标题: 考研英语历年真题来源报刊阅读(11) [打印本页] 作者: wuliumu 时间: 2010-12-5 02:05 标题: 考研英语历年真题来源报刊阅读(11) Doughnut adjust your set
HAVE you ever seen anything on television that made you shout or shake your fist in anger at the screen? Televisions are, of course, unable to respond to such reactions. But that could be about to change. Controlling your television and other homentertainment devices using voice commands or gestures is starting to become possible thanks to a new generation of controllers.
Consider, for example, the controller that went on sale last month with Nintendo’s Wii games console. In place of the usual (sometimes baffling) combination of buttons and joysticks, the Wii has a motionsensitive controller. The console can determine how the controller is moving in space and what it is pointing at, and uses that information to control what is happening on screen. Depending on the game, the controller becomes a warrior’s sword or a golf club.
For some games, the controller connects up via a cable to a second, smaller handset called the “Nunchuk” after the weapon favoured by Bruce Lee in his martialrts movies (two batons linked by a chain). It is then possible to use one controller for movement, and the other to fire weapons or use items. The number of buttons on both controllers has been reduced to a minimum, as Nintendo hopes to draw in new customers who find existing games consoles too complicated. But whether the Wii will introduce a generation of grandmothers to the joys of karate games remains to be seen.
This livingoom overload is likely to get worse as telecoms operators launch a new generation of televisionverroadband services, using a technology called IPTV. This will make possible thousands of channels, downloadable programmes and films, plus messaging, internet access and games. It will also involve the biggest and most complicated controllers ever seen. “The experience isn’t as good as it could be,” says Michael Cai of Parks Associates, a consultancy. So some companies believe a new approach is needed.
Other companies have looked at using speechased controllers in the living room. One firm, Promptu, developed a voiceontrol system for American cable operators and tested it in conjunction with Motorola, which makes setop boxes. But it has now decided to reposition the technology as a voiceased navigation system for mobile phones. A simpler approach is taken by the InVoca voicectivated remote control. It is a universal remote control that can recognise 50 separate commands spoken by up to four separate users, from “lower volume” to “Cartoon Network”.
A recent entry to the field is Apple Computer, a firm renowned for designing elegant, easyose products. In 2007 it will launch a new device, called the iTV, that acts as a bridge between a television and a computer. It has a deliberately simple remote control that, like Apple’s iconic iPod musiclayer, involves just one button and one wheel. Steve Jobs, the company’s boss, boasts that it is “very Apple”. Might his company be the one to solve the remoteontrol confusion?
respond［ris5pCnd］
v.①回答，答复；②（to）响应
［真题例句］ An important factor in a marketriented economy is the mechanism by which consumer demands can be expressed and responded (②) to by producers.［1994年阅读1］
［真题例句］ Americans no longer expect public figures, whether in speech or in writing, to command (v.③) the English language with skill and gift.Nor do they aspire to such command(n.①) themselves.［2005年阅读4］
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［真题例句］ Given all these disadvantages, central bankers seem to have had much to boast (v.) about of late.［1997年阅读5］
［例句精译］ 尽管有这么多不利因素，中央银行家们似乎对近来的形势有了不少值得夸耀的东西。
navigation［7nAvi5geiFEn］
n.①航海，航空；②导航，领航
remote［ri5mEut］
a.①远的，长久的；②偏远的，偏僻的；③关系疏远的
［真题例句］ Rodriguez notes that children in remote (②) villages around the world are fans of superstars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Garth Brooks, yet “some Americans fear that immigrant living within the United States remain somehow immune to the nation assimilative power.” ［2006年阅读1］