考研阅读材料2.doc

考研时文阅读（3） Digital books start a new chapter导读：第一代电子书并没有取得预期的成功，然而随着技术的进步，新一代电子书产品逐渐浮出水面。继苹果公司取得巨大成功，令便携电子产品风行一时后，索尼公司利用“数字墨水”技术推出新款图书阅览器，将目光瞄准电子书市场。其它电子阅读器生产商也不甘落后，纷纷推出带有各自特色的产品。本文向读者介绍了电子阅读器产品的最新动态，以及出版商、作家和消费者对这种新生事物的态度。可以想象，电子书时代已经离我们不远了。（选自 Business Week, 2006） Richard D. Warren, a 58-year-old lawyer in California, is halfway through Ken Folletts novel Jackdaws. But he doesnt bother carrying around the book itself. Instead, he has a digital version of Follett he reads on his Palm Treo each morning as he communtes by train to San Francisco from his home in Berkeley. Hes a big fan of such digital books. Usually, there are around seven titles on his Treo, and he buys at least two new ones each month. “It is just so versatile , ” he says. “Ive tried to convert some friends to this, but they think its kind of geeky.” Geeky? For now, maybe, but not for much longer. Many experts are convinced that digital books, after plenty of false starts, are finally ready for takeoff. “Every other forms of media has gone digital-music, newspapers, movies, ”says Joni Evans, a top literary agent who just left the Willian Morris Agency to start her won company that will focus on books and technology. “Were the only industry that hasnt lived up to the pace of technology. A revolution is around the corner.” What developments have won over people like Evans? Portable devices are becoming lighter and more appealing. Books are being scanned into digital form by the thousands. The most important step forward may be in “digital ink,” the technology used for displaying letters on a screen. A small company called E Ink has created a method for arranging tiny black and white capsules into words and images with an electronic charge. Because no power is used unless the reader changes the page, devices with the technology could go as long as 20 books between battery charges. The text also looks just as sharp as ink on a printed page, since each capsule is the size and pigment of a grain of laser-jet toner. Sony is the first major player to take advantage of the technology. This spring, it will debut the Sony Reader, which uses E Ink and closely mimics the size, weight, and feel of a book. The Reader will sell for about $ 400. Sony also will offer roughly 10,000 book titles for download from its online store, along with news stories and blog items. Other pklayers sniff opportunity, too. At least two more companies are introducing digital readers this year. And scorces of companies, from Google to Random House Inc., are angling for other ways to profit from digital books. Chalk it up to the influence of Apple Computer Inc. With its Ipod, Apple has demonstrated that millions of people are willing to carry around digital devices with their favorite content. After music, why not novels and nonfiction? “The iPod led the way in getting people comfortable with a similar device for books,” says Jack Romanos, CEO of Simon & Schuster Inc. “These things are not only inevitable, but a good idea. ” 加利福尼亚州58岁的律师Richard D. Warren 已经把Ken Follett的小说寒鸦读了一半，但他不必将书天天带到身边。事实上，每天早晨在他乘火车从伯克利的家里赶往旧金山上班的途中，他可以用自己的Palm Treo阅读该小说的电子版。沃伦对电子书非常痴迷。他的Treo里通常存有大约7本书，每个月他至少会买两本新书。他说：“它的用途很多，我曾劝说一些朋友改看电子书，但他们觉得有点前卫。” 前卫？也许吧，但只是现在，用不了多久这种情况就会改变。许多专家确信，在经历了多次不成功的尝试后，电子书终于可以大展身手了。琼斯埃文斯是一位资深的作者对外事物代理人，她刚刚离开威廉莫里斯经纪公司。她说：“所有其它内型的媒体-音乐、报纸、电影-都走向了数字化。我们是唯一未能赶上科技步伐的产业。变革指日可待。” 电子书有什么新进展，能够吸引像埃文斯这样的人？便携设备变得更轻便、更时尚。成千上万册图书正在被扫描成数字格式。“数字墨水”或许是最重大的技术突破，它能将文字显示于屏幕上。一家名叫E Ink的小公司发明了一种方法，用电荷排列黑白粒子形成文字图案。由于只有当用户翻页时才会耗电，所以采用该技术的装置能让读者连续看20本书而不需要充电。显示文本酷似白纸黑字，因为这种微粒的大小和色质与激光打印机的墨粉颗粒一模一样。 第一个采用这种技术的大厂家是索尼。今年春天，索尼将首次推出采用E Ink技术的“索尼阅读器”，在大小、重量和手感方面都酷似真书。阅读器的售价约为400美元。除了新闻报道和博客文章外，索尼还将在网上书店提供大约1万本电子书供用户下载。 其它厂家也闻风而动。今年至少还有两家公司将推出自己的电子阅读器。包括Google和蓝登书屋在内的几十家公司都在争取通过其它途径从电子书中获利。苹果电脑公司的影响也是促成电子书兴起的一大原因。苹果公司用iPod 证明，随身携带存有个人喜爱内容的电子产品正被千百万人所接受。除了听音乐，为什么不可以用它来阅读小说和写实类文学作品呢？西蒙古舒斯特出版公司首席执行官杰克罗曼诺斯说“iPod开时尚之先河，使人们（对供阅读图书用的类似电子产品）乐在其中。这不仅仅是大势所趋，而且别具创意。”考研时文阅读（4）续上篇电子阅读 No book company has come close to Apples magic touch. But the technology, availability of content, and consumer behavior may be aligned for a breakthrough this year. “The puzzle pieces are on the table, ” says aTimothy OReilly, founder of the tech publisher OReilly Media. “Youve got the ctitical mass of content, and youve got attractive hardware. What we dont have yet is an attractive business model that connects them all together.”Sony is clearly attempting to pulloff this feat. Its combinations of devices and online store is reminiscent of Apples approach. The Reader is impressive: a slim, sturdy package that weighs nine ounces and comes bound in heavy faux leather. But its unlikely just yet to become the kind of cult hit Apple has on its hands. The Readers controls can be clumsy to use. Plus, new books for the device will cost about the same as books from megastores like Borders, and readers will have to search the Web on their own to get classics that have gone off copyright for free. The other makers of digital readers are treading cautiously. Jinke, a Chinese company, plans to sell into the education field in China and other markets. But it declined to comment in detail on its plans. Irex Technologies, a spin-off from Royal Philips Electronics, says it will make a device available for sale by April. CEO Willem Endhoven says the company will begin by selling to companies, such as newspapers or textbook publishers, rather than directly to consumers. There are sure to be other companies that introduce readers in the months and years ahead. Plastics Logic Inc., a British startup, is working on a flexible display the size of an 8 1/2-in.-by-11-in. piece of paper that can receive books, news, or e-mail wirelessly. Its partnering with Japans NTT DoCoMo and plans to have a product on the market by early 2008.Theres even speculation that Apple could come out with its own device, an iPod designed for books. The secretive company hasnt said anything publicly and declined to comment for this article. Just as digital readers are hitting the market, the number of books on the Net is swelling to Library of Congress proportions. Google, through an initiative it began a year ago, is scanning millions of books from five of the worlds largest libraries and plans to make the contents searchable online. The effort has drawn the ire of publishers and authors, since its digitizing some books still under copyright. Publishers sued last fall for copyright infringement and the case is pending. (One of the plaintiffs in the case is The McGraw-Hill Companies, the parent of Business Week. ) New Literary Models Yet Google is helping ignite the digital market. In November, following the lawsuit, Random House announced plans to digitize 25,000 titles. It will sell access to them to consumers, charging a per page rate for everything from novels to recipes out of a cookbook. In December, HarperCollins Publishers Inc. said it would build a digital warehouse of its entire holdings-another 25,000 titles or so-which it may later sell over the Net. A is moving aggressive into digital books, too. It sells digital versions of most of its titles, available for download instantly. In August, it launched Amazon Shorts, a collection of stories, novellas, and essays that can be downloaded for 49 cents a piece. Later this year it plans to offer shoppers who purchase traditional books the chance to buy a version they can read on the Web, too. That way they could keep Stephen Kings Cell: A Novel on their nightstand and read a chapter from any computer with Net access. “We think consumers increasingly are ready for it, ” says Steve Kessel, vice-president for worldwide digital media. Authors are intrigued by the opportunities to go digital. George Saunders, a short story author and professor of English at Syracuse University, says hed like a way to get his work out to readers more quickly. After the scandal broke over James Freys falsehoods in his hit book A Million Little Pieces, Saunders penned a humorous essay stemming from the events. It was a confession to Oprah Winfrey that all of the fiction hed written had, in fact, been true. But Saunders had a ahrd time getting the piece published quickly, and now it feels dated. “There might be a different model for a literary community thats quicker, more real-time, and involves more spontaneity, ” he says. If digital books finally do take-off, they could change not only how we read, but what we read, too. 没有一家图书公司能像苹果电脑公司那样点石成金。但是如果把技术、可供使用的内容和消费者行为等因素整合在一起，今天电子书或许能实现突破。技术出版商奥莱理媒体公司的创始人提姆奥莱理说：“拼图的各个部件都在桌上。你不但有制作电子书所必须的大量内容资源，还有极具吸引力的硬件。我们还缺乏的是一个将它们整合起来的成功商业模式。” 显然，索尼正试图完成这一业绩。把设备和网上结合起来颇似苹果公司的手法。“索尼阅读器”外观令人印象深刻：一个薄而坚固的盒子，重9盎司，外包厚实的人造革。但它可能不会像苹果公司的iPod那样成为风靡一时的时尚产品。“索尼阅读器”的控制键用起来可能不太灵活。此外，用于这种阅读器的新书售价几乎和鲍德斯之类的大型图书零售店里出售的图书一样。用户必须自行上网搜索并下载已经过了版权保护期的免费经典著作。 其它电子阅读器的制造商则在谨慎行事。中国公司津科打算向教育界和其它市场推出它的电子阅读器，但公司解决透露计划的详细内容。从皇家飞利浦电子有限公司分拆出来的公司Irex Technologies声称，今年4月其新款电子阅读器将上市销售。公司首席执行官威廉恩霍芬称，他们一开始时会向报纸或教科书出版商之类的企业进行销售，而不是直接面向消费者。 毋庸置疑，在今后几个月和几年内还会有其它公司推出电子阅读器。英国新兴的Plastic Logic 公司正在开发一种长11英寸、宽8.5 英寸的一张纸大小的柔性电子显示屏，可以无线接受电子书、新闻或电子邮件。它正在和日本NTT DoCoMo公司合作，计划在2008年初将产品推向市场。有人甚至猜测，苹果公司会推出自己的电子阅读器-一种为电子书设计的iPod。但苹果公司守口如瓶，未在公开场合透露任何信息，也拒绝对此发表评论。在电子阅读器蜂拥进入市场的同时，网上提供的电子书也迅速增加，甚至达到国会图书馆的藏书规模。Google于一年前发起一项计划，对五家世界最大的图书馆的数百万册藏书进行扫描，使其内容能在网上搜索到。这项计划激怒了图书出版商和作者，因为一些被数字化的图书仍然有版权保护。去年秋天，图书出版商起诉Google 侵犯版权，这起官司仍然悬而未决（该案的起诉方之一是商业周刊的母公司麦格罗希尔国际出版公司）。 新的文学模式？ 尽管如此，Google对推动电子书市场的发展功不可没。紧随着这起官司，蓝登书屋于去年11月宣布其计划推出2.5万本图书的数字版。公司将按页计费，向消费者出售这些电子书，种类从小说到菜谱无所不有。去年12月，哈珀柯林斯图书出版公司宣布，将把公司出版的所有书籍-大约也有2.5万本左右-建成电子书库，之后可能在网上加以出售。 亚马孙网站也在雄心勃勃地进军电子书市场。网站上的大多数图书都有电子版可供销售，并能够及时下载。去年8月，亚马孙还推出了汇集有短篇故事、小说和散文的“亚马孙短篇集锦”，读者可以以每本49美分的价格下载。今年晚些时候，它打算向购买传统图书的顾客同时提供购买可供网上阅读的版本的机会。这样，他们就能把斯蒂芬金的手机留在床头柜上，同时还能在任何联网的电脑上阅读其中的某一章节。负责世界数字媒体的副总裁史蒂夫凯赛尔说：“我们认为消费者越来越乐于接受电子书了。” 作家们对有机会出电子版图书也很感兴趣。短篇小说作家，希拉丘斯大学英语教授乔治桑德斯说，他愿意通过某种方式让读者更快地接触到他的作品。当詹姆斯费雷在其畅销书岁月如沙中造假的丑闻曝光后，桑德斯据此写了一篇幽默散文，在文中弗雷向奥普拉温弗利坦白道，事实上他写的所有小说都却有此事。但桑德斯当时很难迅速发表这篇文章，而现在它已经有点过时了。他说，“对文学界来说，或许有一种不同的模式能够使图书出版变得更快、更同步和拥有更多自发性。”假如电子书最终真能流行起来，它们改变的不仅是我们的阅读方式，还有我们的阅读内容。考研时文阅读（5）注：近几年环境保护类的文章也是考试的重点，希望大家好好阅读这篇时文。 Protecting Earths Last Frontier 保护地球的最后边疆 In 1962, John Glenn relayed this message to mission control when his pioneering flight on the Friendship 7 spacecraft passed across Western Australia at night: “The lights show up very well. Thank everyone for turning them on, will you?” If he looked down from space today he might no longer see just the lights of our cities but the many lights of fishing boats. These lights can be so dense that they visibly can be so dense that they visibly outline the outer part of the South American continental shelf and entire seas in Asia. These lights are from fishers using light to lure squis. This intense activity symbolizes the broader plight of our oceans. The imposing footprint of humanity has advanced from our shores and into the high seas, the ocean waters beyond national jurisdiction. This footprint damages and depletes almost everything in its path. With the depletion of the cod fishery and so many other coastal fish stocks worldwide, the fishing industry has turned to the high seas to exploit their resources. Fishing operations are targeting the seamounts, oceanic ridges and pateaus of the deep ocean beyond natioanl jurisdiction, where ownership and responsibility dont lie with any nation. In the course of a decade or more, we have caused significant damage to largely unknown ecosystems, depleted species and probably doomed many others to extinction. Every day, commercial fishing fleets dispatched primarily from just 11 nations venture onto the high seas to fish the deep ocean with seabed trawls. They deploy massive gear with names like “canyon” buster that indicate the sheer scales involved and the damage they inflict. Everything along their path, from ancient corals and sponges to 250-year-old fish, is stripped away and caught in their nets. In a single trawl, lumps of sponges, corals, and other species, together weighing as much as 10,000 pounds, can be removed. What is left is truly a stark, sterile, undersea desert. The high seas are very special. It is here where you can find dense groupings of animals that derive their energy from sources other than the sun around volcanic vents on the deep sea floor. It is only here where you can find areas still free from introduced species, as in the seas around Antarctica. And it is here where you can find living organisms that are more than 8,000 years old, like many of the massive deep-sea corals. But what really sets the high seas apart from all other areas we know is the overwhelming lack of protection for any of this natural heritage. A United Nations meeting this week finally put the high seas on the map and on the agenda. Governmental officials from around the world gathered together with scientists, representatives from the fishing sector, conservation groups and other stakeholders to discuss conversation and sustainable use of amrine biological diversity in the high seas, covering 64 percent of the earths surface. They need to move quickly. Given the fragility of these environments, we simply do not have the luxury of time, but we can act before it is too late. As we continue to build our understanding of the oceans and life within, we must establish marine protected areas that extend beyond just the areas we know today to be valuable or threatened. We must place biodiversity conservation at the center of ocean governance, build the precautionary approach into the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and ensure that every activity in these areas beyond national jurisdiction-be it fishing, mining, transportation, tourism or research-is conducted in a sustainable manner that is fair to present and future generations. We must recognize that all of the geographical, geological and biological parts of the oceans are interrelated, interdependent and equal one tremendously significant ecosystem whole. Right now, we have this opportunity to prevent the extinction of countless species and ecosystems that are only just being discovered, let alone understood. Now is the time to protect our last undiscovered wilderness, the worlds final frontier-the high seas. 保护地球的最后边疆 1962年，当约翰格伦首次驾驶“友谊7号”太空船于晚上穿越澳大利亚西部时，他向任务控制中心传达了这样一条信息：“灯光看得很清楚。请感谢每一位打开电灯的人，好吗？ ” 如果现在他从太空往下看，看到的也许不再只是我们城市的万家灯火。还会看到渔船的点点灯光。渔船的灯光非常密集，可以清清楚楚地勾勒出南美大陆架的外部轮廓以及整个亚洲海域的轮廓。 这些灯光是渔民用来引诱鱿鱼的。如此强度的捕鱼活动意味着我们的海洋所面临的困境日益加深。人类强行留下的痕迹已由海岸推进到不属于任何国家管辖的公海。这些足迹所到之处破坏并耗尽了几乎一切资源。 随着全世界鳕鱼和其它众多沿海鱼类资源逐渐枯竭，捕鱼业已转向公海开发鱼类资源。捕鱼作业现在瞄准的是不受任何国家管辖的深海的海山，海脊和高原，因为这些地方的所有权和责任不属于任何国家。 在十年多的时间里，我们已对大量未知的生态系统造成了重大的破坏，使许多物种枯竭，还可能使许多物种遭受灭绝的厄运。每天，主要由个国家派出的商业捕鱼船进入公海，用海底拖网进行深海捕捞。 他们所调用的庞大设备所取的名字都是诸如“峡谷战神”之类，由此可见其作业规模及造成的破坏之大。所经之处，从古珊瑚，海绵到岁的鱼，被洗劫一空，尽入其网。一张拖网就能网起成堆的海绵，珊瑚及其它物种，总重量可达万磅。拖网过后留下的只是一片荒凉，贫瘠的海底沙漠。 公海是个特别之处。在这儿，你能发现密集的动物群，它们所摄取的能量不是来自深海底部的火山口周围的阳光。只有在这儿，你才能发现还有像南极洲周围的海域那样的尚没有引进物种的海域。也只有在这儿，你才能发现存活了多年的生物，例如许多巨大的深海珊瑚。 但是公海与其它所有我们知道的海域真正不同之处在于，对这一自然遗产的保护非常缺乏。本周的一次联合国会议终于突出了公海问题的重要性并将其排上议事日程。全世界的政府官员和科学家，捕鱼业的代表，自然资源保护组织及其它利益相关者会聚一堂，讨论对覆盖地球表面的公海海洋生物多样物种进行保护和可持续性开发利用的问题。 他们需要赶快行动。鉴于这些生物环境的脆弱性，我们真的耽搁不起，但我们还能亡羊补牢。随着我们对海洋和海洋生物越来越了解，我们必须建立海洋保护区，起范围要超出我们今天所知的有价值的或会受到威胁的那些区域。 我们必须把保护生物多样性放在海洋管理的中心地位，把建立防范措施写进联合国海洋法公约，确保在这些不属于任何国家管辖的区域内的每项活动无论是捕鱼，采矿，运输，旅游，还是科学研究都本着公平对待我们这代人和子孙后代的原则，以可持续发展的方式展开。 我们必须意识到，海洋在地理，地质和生物方面都是相互关联，相互依存的，共同构成了一个极其重要的完整的生态系统。 现在，我们有这个机会防止刚被发现，更不用说了解的无数物种和生态系统。当前正是保护我们最后一块尚未发现的未开发之地，世界的边疆公海的时候了。考研时文阅读(6) 注:这是一篇音乐与孩子智力关系研究方面的文章,希望大家认真阅读. 选自杂志. The phrase “Mozart Effect” conjures an image of a pregnant woman who, putting headphones conspicuously over her belly, is convinced that playing classical music to her unborn child will improve the kids intelligence. But is there science to back up this idea, which has brought about a cottage industry of books, CDs and videos? A short paper published in Nature in 1993 unwittingly introduced the supposed Mozart effect to the masses. Psychologist Frances Rauschers study involved 36 college kids who listened to either 10 minutes of a Mozart sonata, a relaxation track or silence before performing several spatial reasoning tasks. In one test-determining what a paper folded several times over and then cut might look like when unfolded-students who listened to Mozart seemed to show significant improvement in their performance (by about eight to nine spatial IQ points). In addition to a flood of commercial products in the wake of the finding, in 1998 then-Georgia governor Zell Miller mandated that mothers of newborns in the state be given classical music CDs. And in Florida, day care centers were required to broadcast symphonies through their sound systems. Earlier this year, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany published a second review study from a cross-disciplinary team of musically inclined scientists who declared the phenomenon nonexistent. “I would simply say that there is no compelling evidence that children who listen to classical music are going to have any improvement in cognitive abilities,” adds Rauscher, now an associate professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. “Its really a myth, in my humble opinion.” Rather than passively listening to music, Rauscher advocates putting an instrument into the hands of a youngster to raise intelligence. She cites a 1997 University of California, Los Angels, study that found that, among 25,000 students, those who had spent time involved in a musical pursuit tested higher on SATs and reading proficiency exams than those with no instruction in music. Despite its rejection by the scienti