21世纪,英语已经走进了我们每个人的生活,学好英语成了我们共同的目标,为了帮助大学生更好地掌握英语,特提供以下文章:
Engineers are working on software to load every photo you take, every letter you write — in fact your every memory and experience— into a surrogate brain that never forgets anything, New Scientist can reveal. It is part of a curious venture dubbed the MyLifeBits project, in which engineers at Microsoft’s Media Presence lab in San Francisco are aiming to build multimedia databases that chronicle people’s life events and make them searchable. “Imagine being able to run a googly-like search on your life,”says Gordon Bell, one of the developers.
《新科学家》揭示:工程师正在研制一种软件,它可加载你的每张相片和你写的每封信—事实上,你的每一段回忆和履历都被放进一个永远不会健忘任何事务的代办代庖年夜脑里。它是一个被称作“我的糊口片段”怪异创业项目的一部门, 在这个项目中,旧金山的微软媒体尝试室的工程师正致力于成立多媒体数据库用来记实人们糊口事务而且便于人们查找。“想像你能够瞪视核办你曾履历的糊口,” 开发商之一Gordon Bell说。
The motivation? Microsoft argues that our memories often deceive us: experiences get exaggerated, we muddle the timing of events and simply forget stuff. Much better, says the firm, to junk such unreliable interpretations and instead build a faithful memory on that most reliable of entities, the PC.
研制该软件的念头是什么? 微软公司指出:我们的记忆时常棍骗我们,我们不单夸年夜履历,还搞错事务发生的时刻,而且完全健忘具体细节。公司说:有了这种软件良多若干好多了,人们可以扔失踪这类不成靠的诠释,改成在最靠得住的实体—小我计较机上成立起忠厚的记忆。
Bell and his colleagues developed MyLifeBits as a surrogate brain to solve what they call the “giant shoebox problem”.“In a giant shoebox full of photos, it’s hard to find what you are looking for,”says Microsoft’s Jim Gemmell. Add to this the reels of home movies, videotapes, bundles of letters and documents we file away, and remembering what we have, let alone finding it, becomes a major headache.
Bell和他的同事研制了“我的糊口片段”软件系统,把它作为代办代庖年夜脑,用来解决他们称作“复杂的鞋盒似的问题”.“在复杂的装满相片的鞋盒中,很难发现你想找的工具,”微软的Jim Gemmell 说。加上我们一盘盘的家庭片子、录像带的胶片以及成捆的信件和文件,我们在寻找工具时费劲地回忆我们拥有的工具,不说能够找到它,寻找工具的整个过程简直酿成了不小的一个麻烦。
Logging life 记实糊口
By the time he speaks at December's Association for Computing Machinery Multimedia conference in Juan Les Pins, France, Bell says he will have logged everything he possibly can onto his MyLifeBits database.
到十二月Bell在法国Juan Les Pins召开计较机多媒体味议上讲话时, 他说他将尽可能把每件事记其实我的糊口片段数据库上。
Apart from official documents like his passport, he will post everything from letters and photos to home videos and work documents. All his email is automatically saved on the system, as is anything he reads or buys online. He has also started recording phone conversations and meetings to store as audio files. The privacy and corporate security risks are clear.
除了像他的护照这样官方文件之外, 他将会把年夜信和照片抵家庭录像带及工作文件都记其实数据库上。他所有的电子邮件是自动存在系统里的, 一如他在线所读过或所买过的工具也自动保留一样。他还起头以音频文件记实电话谈话和会议实况。显然,这样做轻易吐露隐私和公司平安。
Of course the system takes up a huge amount of memory. But Bell's group calculates that within five years, a 1000-gigabyte hard drive will cost less than $300 - and that is enough to store four hours of video every day for a year.
当然,系统占有了极年夜的储存空间。 可是Bell的小组计较出:在闻氖之内, 一个 1000 个十亿字节的硬盘将会破耗不到300美元---而且一年内那足够天天储存四个小时的图像。
Each media file saved in MyLifeBits can be tagged with a written or spoken commentary and linked to other files. Spoken annotations are also converted into text, so the speech is searchable, too.
每个保留在我的糊口片段中的媒体文件城市被贴上标签或配上一段语音而且和其他文件毗连。语音注解也被转换成文本,是以这种演讲也是可查寻的。
To recall a period in his past, Bell just types in the dates he is interested in. MyLifeBits then calls up a timeline of phone and email conversations, things he has read and any images he recorded. The system can also be used to build narratives involving other people, events or places. Searching for the name of a friend would bring together a chronological set of files describing when you both did things together, for instance.
要回忆曩昔的某一个糊口时代,Bell仅仅键入一些他感乐趣的日期。然后我的糊口片段软件就回忆起打电话、发邮件谈话、读过的文章以及录像的画面的时刻表。系统还可以被用来记实搜罗其他人、事务或处所的情形。例如,搜索伴侣的名字会带出一个按年月排的一套文件,这些文件描述你和伴侣曾经一路做过的工作。
Meet the ancestors与祖先接见会面
Although MyLifeBits is essentially a large database, it could gradually become a repository for many of our experiences. Now that many mobile devices contain photomessaging cameras, you could save everyday events onto the system. “Users will eventually be able to keep every document they read, every picture they view, all the audio they hear and a good portion of what they see,”says Gemmell.
尽管,“我的糊口片段”软件根基上就是一个复杂的数据库,可是,它可能逐步会酿成为我们良多糊口履历的储存库,既然移动产物有了摄像机,你可以把天天发生的事务储存在该软件系统中。“用户将最终能够把读过的每一份文件,看过的每一张图片,听过的所有音频旌旗灯号以及看过的某一段华章锦句保留下来”。 Gemmell说道。
Bell believes that for some people, especially those with memory problems, MyLifeBits will become a surrogate memory that is able to recall past experiences in a way not possible with the familiar but disparate records like photo albums and scrapbooks. “You'll begin to rely on it more and more,”he believes.
Bell认为对一些人,出格是记忆有问题的人来说,“我的糊口片段”软件将成为庖代的记忆,它能够回忆曩昔的糊口履历,而该软件的记忆功能是照片簿和剪贴簿这些我们熟悉但零星的记载体例所无法对比的。“你会起头越来越依靠它,”他认为。
A really accurate, searchable store of events could also help us preserve our experiences more vividly for posterity. Doug de Groot, who works on computer-generated beings called avatars and other types of digital “life” at Leiden University in the Netherlands, says Bell’s system could eventually form the basis for “meet the ancestor” style educational tools, where people will quiz their ancestors on what happened in their lifetimes.
一种真正切确的,日后又便于查找的事务储存还可觉得我们的子孙儿女更光鲜活跃地保留我们的糊口履历。Doug de Groot,在荷兰来顿年夜学年夜事计较机发生人的研究,该项研究被称作“人的化身和其他数字化‘糊口’”,他说Bell的系统可以最后为 “与祖先接见会面”教育性工具成立基本,人们可以用它考绩他们祖先的生平曾经发生过什么。
A system like MyLifeBits was first suggested in 1945, when presidential technology adviser Vannevar Bush hatched the then farsighted idea of an infinite personal archive based on the emerging digital computer. His ideas also inspired the Internet archive website.
我的糊口片段软件系统是在1945岁首度被提出, 届时负责的手艺参谋Vannevar Bush筹谋了这个在那时具有远见的主意--用数字电脑建树无限私人档案。他的主意也启发了英特网文档网站。