UNIT 4. IMAGINING TOMORROW'S COMPUTERS TODAY

Vocabulary

(to) anticipate – ожидать, приближать

attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – синдром дефицита внимания и гиперактивности (СДВГ)

computational power – вычислительная мощность

on demand – по требованию, по запросу

downside to – недостаток, потери

(to) forecast the interaction – предсказывать

hyperpersonalization – гиперперсонализация

literally – буквально, дословно

(to) look ahead – смотреть вперёд, предвидеть

(to) make some predictions – прогнозировать, предсказывать

(to) overcome challenges – преодолевать трудности

principal engineer – ведущий инженер

rapid development of technology – быстрое, бурное развитие технологий

roughly – грубо, в общих чертах

science fiction – научная фантастика

screen time – продолжительность сеанса, экранное время

social science – обществознание, социология

(to) take shape – принять форму, очертания

tightly – туго, плотно, сильно

DUBLIN— Brian David Johnson is always looking ahead. As a principal engineer and futurist at the world's largest chip manufacturer, Intel, he forecasts the interaction between humans and computers, using insights from a variety of scientific fields, to help the company's engineers and product developers. He says he is currently focused on the year 2020.

Q: What does your work as a futurist look like?

B.D.J.: The day job is to help design the chips 10 years out. I create models that will help find out how people will interact with computers, and these are based on social science, computer science, statistical data, and even some science fiction. I am a principal engineer. I go to the designers and say: “This is what the chip will have to contain and will need to do.”

Q: You study the interaction between humans and computers. What do you foresee in the next 10, 15 years?

B.D.J.: Looking at the past, technology has been about command and control. In the future, it will be about relationships. Our technologies will get to know us and we will become more tightly connected. That has an impact on what we do productivity-wise, but even more it connects us to the things and people we love. Siri, the personal assistant built into your iPhone, is an early example of that. You literally talk with your phone and it can talk back to you.

Q: In what way does the development of chips play a role in this?

B.D.J.: As we move closer to 2020, the size of computational chips is becoming so small that it is approaching zero. This means we could literally turn anything into a computer. Your tea glass, the table, you name it. There is a switch coming, where we do not have to ask: “Can we turn that into a computer? ” but we know we can and we wonder: Is there a use to do it? That is what we have the social scientists for. We do not study markets, we study people.

Q: Have the technical challenges to do that been overcome?

B.D.J.: They will be. Siri is far from perfect. Currently if you have a different accent than people like me who live around Silicon Valley, it will not work well. With more computational power, things will improve, but there is a lot more to be done.

Q: There are downsides to the rapid development of technology. People are said to develop attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), due to the information and interaction overload. Do you study that as well?

B.D.J.: Yes, we do. That project is called The Future of Fear. The thing is: «These communication technologies are very new. We do not have rules and norms on how to handle them. Those norms will take shape in the coming years. I already talked to people telling me they have set maximum screen time».

Q: Can you make some predictions about how our relationship with computers will evolve further?

B.D.J.: No, I do not predict! The number one reason: Anyone who does predictions is underestimating the complexity of developments. Anyone who does is probably trying to sell you something. It is my job to look ahead and anticipate—we roughly think that this is going to be it. I do not want to be right, I want to get it right, work towards it.

Q: Have you ever been wrong in these 10 years?

B.D.J.: Well, we had to correct things. We had forecasted television on demand as well, but what we found is that people wanted the internet on their television. We went back to the social scientists and learned that what they wanted was personalization. Your internet is very different from my internet, it totally fits my demands. You can call it hyperpersonalization…

Answer the questions according to the text:

1. What does Brian David Johnson do? What does his job look like?

2. What does he foresee in the next 10, 15 years in the interaction between humans and computers?

3. What is your forecast?

Exercises:

1) Write the plural of these words.

1. business 6. switch

2. software 7. woman

3. technology 8. child

4. analysis 9. formula

5. tax 10. query

2) Choose the correct answers.

1. The language used for data transfer on the Internet Is called
a) HTTP b) TCP/IP c) ADSL

2. Which device is used to connect a computer to the telephone network?
a) modem b) USB connector c) hub

3. If you want to connect multiple computers to the Internet without using cables, you need a
a) wired router b) modem c) wireless router

4. Which technology lets you have real-time conversations online, by typing messages?
a) VoIP b) Telnet c) Instant Messaging

5. What is a collection of web pages called?
a) the Internet b) a website c) a homepage

6. This technique encodes data so that unauthorized users cannot read the information.
a) decryption b) encryption c) firewall

7. The fraudulent attempt to steal passwords and personal data, usually via email, is known as
a) phishing b) piracy c) IP spoofing.

3) Complete these texts with the passive form of the verbs in brackets. Be sure to use the correct tense.

Sound and music

The Phonograph (1) _______________________ (invent) by Thomas Edison in 1877, who discovered how to record music and voice on a metal cylinder of tin foil. Ten years later, Emile Berlinger invented a method of reproducing sound on rotating discs with a spiral groove - the first gramophone records.

Magnetic tapes (2)_______________________ (manufacture) by German audio engineers at AEG and Bash in the 1930s, and the first compact disc (3)___________________ (design) by Philips and Sony in 1980.Three years later, CDs reached the market in Asia and the US. In the near future, CDs (4) ___________________(probably replace) by new technologies such DVD- Audio, FID-DVD and Blu-ray discs. The most recent development in digital recording has been the MP3 format, which has generated the market for portable MP3 players and iPods. Today, more than 50% of all music (5) _________________ (buy) online and many music tracks (6) ___________________ (download) illegally.

4) Complete these texts with the passive form of the verbs in brackets.

The computer The first computers built using silicon chips went on sale in 1965. Microsoft (11) _________________________ (found) by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 to sell a version of the BASIC language for the Altair computer. The first IBM-PC (12) ________________________________ (sell) in 1981, becoming a standard for personal computers. Every year, more and more people get on the Internet. Today, the Web (13) __________________________ (can access) from PDAs, mobile phones - indeed, from anywhere at any time. In the future, artificial intelligence and voice recognition (14) ______________________ (incorporate) into most computer applications.

5) Complete these sentences with the jobs from the box.

webmaster blog administrator help desk technician network administrator computer security specialist hardware engineer

1. A computer ________________________ is responsible for designing and developing the electronic and mechanical parts of computers.

2. A ____________________________ has access to the blog settings and has the ability to edit and remove posts made by other members.

3. A ____________________________ manages a LAN within an organization.

4. A ____________________________ regulates access to computer data and prevents unauthorized modification or destruction of information.

5. A ____________________________ provides phone or email support on technical issues, including operation of equipment, setup problems, troubleshooting, etc.

6. A ____________________________ must be proficient in HTML, XML and JavaScript.

References:

http: //news.sciencemag.org/technology/2012/07/imagining-tomorrows-computers-today

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