Раздел 6. Современные технологии (Modern Technologies)

Раздел 6. Современные технологии.

Текст 1. The Internet

The Internet, a global computer network which embraces millions of users all over the world, began in the United States in 1969 as a military experiment. It was designed to survive a nuclear war. Information sent over the Internet takes the shortest path available from one computer to another. Because of this, any two computers on the Internet will be able to stay in touch with each other as long as there is a single route between them. This technology is called packet swithing. Owing to this technology, if some computers on the network are knocked out (by a nuclear explosion, for example), information will just route around them. One such packet-swithing network which has already survived a war is the Iraqi computer network which was not knocked out during the Gulf War.

Most of the Internet host computers (more than 50 %) are in the United States, while the rest are located in more than 100 other countries. Although the number of host computers can be counted fairly accurately, nobody knows exactly how many people use the Internet, there are millions worldwide, and their number is growing by thousands each month.

The most popular Internet service is e-mail. Most of the people, who have access to the Internet, use the network only for sending and receiving e-mail messages. However, other popular services are available on the Internet: reading USENET News, using the World-Wide Web, telnet, FTP, and Gopher.

In many developing countries the Internet may provide businessmen with a reliable alternative to the expensive and unreliable telecommunications systems of these countries. Commercial users can communicate cheaply over the Internet with the rest of the world. When they send e-mail messages, they only have to pay for phone calls to their local service providers, not for calls across their countries or around the world. But who actually pays for sending e-mail messages over the Internet long distances, around the world? The answer is very simple: users pay their service provider a monthly or hourly fee. Part of this fee goes towards its costs to connect to a larger service provider, and part of the fee received by the larger provider goes to cover its cost of running a worldwide network of wires and wireless stations.

But saving money is only the first step. If people see than they can make money from the Internet, commercial use of this network will drastically increase. For example, some western architecture companies and garment centers already transmit their basic designs and concepts over the Internet into China, where they are reworked and refined by skilled – but inexpensive – Chinese computer-aided-design specialists.

However, some problems remain. The most important is security. When you send an e-mail message to somebody, this message can travel through many different networks and computers. The data is constantly being directed towards its destination by special computers called routers. However, because of this, it is possible to get into any of the computers along the route, intercept and even change the data being sent over the Internet. In spite of the fact that there are many good encoding programs available, nearly all the information being sent over the Internet is transmitted without any form of encoding, i.e. “in the clear”. But when it becomes necessary to send important information over the network, these encoding programs may be useful. Some American banks and companies even conduct transactions over the Internet. However, there are still both commercial and technical problems which will take time to be resolved.

Текст 2. Computers in the Modern World.

For centuries, people have been terrified that their programmed creations might outsmart them, overpower them or put them out of work. The fear has long been played out in fiction, from the medieval Jewish legend of the Golem, a clay automaton animated by an inscription of the name of God placed in his mouth, to HAL, the mutinous computer of “2001: a Space Odyssey”. But when the 1950s, it looked as though fiction was about to run into frightening fact. It is easy to imagine a computer calculating pi to a million decimal places or keeping track of a company’s payroll, but suddenly computers were also proving theorems in logic and playing respectable chess. In the years following there came computers that could beat anyone but a grand master, and programs that outperformed most experts at recommending treatments for bacterial infections and investing pension funds. With computers solving such brainy tasks, it seemed only a matter of time before a robot or a Terminator would be available from the mail-order catalogues; only the easy tasks remained to be programmed. According to legend, in the 1970s Marvin Minsky, one of the founders of AI, assigned “vision” to a graduate student as a summer project.

But household robots are still confined to science fiction. The main lesson of thirty-five years of AI research is that the hard problems are easy and easy problems are hard. The mental abilities of a four-year-old that we take for granted – recognizing a face, lifting a pencil, walking across a room, answering a question – in fact solve some of the hardest engineering problems ever conceived. Do not be fooled by the assembly-line robots in the automobile commercials; all they do is weld and spray-paint, tasks that do not require these clumsy Mr. Magoos to see or hold anything. And if you want to stump an artificial intelligence system, ask it questions like: Which is bigger, Chicago or a breadbox? Do zebras wear underwear? Is the floor likely to rise and bite you? If Susan goes to the store, does her head go with her? Most fears of automation are misplaced. As the new generation of intelligent devices appears, it will be the stock analysts and petrochemical engineers and parole board members who are in danger of being replaced by machines. The gardeners, receptionists and cooks are secure in their jobs for decades to come.

Understanding a sentence is one of these hard easy problems. To interact with computers we still have to learn their languages; they are not smart enough to learn ours. In fact, it is all too easy to give computers more credit at understanding that they deserve.

Грамматический материал

Употребление неопределённых числительных

Much, many, little, few, a lot, plenty

Much many few little

Much и little употребляются с неисчисляемыми существительными:

 much time much luck little energy little money

Many и few употребляются с исчисляемыми существительными:

 many friends many people few cars few countries

(b) A lot (of) lots (of) plenty (of)

A lot of / lots of / plenty of употребляются с неисчисляемыми существительными и существительными во множественном числе:

 a lot of milk lots of time plenty of money

a lot of students lots of shops plenty of ideas

 Plenty часто используется в значении 'более чем достаточно':

 - `Have some more coffee.' `No, thank you. I've had plenty.'

- There's no need to worry. We've got plenty of money.

с Much и many употребляются, в основном, в отрицательных предложениях и в вопросах:

 - We didn't waste much time.

- Have you written many poems?

 В утвердительных предложениях лучше употреблять a lot (of) вместо much :

- We wasted a lot of food. (а не `we wasted much food')

- There has been a lot of rain recently. (а не `much rain')

Однако too much и so much употребляются в утвердительных предложениях:

 - She won't drink this coffee. There's too much sugar in it.

- There was so much sugar in the coffee that she could't drink it.

(d) Little / a little few / a few

 Little и few (без артикля a) придают характеру действия негативный оттенок:

- Ask Tom to take a car. We've got little time. (= немного,

недостаточно времени)

- He's not friendly. He has few friends. (=немного, недостаточно

друзей)

 Запомните усилительные формы very little и very few :

 - We've got very little butter.

- He has very few clothes.

 only a little и only a few имеют отрицательное значение:

- Say that you'll call him later. We've only got a little time.

- The beach was empty. There were only a few swimmers.

 A little и a few показывают более позитивное отношение к небольшому количеству или числу:

- Let's go and see the town. We've got a little time before the train

leaves. (=немного времени, но достаточно чтобы

посмотреть город)

- `Have you got any salt?' `Yes, a little. Do you want me to give you

some?'(a little = not much but enough for you to borrow some)

- I enjoy my life here. I have a few friends and we meet quite often.

(a few friends = not many but enough to have a good time)

- `When did he phone you last?' `A few days ago.' (= some days ago)