in our tighter human bonds. Indeed, if we use it correctly, the Information Marketplace can be a powerful magniying lens that can amplify goodness --- employing disabled and home-bound workers, matching help needed with help offered via the Virtual Compassion Corps, and helping people learn and stay healthy, among many other possibilities.11.Reflecting on our exploration, we also discovered that people will exploit the newness, vagueness, and breadth of the Information Marketplace to support their wishes and predilections, whatever they may be. Some proclaim that the world of information can stand out only by offering educationally and culturally rich opportunities that will benefit humanity. Others will use the Information Marketplace as a new battle ground for the familiar disputes --- capitalism versus socialism, greed versus compassion. Materialism versus spiritualism, practicality versus abstraction --- all suitably described as ‘new’ issues. As in the case ofmoney, there is hardly and event, action, or process that is not linked to and affected by information, so such arguments can sound plausible. But they should not deceive us; the discerning eye w8ill distinguish that which is likely from that which is merely possible.12.The wise eye will also see that the Information Marketplace is much more influential than its parts --- the interfaces, middleware and pipes that make up the three-story building on which we stand. Once they are integrated, they present a much greater power --- the power to prevent an asthmatic from dying in a remote town in Alaska, to enable an unemployed bank loan officer to find and succeed at a new form of work, to allow a husband and wife to revel in the accomplishments of a distant daughter while also providing emotional and financial support. These powers are far greater than the ability to send an e-mail message, or to have give hundred TV channels.13.The Information Marketplace will transform our society over the next century as significantly as the two industrial revolutions, establishing itself solidly and rightfully as the Third Revolution in modern human history. It is big, exciting, and awesome. We need not fear it any more or any less than people feared the other revolutions, because it carries similar promises and pitfalls. What we needed to do, instead, is understand it, feel it, and embrace it so that we may use it to steer our future human course.14.We could stop here, after putting all these discoveries together, satisfied and impressed with our overarching vision of a third socioeconomic revolution. However, if we look even deeper at the bold and historic imperative that the Information Marketplace calls us to embrace, we will see all three revolutions as part of a far greater movement, well beyond combines, steam engines, and computer --- a movement toward a new age that may liberate the total human potential within each of us.15.On to our final discovery.Background InformationAbout the author and the bookFor two decades, technological oracle, entrepreneur, and consultant Michael policymakers and CEOs (i.e. chief executive officers) on the future course and impact of these technologies. In 1980 Dertouzos predicted today’s world of information with stunning accuracy. Now, in What Will Be he charts a unique and richly detailed map of the ways information technology will alter every facet of our public and private lives, from a few years to a century hence.Dertouzos heads the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science － home of the World Wide Web and birthplace of many of the high-tech products and processes that surround us today. In What Will Be, he offers the ultimate insider’s preview of the inventions that will usher in a Third Revolution to rival the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. And in deft and detailed analysis, Dertouzos reveals the changes we will experience in everyday life, in the pursuit of pleasure, health, learning, office work, commerce, manufacturing, and governance. Debunking the starry-eyed view of new technology promoted by many commentators － while taking the Luddites firmly to task －Dertouzos unveils a crisp picture of the new century’s global information marketplace and shows how it will affect one-half of the world’s industrial economies. He uncovers what’s wrong with technology, explains how we can right the wrongs, and identifies the key trade-offs tomorrow will bring. Dertouzos even highlights what aspects of our society and ourselves will never be altered by technology and offers an inspiring blueprint for how new tech could bridge the centuries-old gaps between reason and the spirit.Bill Gates wrote the foreword to the book. The book has three parts: I. Shaping the Future, which explains the new technologies so that readers can judge unfolding events for themselves; II. How Your Life Will Change, which imagines how and justifies why our lives will be recast; and III. Reuniting Technology and Humanity, which assesses the impact of these changes on our society and our humanity.some fundamental ancient human forcesDertouzos points out that no matter how powerful and pervasive a technological force may be, it will face some immutable human trait that will always act to conserve the constancy and stability of our species. We carry the features and mannerisms of our ancestors as well as our common reflexes and human patterns acquired through evolution. The fear, love, anger, greed, and sadness that we feel today are rootedin the caves that we inhabited thousand of years ago. It was in that ancient setting that the predator’s growl and the enemy’s attack defined primal fear. It was there, too, that our other primal feelings became reinforced － protecting our children, enjoying the pleasure of physical contact with our mate, relying on our fellow tribes people, and so on. These are the forces of the cave. In the new world of information, these fundamental human qualities haven’t left us.the information MarketplaceDertouzos thinks that there is great confusion in the world today about what the “Information Age” is , both physically and functionally. The model of an Information Marketplace is a clean way to envision both. In this Information Marketplace, people and machines buy, sell, and freely exchange information and information services.the questions we raised at the very beginningIn Chapter One of Part I Shaping the Future, the author lists a number of questions the book will tackle. They include: Will computers increase the industrial performance of the world’s nations, or is the help they offer irrelevant to that quest? Will our way of life improve through cheaper, faster, and higher-quality health care and a greater access to knowledge? Or is better information a minor player in these quests? What new software will flourish in the Information Marketplace? How close to the real world can we get wit goggles, tactile bodynets, virtual “feelies” and “ smellies”? Will ordinary citizens be better heard by their governments, or are electronic town halls impossible or achiev3e? What will happen to human relationships?the information infrastructureThe Information Marketplace is more extensive than a village market. It is closer to a bustling metropolis where many people, shops, offices, and organizations busily conduct millions of personal and commercial interactions in pursuit of their own goals. In a real city, these activities are supported by a shared foundation － an infrastructure of roads for the transportation of people and goods; of pipes and wires for moving water, electricity, and phone conversations; of door, locks, andpolice that maintain order; and of some agreed-upon conventions like a common language a nd accepted behaviors t5hat facilitate interactions among the city’s people.In exactly the same way, the Information Marketplace is built on a shared infrastructure made up of all the information tools and services that enable its many activities to function smoothly and productively. This infrastructure will be distributed and owned by all us, not a single organization. It will move the data, voice, text, and X-ray images in the severe-asthma scenario by negotiating automatically with phone, cable, satellite, and wireless carriers and with the kiosk and computers at the radiology lab and doctors’ offices. The infrastructure will support all the online interviews and reviews people will perform in their daily jobs. And it will help transact all the business from the World Shop.virtual realityIt’s a system that enables one or more users to move and react in a computer-simulated environment. Various types of devices allow uses to sense and manipulate virtual objects much as they would real objects. This natural style of interaction gives participants the feeling of being immersed in the simulated world. Virtual worlds are crated by mathematical models and computer programs.electronic bulldozers and electronic proximityAccording to Dertouzos, ultimately most of the hardware and communications technologies, human-machine interfaces, middleware, and information infrastructures will either serve as electronic bulldozers or create electronic proximity. The bulldozers will relieve us of the burden of human work, either by completely replacing information-related human activities or by augmenting our ability to carry out these activities with less human work － in short, by increasing our productivity.The second new force arising from the Information Marketplace is electronic proximity. During the Industrial Age people’s physical mobility expanded tremendously, widening a person’s universe of potential relationships from a few hundred village neighbors to hundreds of thousand of people within driving range.As a result, our proximity to people whom we could reach grew a thousandfold. Incredibly, the Information Marketplace will increase this range by yet another thousandfold, to hundreds of millions of people who will be within electronic reach, That is the essence of the gigantic new force we call kilometers but in keystrokes and other electronic gesture, the whole scene will resemble a billion people and machines all squeezed into one electronic city block.two industrial revolutionsThe first industrial revolution began in England when the steam engines was invented in the middle of the eighteenth century. The appearance of the internal combustion engine, electricity, synthetic chemicals, and the automobile by the end of the nineteenth century marked the second industrial revolution.Language Points1.crescendo : a sound or a piece of music that becomes gradually louder; a time when people are becoming more and more excited, anxious, or angrye.g. In the past ten days Zaire has published a mounting crescendo of attacks on Belgium.A crescendo of resentment was built up between the two companies because of series of conflicts in trade transactions.rise to/ reach a crescendo: become gradually loudere.g. It’s possible for the organist to reach a very quick crescendo by using all these stops.2.interface: [C] the part of a computer system through which two different machines are connected; the way in which two subjects, events etc. affect each othere.g. In a press conference, the Prime Minister proposed some new ways of involving young people with the interface between technology and design.They have just designed a new interface between a computer and a typesetting machine, which works extremely well.v.:[+with] connect; cooperatee.g. interface a device with a computerThe computer technicians interface with the flight controllers.3.single out: choose, select one person or thing from among several for special comment, treatment etc.e.g. I imagine that to be singled out by the Captain for a farewell luncheon is indeed an honor.Nana and Margaret were singled out for special praise for their outstanding performance during the experiment.4.imminent : about to happen, usu. Used in reference to things that are unpleasant or that you think will prove to be unpleasante.g. The report points out that there does not seem to be an imminent danger of amine on a world scale.With the election imminent, Churchill returned to London before the meeting was finished.5.We explored the pipes that will carry our information and the ways we will bend them to give us the speed, reliability, and security we need: We search for the pipes that can transfer our information and the way s we will manipulate and apply them to offer us the speed, reliability and security we need. Here the complete clause for “the ways we will bend them” is “ the ways in which we will bend them”. When the preposition “in” is combined with “way” to introduce an attributive clause, it is often omitted.bend v.: focus, apply; force to submite.g. He is very firm about it; I cannot bend him.Anyone who applies for this position in the company should bend his or her will to corporate goals.6.The arrival of this foundation is certain, but it could be delayed by a decade or more if the key players continue their wars for control and their indifference toward the shared infrastructure they all need.: Here the word “they” refers to “the key players”. According to the foregoing sentences, key players are “the computer, software, media, telecom, and cable companies”.indifference n.:[U] a complete lack of interest in sth. or someonee.g. Many native speakers of a language show indifference to /towards grammatical points.His attitude to his work is one of bored indifference.7.permeate vt.: penetrate wholly, pervade, soak throughe.g. Toxic chemicals may permeate the soil, threatening the environment.Changes in civilian life have not yet begun to permeate the army.putting all these detailed uses in perspective, we came to realize that﹍: judging the importance of all these detailed uses correctly, we began to find that﹍8.perspective n.: a specific point of view in understanding or judging things or events, esp. one that show them in their true relations to one anothere.g. He wants to leave the country in order to get a better perspective on things.From the top of the hill you can get a perspective of the entire lake.get/keep/put sth in perspective: judge the importance of sth correctlye.g. It will help to put in perspective the vast gulf that separates existing groups.First of all, we ought to get our temporary advantage into some kind of perspective.from the perspective of/from a﹍perspective: from a specific point of viewe.g. Feminists say that the book was written from a male perspective.The novel is written from the perspective of a primary school pupil.in/out of perspective: showing the correct/incorrect relationship between visible objectse.g. The houses don’t seem to be in perspective in your drawing.The drawing of the house is good, but the car is out of perspective.9.Another important discovery from these explorations was the power of the Information Marketplace to customize information and information work to different human and organizational needs.: One more key finding of these explorations was the power of the Information Marketplace to make information and information work more suited to human and organizational needs.customize v.: make or change sth according to the buyer’s or user’s needse.g. General Motors will customize Cadillas for special clients.The computer programs can be customized for individual users.10.To leverage this power, we’ll need t o make our machines considerably easier to use than they are today.: To make the best use of the power of the Information Marketplace for economic profits, we’ll need to redesign our machines till they are much more easier to use than now.11.fashion v. :shape or make sth, using your hands or only a few tools; influenceor form someone’s ideas and opinionse.g. He fashioned a box from a few old pieces of wood.The Japanese authorities want to fashion a new political role for the country.in a ﹍fashion: in a particular waye.g. The authorities appear to have abandoned any attempt to distribute food and water in an orderly fashion.Latha joined her hands together in an Indian fashion and gave a little bow.In/out of fashion: popular/not populare.g. This is a policy that is increasingly out of fashion.Capability and efficiency seem to be coming back into fashion.after the fashion of: (sth.)done in a way that is typical of someonee.g. Leibnitz was another child prodigy who, after the fashion of his kind, was writing Greek and Latin from an early age.12.tailor﹍to: adapt to; make, devise, in such a way that it fits particular needse.g. Our insurance policies are specially tailored to the earnings pattern of the insured at different stages in his career.Experience has taught us to tailor our merchandise to the particular requirements of each overseas market.tailor-made: make-to-measure; make-to-order; exactly suited to a particular need or a particular persone.g. The club is tailor-made for Jane.(The activities of the club fit in perfectlywith HJane’s interests.)John has a new tailor-made suit.(John’s new suit was made especially to fit him.)Mr. Black’s clothes were all tailor-made.(Mr. Black’s clothes were all specially made to his own measurements and wishes.)13.Many social consequences, good and bad, will arise as this new proximity distributes powers of control from central authorities to the many hands of the world’s people.: In this sentence, “good and bad” might be expanded into “b oth good ones and bad ones”.proximity n.: nearness in distance, time etc.e.g. No longer is it the case that national suppliers, because of their proximity, are favored over foreign ones.My newly bought house is in close proximity to the supermarket and the station.14.The voiceless millions of the world will come to be heard and be better understood, provided that the wealthy nations help the less wealthy ones enter the Information Club. “provided” can be replace by “if”.15.cohesive a.: tending to fit together well and form a united wholee.g. The poor do not see themselves as a cohesive group.The members of the group remained remarkably cohesive in the face of difficulty.16.thrive on: enjoy and do well as a result of, perhaps unexpectedlye.g. David throve on a pure meat diet for some time.This is the style of life on which he seems to thrive.17.accommodate v.: get used to a new situatione.g. The eye can accommodate itself to seeing objects at different distances.When you are employed in a new firm you should first of all accommodate yourself to the new circumstances.Or: give someone a place to stay, live, or worke.g. Once you have been accepted at the university they promise to accommodate you in a residence hall nearby.Or: have or provide enough space for a particular number of people or thingse.g. Several jails house twice as many prisoners as they were originally built to accommodate.18.property n.: [C] an attribute, characteristice.g. One of the most important properties of gold is its malleability.Besides having nitrogen-fixing properties, trees can be used as a source of fuel. Or: [U] the thing or things someone ownse.g. They have requested the confiscation of millions of dollar’s worth of property.19.Our exploration then brought us squarely before human emotions and human relationships: Our exploration then brought us face to face with such issues as human emotions and human relationships.20.Physical proximity will still be necessary to consummate these emotions and recharge the batteries that will sustain human relationships between virtual encounters.: People still need body contact or face-to-face communication to thoroughly express their emotions and also receive others’ to maintain the relationships when they exchange emotions on the Internet.。
