Vocabulary
2. Match these words and phrases to their definitions.
a. sensitive data unofficial, without official permission or agreement
b. personal details fishing, usually as a hobby
c. angling suspicious, possibly criminal
d. dubious when the meaning of something is not clear
e. unauthorised information that is private, important and valuable
f. ambiguity information about someone, such as their address
Listening section 1
Listen about a new word in English and answer these questions:
a. How do you spell the new word?
b. What is the problem with this new word?
c. Is this a good or bad thing to do?
d. Is there anything in common between FISHING and PHISHING?
e.What is phishing?
Listening section 2
Are the following sentences true or false? Correct the false sentences:
a. There are very few words that describe suspicious Internet activity.
b. There are words identifying different types of activities in the Internet which have dubious meanings.
c. ‘Hack’ is now used when you solve a problem in a very unusual way.
d. It is unlikely that ‘phishing’ will become a widely used word.
Summarize the information you have heard about phishing.
Unit 15. Girls`games
(http://images.yandex.ru)
Exercise 1
Each of the sentences below summarises one of the paragraphs from the text. Can you put them in the correct order?
1. Criticisms of the way women are portrayed in computer games.
2. Attempts by manufacturers to encourage more women to buy computer games.
3. Ways in which women are influencing change in the production of computer games.
4. Common criticisms of computer games.
5. The possible outcomes of a more feminine approach to game design.
Exercise 2
True or false:
1. Computer games cause the lack of interest in reading.
2. Manufacturers are interested in increasing the number of female game players.
3. Male roles are often secondary and they support the main female characters.
4. The sites are obviously looking for games that move to the very male dominated and violent nature.
5. Women and young girls will become more enthusiastic about technology if there are more positive male characters in the games.
6. In the female games there are not any witches, goblins and knights.
Exercise 3
Fill in the gaps in the summary:
Computer games have been criticised over a whole range of issues. Some people say they are … . Others say that they make children …, … and are bad for their eyes. Now, however, it seems that computer games have also become a feminist issue.
Game manufacturers have been looking to increase the number of … game players. The vast majority of computer games still sell to a mainly … market. Perhaps this is because the violent nature of many of the games appeals more to males or perhaps because many of the main characters in the games are male. Manufacturers' attempts to produce more female characters and so increase their … of the female gaming market have met with serious criticism from many women's groups.
Whilst heroines are seen as providing positive role models of strong women, many believe that the character's unrealistic Barbie like proportions are setting standards in the minds of young women. Perhaps a stronger criticism is that although many games now include female characters, their role is often … and they support the male action characters within the games. Of course the nature of many of the games remains violent and … and this in itself could well continue to put off female gamers.
There are now, however, a number of web sites springing up on the World Wide Web to help women … this issue. Sites such as Game Girlz, Women Gamers and Game Gal offer …, articles, discussion forums and even employment opportunities for women interested in becoming part of the rapidly … games industry. The games are reviewed by women from a very female perspective. The sites are obviously looking for games that move away from the very male dominated and violent nature of the majority of computer games. Many of them review games that are more constructive and …l. Although the themes of knights, witches and goblins still exist within these games, the … are often very different. Instead of destroying opposing armies the aim of the game can be … with them.
Unit 16. Viral marketing
(http://images.yandex.ru)
Before listening
Explain the meaning of the sentence:
The word of mouth turns to word of mouse…
Study the new words and match them with the definitions:
a buzzword non-demanded
to benefit from lawful, regular
huge to give smth not requiring anything in return
to launch a follower, a consumer
a subscriber well-minded
to give smth away for free make a start on smth new
sound (practice) easy
revenue expansion
effortless strong wish
a spread a catchword, a vogue word
to meet the demand buying
desire to enter
to tap (into the wider network ) income
to deliver to correspond with the needs
a purchase to supply
to be legitimate to put to good use
unsolicited big, enormous
Listening section 1
1. Listen to section 1 and check if your explanation of the sentence «THE WORD OF MOUTH TURNS TO WORD OF MOUSE» coincides with the explanation given.
2. Answer the questions:
a) What is viral marketing?
b) What is extraordinary about viral marketing?
c) What was the first viral marketing campaign?
Listening section 2
1. Listen and put these elements in order they were used in the text:
a) to be able to scale the campaign from small to large very rapidly
b) to take advantage of others' resources
c) to identify and exploit common motivations and behaviours
d) to give away some form of free product or service
e) to provide for the effortless spread of your message
f) to encourage people to spread the word among their existing networks
2. Listen again and match these elements with their explanations:
1. to give away some form of free product or service
2. to provide for the effortless spread of your message
3. to be able to scale the campaign from small to large very rapidly
4. to identify and exploit common motivations and behaviours
5. to encourage people to spread the word among their existing networks
6. to take advantage of others' resources
a) get your private, free email
b) position messages on other peoples programs and put links on other people's websites
c) this way you attract customers and once you have them using your product you have the opportunity to sell them other desirable things
d) be able to build on common motivations and people`s desires
e) you should meet rapidly growing demand for your product or service
f) often have a wide network of associates and casual or work contacts
Listening section 3
1. What are some down sides of viral marketing?
2. What is the future of viral marketing?
Unit 17. SCRIPTS
Expressions with numbers
Some problems are difficult to solve. But there are a lot of number expressions that can help. For example, if we put two and two together, we might come up with the right answer. We know that two heads are better than one. It is always better to work with another person to solve a problem.
Sometimes there are no two ways about it. Some problems have only one solution. You cannot be of two minds over this.
But with any luck, we could solve the problem in two shakes of a lamb's tail. We could have our answers quickly and easily.
Sometimes we can kill two birds with one stone. That is, we can complete two goals with only one effort or action. But we must remember that two wrongs don't make a right. If someone does something bad to you, you should not do the same to him.
If you are going out with your girlfriend, or boyfriend, you do not want another friend to go along on your date. You can just say to your friend: two's company, three's a crowd.
When I was a young child in school, I had to learn the three R's. These important skills are reading, writing and arithmetic. These three words do not all start with the letter "R." But they have the sound of "R." My teachers used to give three cheers when I did well in math. They gave praise and approval for a job well done.
Some of my friends were confused and did not understand their schoolwork. They were at sixes and sevens. In fact, they did not care if they finished high school. They saw little difference between the two choices. Six of one, half a dozen the other – that was their position. But they were really happy when they completed their studies and graduated from high school. They were in seventh heaven. They were on cloud nine.
Nine times out of ten, students who do well in school find good jobs. Some work in an office doing the same things every day at nine-to-five jobs. You do not have to dress to the nines, or wear your best clothes, for this kind of work.
Last year, one of my friends applied for a better job at her office. I did not think she would get it. I thought she had a hundred to one shot at the job. Other people at her office thought her chances were a million to one.? One reason was that she had been caught catching forty winks at the office. She slept at her desk for short periods during the day. But her supervisor appointed her to the new job at the eleventh hour -- at the very last minute. I guess her lucky number came up.
(http://learnenglish.voa.news.com)
Computer Terms
Computer technology has become a major part of people's lives. This technology has its own special words. One example is the word mouse. A computer mouse is not a small animal that lives in buildings and open fields. It is a small device that you move around on a flat surface in front of a computer. The mouse moves the pointer, or cursor, on the computer screen.
Computer expert Douglas Engelbart developed the idea for the mouse in the early nineteen-sixties. The first computer mouse was a carved block of wood with two metal wheels. It was called a mouse because it had a tail at one end. The tail was the wire that connected it to the computer.
Using a computer takes some training. People who are experts are sometimes called hackers. A hacker is usually a person who writes software programs in a special computer language. But the word hacker is also used to describe a person who tries to steal information from computer systems.
Another well known computer word is Google, spelled g-o-o-g-l-e. It is the name of a popular "search engine" for the Internet. People use the search engine to find information about almost any subject on the Internet. The people who started the company named it Google because in mathematics, googol, spelled g-o-o-g-o-l, is an extremely large number. It is the number one followed by one-hundred zeros.
When you "Google" a subject, you can get a large amount of information about it. Some people like to Google their friends or themselves to see how many times their name appears on the Internet.
If you Google someone, you might find that person's name on a blog. A blog is the shortened name for a Web log. A blog is a personal Web page. It may contain stories, comments, pictures and links to other Web sites. Some people add information to their blogs every day. People who have blogs are called bloggers.
Blogs are not the same as spam. Spam is unwanted sales messages sent to your electronic mailbox. The name is based on a funny joke many years ago on a British television show, "Monty Python's Flying Circus." Some friends are at an eating place that only serves a processed meat product from the United States called SPAM. Every time the friends try to speak, another group of people starts singing the word SPAM very loudly. This interferes with the friends' discussion – just as unwanted sales messages interfere with communication over the Internet.
(http://learnenglish.voa.news.com)
Microsoft Competes Against Apple With New Tablet
Microsoft has announced its first tablet computer. It is called the Surface, and it is designed to compete directly with the popular Apple iPad.
The computer software maker announced its new tablet last Monday at a media event in Los Angeles. Microsoft will offer two versions of the Surface. Each has a different processor. The Surface for Windows RT runs on an ARM processor. It is less powerful than the Surface for Windows 8 Pro, which uses an Intel processor.
The RT is also thinner and weighs less than the Pro. Either tablet weighs no more than nine hundred three grams. Both have screens that are about twenty-seven centimeters in size. That is a little bigger than the iPad’s screen.
Microsoft has not said exactly when the new Surface will appear in stores. But, it is expected to be sometime in September or October. This is about the same time that the company plans to release its new Windows 8 computer operating system.
Brenda Estrella owns a laptop computer. She has been considering switching to a tablet.
BRENDA ESTRELLA: "iPad for me is more of an entertainment device, like I see a lot of people carrying it around or taking pictures on it. For me, it's not that practical, so if Microsoft is coming out with a tablet that actually you can like type, and actually do different things other than just swipe, then that would be better for me."
Fox Van Allen is a technology expert. He agrees the Surface seems to have more to offer than the iPad.
FOX VAN ALLEN: "It's a very interesting new device. I think the key point here is that it's not just another iPad. It's a device that almost serves as a replacement for a PC."
Many technology lovers, including Catherine Clinch, are excited about the new tablet.
CATHERINE CLINCH: "The applause moments were on things that I think were predictable -- wow it stands by itself, you don't have buy a stand. It’s all together, the keyboard folds over, it’s a cover -- all those wonderful things. But when I look at this what I think of is the potential to get rid of the netbook, to get rid of the laptop, to maybe even down the line get rid of the full computer."
The Surface is meant to compete with the iPad. But not everyone is sure it is a better product. This includes iPad user John Ayala.
JOHN AYALA: “Would I buy one over an iPad? No. I like Apple products right now. I am glad there is a competitor and I am glad there is an alternative, but I am sticking with Apple.”
For years, Microsoft made software, not computers. A few earlier attempts by the company to make and sell hardware products failed. That included the Zune music player. It could not compete against Apple’s iPod.
Estimates place the value of the tablet computer market at about seventy-nine billion dollars this year. Microsoft hopes to capture a share of that market with its latest device.
And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report, written by June Simms. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our reports are at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
(http://learnenglish.voa.news.com)
Digital divide
Kate: I’m Kate Colin and welcome to this week's edition of 6 Minute English and today I'm joined today by Dima. Hello there. Well, I'd like to start today's programme by asking you about your online habits…..so would you say you're a heavy internet user Dima?
Dima: Dima answers
Kate: Since the 1980s we have been living through what has become known as the digital revolution. Can you explain what this term 'digital revolution' means?
Dima: Of course, well the digital revolution refers to the major changes brought about by computing and communication technology during the second half of the 20th century and which is still going on today. In fact, nowadays a fast internet connection is seen as an essential service because now most people rely on the Internet in so many areas in their lives. Our Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has even said that having access to the Web is as necessary as water, gas and electricity!
Kate: However, while many of us are going online regularly to shop, keep in touch with friends, apply for jobs (or log on to the BBC Learning English site!) there are also many people who either can't or don't want to get themselves online, which is leading to a digital divide.
Dima: Yes, a digital divide is what we call the gap between people with access to digital technology and those with very limited or no access. This could be either because of technical or financial reasons or simply because people are not interested in getting themselves online. Whatever the reason, it is beginning to cause problems as more and more public services rely on their customers having the Internet.
Kate: But now to my question for today…are you ready?
How many people over the age of 15 in Britain today do you think are estimated to not use the internet?
Is it:
a) 7 million
b) 17 million
c) 30 million
Dima: Answers
Kate: Okay, we’ll check your answers in a few minutes. But first of all, we're going to hear from Ellen Helsper, a researcher with the Oxford Internet Institute where she is monitoring British computer use. So let's listen to the first extract. How have non-users' attitudes to the internet changed since 2003?
Extract 1
Non users now are becoming less and less likely to want to be engaging with technology such as the Internet - so I think for example in 2003 about 40% of people who weren't using
the internet said they would probably use it soon in the next year. Well, now that's gone down
to about 20%.
Dima: Interesting – so she said that in 2003 about 40% of people who weren't using the Internet probably would in the next year but now only about 20% say the same thing.
Kate: That's quite a dramatic result which really shows there are people out there who are not interested at all in what the Internet has to offer. Let's have a listen to find out some of the reasons these people give.
Extract 2
We are seeing a rise in the importance of reasons such as that people are just not interested in
the internet. It's not as much anymore as I can't get access, it's too expensive – we're really
seeing a rise in these kinds of attitudes and people saying it's just not relevant to my life , I
don't see how I would fit it in.
Dima: She said there is a rise in the number of people who are saying the Internet is simply not relevant to their lives. The reasons they used to give were that it is too expensive or they can't get access, but now they say it more because they've got other things they'd rather spend their time doing. They can't 'fit it in' which means they don't have time for it.
Kate: Fair enough – nothing wrong with a book or spending your time doing activities which don't involve a computer….but the government is worried about the number of people who feel like this. They are so concerned that they have hired someone called Martha Lane Fox to try to encourage people to get online. In the following extract you'll hear the expression 'digging
your heels in'. Can you explain what this means please?
Dima: Digging your heels in is an expression which means to strongly resist something despite having a lot of pressure.
Kate: OK – so let's have a listen….why does she think it is so important for people to get online?
Extract 3
I believe the web enables you to have more freedom about how you run your life and I think
the people often the people who are digging their heels in saying there's nothing in it for me
have not had the opportunity to see what might be for them on the Web.
Dima: She said that people who are stubbornly refusing to use the web and who say it doesn't interest them do not know what they are missing.
Kate: But why does it matter so much?
Extract 4
I think it matters because I don't think you can be a proper citizen in our society in the future
if you're not engaged online. And I'm not talking about engaging with public services but having access to the same information and choice as other people.
Dima: So she said you can't be a proper citizen – that you don’t get the same public services or access to the same information as other people who do go online.
Kate: So finally to the question I asked earlier…I asked you how many people over the age of 15 in Britain are estimated to not use the internet? The answer is in fact 17 million people who are currently do not have regular access to the web. A lot!
Both: That's all we've got time for today. Until next time. Goodbye!
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/wordservice/learnenglish/general/sixminute)
E-wars
Dima: Hi, welcome to this edition of 6 Minute English with me, Dima Kostenko
Rebecca: and me, Rebecca Byrne, hello. And today our topic is – virtual conflict, or ewars.
Dima: E-wars? I don’t think I’ve heard that one before – presumably it’s one of the
many words with the prefix ‘e-‘ that have been mushrooming in recent years.
Rebecca: that’s right
Dima: Rebecca, perhaps you could do me a favour and begin by explaining what that
prefix means and where it comes from.
Rebecca: explains (started with e-mail, short for electronic, or virtual mail; later began
to mean anything that goes on online, in the cyberspace, giving rise to a great
number of new nouns like e-books, e-tickets, e-commerce, even e-government)
Dima: OK, it’s true that in this series we regularly discuss all things digital, but why
e-wars?
Rebecca: Well it’s because recently some senior officials in the field of telecommunications have been giving a rather grim warning - that the next world war could take place online. One of them is the head of the International Telecommunication Union Dr Hamadoun Touré. He says cyber-attacks could potentially be as damaging as natural disasters - and that our increasing
reliance on e-communications makes even the most developed countries vulnerable to an attack by online criminals. We’ll hear from Dr Touré in a moment but first, it’s this week’s question for you Dima. In the next extract Dr Touré mentions four e-words: e-commerce, e-government and two others. The question is: which one of the following three do you think he does NOT
mention? Is it
a) e-education;
b) e-health or
c) e-transportation?
Dima: Guesswork
Rebecca: We’ll check your guess in a minute, once we’ve listened to Dr Touré. Don’t forget to listen out for the four e-words, and also for the following language: ‘a tsunami’, which is a huge destructive wave that is usually produced as a result of an earthquake; and ‘dependent on cyberspace’, meaning completely relying on being connected to the online network’.
Dima: That’s ‘a tsunami’, ‘dependent on cyberspace’ and four words with the prefix
‘e-‘. Ready? Here’s Dr Touré:
Clip 1 0'17"
It's worse than a tsunami - look how dependent we are on the cyberspace today. If we are cut
off from the network today, there are some patients that will die in the hospital. We will not
have education without e-education, health without e-health, commerce without e-commerce
and government without e-government.
Dima: Well he does talk about e-education, e-commerce, e-government and even ehealth
(whatever that means!) But there’s no mention of e-transportation…
Which means that my earlier guess was right/wrong…
Rebecca: congratulations/better luck next time
Dima: Well, never mind e-transportation. You’d better tell me what we do about it – how do we protect ourselves from online attacks, or e-wars?
Rebecca: Well Dr Touré says there are a number of various safeguards already in place.
Dima: ‘Safeguards’ – in other words, security measures, or restrictions aimed at protecting someone from harm.
Rebecca: That’s right. For example, it's already possible to track individual users through
internet addresses, including those suspected of committing online crimes.
Dima: That’s good to know, but I would think it’s not always an easy task to determine straight away if someone's involved in cybercrime or not... My question is, isn’t there a danger then that these restrictions – these safeguards – could sometimes be applied mistakenly?
Rebecca: Well Dr Touré specifically warns that any measures to protect against cybercrime must not lead to a curtailing of legitimate internet use. As you listen to him, look out for these word combinations: ‘invading their privacy’…
Dima: …meaning watching and/or recording what people do in their own space and time;
Rebecca: ‘denying them that basic human right’…
Dima: …that’s not giving people the opportunity to enjoy what they are entitled to;
Rebecca: and – ‘access to information’…
Dima: … meaning the means, or the possibility to find things out. Let’s listen:
Clip 2 0'13"
We have to be sure that protecting people in cyberspace does not mean invading their privacy,
does not mean denying them that basic human right of access to information.
Rebecca: That was the head of the International Telecommunication Union Dr
Hamadoun Touré.
Dima: And you can find out more about this story – and about words with the prefix ‘e-‘ – simply by following the links from our website, bbclearningenglish.com.
But before we go, here’s another chance to go through some of today’s key vocabulary.
Rebecca: We talked about the expression ‘dependent on cyberspace’, meaning relying a
lot on being connected to the internet. We said that a cyber-attack could potentially be worse than ‘a tsunami’, a huge destructive wave that is usually produced as a result of an earthquake. Then there was the word ‘a safeguard’, meaning a security measure, sometimes of a restrictive nature. We also had these word combinations: ‘invading their privacy’, meaning watching and/or
recording what people do in their own space and time; ‘denying them that basic human right’, which is another way of saying ‘not giving people the opportunity to enjoy what they are entitled to’; and – ‘access to information’, meaning the means, or the possibility to find things out. And of course we discussed some of the words that are formed by adding the prefix ‘e-‘, meaning
electronic, or virtual, to an existing noun.
Dima: I'm afraid that's all we have time for today. Until next week.
Both: Goodbye!
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/wordservice/learnenglish/general/sixminute)
eBooks
Kate: Hello and welcome to this week's 6 Minute English. Joining me again today is Rebecca. Hi Rebecca. In today's programme we're talking about books and reading. Are you a keen reader Rebecca?
Rebecca: Answers…
Kate: We often hold an emotional attachment to books, keeping them for years, lending them to friends or giving them as presents. But that all may be about to change….as in the last few years some major companies have made available millions of books online which can also be downloaded on to electronic readers. Can you explain what electronic readers are?
Rebecca: Certainly, an electronic reader is a small hand held computer capable of storing hundreds of books in electronic form and displaying the pages as clearly as in a real book. An electronic book or eBook!
Kate: I'm sorry but I just don't like the sound of that. I love books and the way they feel. I like going into bookshops and buying a whole collection of brand new books. What do you think – would you prefer to start reading your books on screen?
Rebecca: Well – I can see how it would be handy and it would be great to stop having to carry those huge volumes around with me, not to mention freeing up some space in my home. But having said that, I already spend too much time looking at a computer screen as it is, so perhaps just for the sake of my eyes it wouldn't be such a good thing.
Kate: And now to my question for this week. An old book which looks as though it has been read by many people can sometimes be referred to in one of the following ways:
a) cat-tailed
b) dog-eared
c) mouse-nosed
Rebecca: answers
Kate: Thanks – we'll find out the correct answer at the end of the programme. We're going to hear from two people to hear what they think of the eBooks. Before we listen, could you explain what the word luddite means?
Rebecca: A luddite is someone who is averse or unwilling to adapt to changes in technology. Someone who refuses to learn how to use a computer or mobile phone, for example.
Kate: And concept adjustment?
Rebecca: This expression means to change the way we think about something, especially if we feel very strongly that something should be a certain way.
Kate: Thanks – so let's listen to the first extract. How does the speaker, John Sutherland feel about e-readers?
Extract 1
Everyone has got a luddite inside and everyone thinks 'I don't need mechanics….I can read, I
can handle libraries, I'm in control of the information sources I have. The point is that we all
need a big concept adjustment – it's going to happen in 2 or 3 years time'.
Rebecca: He said everyone has a luddite inside that doesn't want anything to change but that we had to accept it was going to happen in as little as 2 or 3 years! I suppose he's likely to be right. At the moment most people are likely to say they don’t like the idea of reading a book on a computer, but then we all said the same about newspapers and music didn't we …?
Kate: Yes, but the idea still makes me feel quite sad to think of all those wonderful old books being replaced by a modern computer. Are we really going to start speaking about the books we read today as antiquarian? This is a word which means special and old.
Rebecca: Well, some people are even beginning to speak of books as being sacred. This means to be considered holy and deserving of very special respect because of a connection with God. What does the 2nd speaker, Peter Florence think of this…?
Extract 2
I don’t think the book is sacred. I think the story's sacred the writing's sacred and the means
in which you get it can be any you like. What will happen as electronic media presents stories
more availably, is that the old antiqurian stuff will become more valuable.
Rebecca: Interesting – he doesn't think the book itself is sacred or special. He thinks that the story itself is the important thing. He thinks that as more and more of us begin to use the electronic media, that the antiquarian or old fashioned books will become more valuable.
Kate: Valuable! That's good to hear – at least some of our old books will have some use. But yes, he does have a point. What is it we actually value? Is it the story and narrative or the book itself? It brings up some interesting issues of what it is we really like about books. I still can't imagine everyone reading books on computers though….. do you think we'll be sitting here in 3 or 4 years time finding it completely normal?
Rebecca: answers
Kate: So now to the question I asked you earlier. Which expression describes an old, well read book?
Rebecca: answers
Kate: The expression is 'dog-eared'.
Rebecca: This means when the pages are all bent and many people have read it.
Kate: Thanks – and now let's quickly run over the rest of the vocabulary we heard in today's programme:
Rebecca: We had electronic readers, eBook, luddite, concept adjustment, sacred and antiquarian. And don't forget dog-eared of course.
Kate: Thanks Rebecca – that's all we've got time for today. Until next time (while you're still able to get your hands on a real book)…. happy reading
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/wordservice/learnenglish/general/sixminute)
WIRED
Listening Section 1
To be wired. Well, if you're talking about electricity that's not surprising I suppose, wires
join electrical things. But people being wired? If I say to you "are you wired?" or you say
to me, "yes, you're wired'? It's another one of those descriptive words that came in in the
1990s, based on technology. It really was referring to the I.T. world, the world where
computers connect to the internet, and because your computer was now wired in through a
cable into a telephone line, people were said to be 'wired' meaning you are connected to
the internet.
Listening section 2
And so after a while it developed a figurative use. People would say, you know, "are you
wired?" and what they would mean is, are you ready to handle this, can you talk to me in a
reasonably efficient way? Or if say "Jane is wired" it means "oh, Jane can cope with
anything, she's able to handle all the things that I might throw at her, and her at me".
Actually, all this is history now: in the last year or so, "wired" has been replaced very
largely by "wireless" as the coolest term to use around, because "wireless fidelity
technology", or "wi-fi" as it's called, w-i hyphen f-i, "wi-fi technology" is now in. Wireless
is replacing wired. Now I say, "are you wireless?" meaning 'are you ready for me?' I
expect that'll be said in the near future. It hasn't happened yet, but it will!
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/wordservice/learnenglish/language/uptodate)
The History of the Internet
The Internet was originally developed by DARPA - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - as a means to share information on defense research between involved universities and defense research facilities.
Originally it was just email and FTP sites as well as the Usenet, where scientists could question and answer each other. It was originally called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency NETwork). The concept was developed starting in 1964, and the first messages passed were between UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute in 1969. Leonard Kleinrock of MIT had published the first paper on packet switching theory in 1961. Since networking computers was new to begin with, standards were being developed on the fly. Once the concept was proven, the organizations involved started to lay out some ground rules for standardization.
One of the most important was the communications protocol, TCP/IP, developed by Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn in 1974. Robert Metcalfe is credited with Ethernet, which is the basic communication standard in networked computers.
Tim Berners-Lee, who perhaps specified technological applicability and/or linguistic construction of HTML while working at CERN, is chiefly credited for the ease of use and wide public adoption of the web. His website is: w3.org.
Al Gore really did have a substantial part in the US legal framework and governmental issues related to the Internet; he never said he invented it.
There wasn't just ONE person who invented the Internet. The Internet is just a way to view files and information that someone puts onto a server. The Internet is just a way to access the information.
Leonard Kleinrock was the first person to write a paper on the idea of packet switching (which is essential for the Internet to work. He wrote this idea in 1961.
Others who were essential to what we now call the Internet. (Without these guys, the Internet wouldn't exist):
Larry G. Roberts created the first functioning long-distance computer networks in 1965 and designed the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), the seed from which the modern Internet grew, in 1966.
Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf invented the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) which moves data on the modern Internet, in 1972 and 1973. If any two people "invented the Internet," it was Kahn and Cerf - but they have publicily stated that "no one person or group of people" invented the Internet.
Radia Perlman invented the spanning tree algorithm in the 1980s. Her spanning tree algorithm allows efficient bridging between separate networks. Without a good bridging solution, large-scale networks like the Internet would be impractical.
(http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki)
WI-FI
Listening section 1
Wi-fi. W-I-F-I. Sometimes written with a hyphen, sometimes not. Wireless fidelity. Technically, it’s astandard ensuring that equipment works on a wireless network. It’s on analogy with ‘hi-fi’, for high fidelity, that used to be common for recording some years ago. It’s an interesting usage because it shows the return of a word that everybody thought had gone completely out of date – ‘wireless’. I mean, ‘wireless’ was around when wireless was invented, but it was quickly replaced by ‘radio’. And everybody talks about ‘radio broadcasting’ not ‘wireless broadcasting’ and then, suddenly it came back in again with this internet connection. It’s used now for all sorts of applications. TV remotes can be talked about as wireless, if you control your garage door, it’s a wireless control, mobile phones are sometimes referred to as wireless, and GPS, you know, satellite things in your car - wireless.
Listening section 2
Has a lot of associated terminology, of course, wi-fi is just one word of many that has come into usage in the last few years, talking about the way in which we cope with the internet. ‘Hot spot’ is another one, for instance, that’s a location which offers a wireless connection to the internet - you sometimes see people outside houses with their laptops, where there’s a hot spot, there is a connection to the internet from nearby. Incidentally, the opposite of ‘wireless’ is ‘wired’ – that is, using wires to carry the signal, as in, say, cable television, and that’s led also to an extended use – ‘wired’. ‘He’s wired’ – that means he’s alert, he’s capable, he’s ready. And people who are ‘wired up’ are like that too! I’m wired up at the moment.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/wordservice/learnenglish/language/uptodate)
Wiki
'Wiki' – W-I-K-I. There can’t be many people left who haven’t heard of Wikipedia. At least not many who have access to the internet. But ask them what a ‘wiki’ is, and there’s a good chance you’ll be met with a blank look and a scratch of the head.
But what is Wikipedia? If you’ve followed this series from the beginning, you’ll have already seen some examples of words which are formed by blending two words together. This is another example – OK, I get the '-pedia' part – that’s from encyclopedia, right? Yes, but what about the wiki? In fact it’s the 'wiki' part which is the USP (unique selling point) of Wikipedia. It means that anyone can contribute their own information and content to the site. It’s open to anybody, anywhere at any time.
The ‘wiki’ part is actually a Hawaiian word meaning ‘quickly’. Ward Cunningham, the man credited with developing the wiki concept for the internet, was at Honolulu airport in Hawaii and was told to take the ‘wiki wiki bus’. He was understandably confused and when he asked what it meant was told it simply meant the quick bus. He liked it so much he decided to name his new web project after it.
Basically, wikis are websites which are very easy to set up, because they generally use WYSIWYG tools (see Series 2) and they can then be edited by anybody – you don’t have to be the creator of the site to add more content. They are used in education, for class projects, in business and even in politics.
But the open nature of wikis and their ease of use can be a disadvantage. In 2006 the UK government department for environment, food and rural affairs (DEFRA) set up a wiki to invite discussion about new environmental policies. Unfortunately, not all the contributions were entirely serious. In reply to the question, 'What tools can be used to deliver the environmental contract?' one contributor wrote: 'Spade, Organic Yoghurt Stirrer, Old washing up liquid bottle, Sticky Back Plastic'.
At the time some reports of the story were along the lines of ‘Hackers deface government website’, a headline which totally missed the point that the key to wikis is the fact that they are open and can be added to by anybody and that’s exactly what happened in this case. The UK government might think twice before setting up another wiki.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/wordservice/learnenglish/language/uptodate)
To google – as a verb. Of course, everybody’s heard of Google the search engine – popular development of the 1990s. In fact, in 1999, Google was designated the most useful word by the American Dialect Society, as a verb! ‘I’m going to google.’ ‘We are googling.’ And, of course, there’s all sorts of associated words that have come since – you know, ‘we are googlers, if we google!’ And people who google a lot are ‘google-minded’, and I suppose there are lots of other coinages too. The word itself comes from a mathematical term, ‘googol’, a term meaning 10 to the 100th power, an impossibly large concept, indeed. And, of course, the Google search engine has also become impossibly large! When you go searching for a word on Google, you might get a million hits, or 10 million hits, or a hundred million hits.
Of course, the penalty of success is when you have a word enter the language and it was originally a word that you thought you owned. In fact, the firm Google is very concerned over this use as a verb, because it is their trade mark – they like to keep the capital letter in the definition, for example – if you use it, they say, do use it with a capital ‘G’. But they’ve got a problem, I mean, no firm, no matter how big, can control language change!
They’re not the first firm to be worried about this sort of thing. Xerox, once upon a time, was very worried about the way their name had become part of the language as a whole, you know, ‘I’m going to Xerox something’, meaning – I’m going to photocopy something. And Hoover was another one, you know, it now means any sort of vacuum cleaner. Of course, Hover is a particular brand of vacuum cleaner. So Google are a bit worried about this use of their name as a verb, but they won’t be able to stop it. As I say, no firm, no matter how big, can control language change.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/wordservice/learnenglish/language/uptodate)
Listening Section 1
Do you use any of the social networking websites which are so popular these days? You
know - the places where you can connect up with friends and relatives and meet people
who share the same interests as you?
If you’re younger you may use MySpace, young adults are more likely to be found on
Facebook and busy professionals may prefer something like LinkedIn. But at least two of
these sites have one thing in common: apart from being social spaces where you can meet
and chat to people, share photos and other things, they’ve all added new verbs and nouns
to the language in the past couple of years.
Listening Section 2
Let’s take a look at some examples. I’ve just facebooked the photos from my summer
holiday [uploaded them to my Facebook page]. I facebooked that guy John and it turns out
he’s an architect [looked him up in Facebook]. Did you facebook Susan about the party?
[contact Susan through her Facebook page]. Anyway, nice to meet you. Do you mind if I
facebook you? [add you as a Facebook friend].
As you can see, ‘facebook’ is a pretty versatile word, and you could say the same about
‘myspace’, which you will find being used in much the same way all over the Net.
LinkedIn (being a more adult, professional community) is yet to succumb to such cavalier
twisting of the English language!
And while you’re ‘facebooking’ or ‘myspacing’ you may also find yourself ‘commenting’
(writing a comment on someone’s Facebook or MySpace page), as in this example: ‘I
commented Dawn that she should come to the pub on Saturday and she commented me
that she couldn’t because she was going away for the weekend’. Anyway, I must get on. I
haven’t facebooked yet today and there’s sure to be a lot to catch up on!
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/wordservice/learnenglish/language/uptodate)
Facebook is a social networking service launched in February 2004, owned and operated by Facebook, Inc.As of June 2012, Facebook has over 955 million active users, more than half of them using Facebook on a mobile deviceUsers must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile.
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The website's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and eventually to anyone aged 13 and over. However, according to a May 2011 Consumer Reports survey, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts and 5 million under 10, violating the site's terms of service.
A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users Entertainment Weekly included the site on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook? Critics, such as Facebook Detox state that Facebook has turned into a national obsession in the United States, resulting in vast amounts of time lost and encouraging narcissism.
History
Mark Zuckerberg wrote Facemash, the predecessor to Facebook, on October 28, 2003, while attending Harvard as a sophomore. According to The Harvard Crimson, the site was comparable to Hot or Not, and "used photos compiled from the online facebooks of nine houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the 'hotter' person"
Mark Zuckerberg co-created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room.
To accomplish this, Zuckerberg hacked into the protected areas of Harvard's computer network and copied the houses' private dormitory ID images. Harvard at that time did not have a student "facebook" (a directory with photos and basic information), though individual houses had been issuing their own paper facebooks since the mid-1980s. Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online. The site was quickly forwarded to several campus group list-servers, but was shut down a few days later by the Harvard administration. Zuckerberg was charged by the administration with breach of security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy, and faced expulsion. Ultimately, the charges were dropped. Zuckerberg expanded on this initial project that semester by creating a social study tool ahead of an art history final, by uploading 500 Augustan images to a website, with one image per page along with a comment section.He opened the site up to his classmates, and people started sharing their notes.
Facebook was incorporated in mid-2004, and the entrepreneur Sean Parker, who had been informally advising Zuckerberg, became the company's president. In June 2004, Facebook moved its base of operations to Palo Alto, California.It received its first investment later that month from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.The company dropped The from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com in 2005 for $200,000.
(http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki)
E-mails
Michelle: Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm
Michelle.
Neil: And I'm Neil.
Michelle: Thanks for joining me Neil. Have you got used to being back in the office after
that lovely long Christmas break?
Neil: Just about I think.
Michelle: It's always difficult coming back to work after a holiday, especially when the first
thing you have to do is spend the morning going through all the work emails that have built up!
Neil: Yes indeed. Going through old work emails is a bore.
Michelle: Well today we're talking about a company that aims to ban, or to stop, all
internal emails in the workplace.
Neil: It's difficult to imagine office life without internal emails! But before we get on to
that, come on Michelle, it must be time for my first quiz question of the year?
Michelle: OK if you're ready. Today's question is about spam. That's the word for annoying
junk emails. Now we all hate getting spam, but according to a recent report, which country produces the most spam? Is it:
a) India
b) The United States
c) China
Neil: I really have no idea what the answer might be. So I'm going to guess, and for no
particular reason I'm going to say India.
Michelle: OK well we'll find out the answer at the end of the programme. Now, for many
office workers, sending and receiving emails to and from fellow employees is just
part of the job. But now a big IT company called Atos plans to ban all internal
emails by the year 2014.
Neil: Yes, the company has said that employees are wasting too much time dealing with
internal emails, and that this has become the natural, lazy way to communicate.
Michelle: Let's hear from Rob Price, a managing partner at Atos. Here he's speaking on
BBC 5 Live. First he says email has become the definitive thing people use, meaning something that's fixed or determined. But how does he suggest people in the office could communicate with each other instead?
Rob Price, managing partner of Atos
Email has become the definitive thing that people have used, they naturally use, they lazily use.
Why don't you walk across the office? Or, use Instant Messaging? Or, use a range of kind of
social media? So there's different things that people can do. This is about deciding what's the
most effective way of communication, and adopting and embedding those within the organisation.
Michelle: So he suggested a couple of alternatives ways to communicate instead of using
emails. Did you catch them Neil?
Neil: Well first there was the good, old fashioned way of communication. Can you imagine walking across the office to speak to someone?
Neil: And he also suggested using a range of social media like instant messaging.
Michelle: That's right. And he says that it's about deciding what is the most effective way of
communication and embedding, or implanting it within the organisation.
Neil: So let's listen again to that clip once again.
Rob Price, managing partner of Atos
Email has become the definitive thing that people have used, they naturally use, they lazily use.
Why don't you walk across the office? Or, use Instant Messaging? Or, use a range of kind of
social media? So there's different things that people can do. This is about deciding what's the
most effective way of communication, and adopting and embedding those within the organisation.
Michelle: So what do you think Neil? Do you think it's a good idea to get rid of work
emails altogether?
Neil: I think it's a good thing to try to do. I'm not sure if it could actually be eliminated
completely. But, you know, go and talk to people, it's better!
Michelle: I think so too. But of course internal emailing can be incredibly useful. And for
many employees, it would be difficult to work without it. Especially as emails can
be a good way of keeping records, or keeping evidence of things that happen.
Neil: That's true. But Rob Price from Atos has some more suggestions of the sort of
methods people can use for record-keeping instead of emails. Let's listen to this rather fast list of ideas.
Rob Price, managing partner of Atos
Video conferencing, file sharing, live meetings, Wikis, collaborations, bases, knowledge
management systems, enterprise social systems. There's lots of different solutions and we need to
be cognisant of how those are used in the light of an organisation.
Michelle: Wow. A couple of things he mentioned there were video conferencing, file
sharing and bases – which is short for data bases. So he's got plenty of ideas for
the modern office!
Neil: So Atos is hoping that by adopting some of these alternative types of
communication, employees will communicate better with each other and a lot of
time will be saved.
Michelle: Now time to go back to that quiz question Neil. I asked you which country
produces the most spam? The answers were:
a) India
b) The United States
c) China
And what was your answer?
Neil: I had no idea and had a complete guess at India.
Michelle: OK. Well according to a recent study by security firm Kaspersky, the answer was
indeed a) India. So there you go.
Neil: Well. Lucky me.
Michelle: OK so could you remind us of today's words please Neil?
Neil: Yes here they are:
to ban
internal emails
spam
definitive
embedding
to get rid of
keeping records
adopting
Michelle: Thanks Neil. And that's all we've got time for in today's programme. But please do
join us again for more 6 Minute English at our web address bbclearningenglish.com. Thanks for listening. Bye
Neil: Goodbye
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/wordservice/learnenglish/general/sixminute)
SPAM
Listening section 1
Technology always has an influence on language. When printing came in, it brought new words into the language. When broadcasting first started new words came into the language. And now the internet has come along so it’s not surprising that quite a large number of new words have come into English vocabulary since, especially the last 10 years really since the, world wide web came into being. And of course if you’ve got emails, and most people have these days, then you will have encountered the word 'spam'. 'Spam' flooding your email box with ads or other unwanted messages. But why the word 'Spam' for this sort of thing?
Listening section 2
Spam was originally a tinned meat back in the 1930s, a brand name for a particular kind of cold meat. But it became very fashionable when Monty Python, the satirical television comedy series back in the 70s and 80s, they had a sketch where just for fun they had spam with every item on the restaurant menu - bacon and spam, egg and spam, ham and spam, spam and spam. Spam spam spam spam… and they actually sang a song about it and it caught on. And therefore it became a real part of the language meaning any unwanted material of any kind and so when the internet came along it wasn’t surprising really that spam became part of that kind of experience. And the evidence that it’s become part of the language is not just because of the noun 'spam' which you might expect to see in the internet context but because it’s generated other kinds of linguistic expression as well. You’ve now got verbs based upon it, and adjectives based upon it. You can now have "I’ve been spammed" or "somebody’s spamming me" and the actual people who do the work themselves who send all these horrible emails out to everybody so that we’re flooded with these things, what are they called? Well there’s a new noun, they’re called ‘spammers’.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/wordservice/learnenglish/language/uptodate)
Phishing
Listening section 1
Phishing. Now, you really have to listen to the spelling of this one. P-H-I-S-H-I-N-G. Not, F-I-S-H-I-N-G. Can be very confusing to hear this word in speech, therefore, you know, ‘he’s phishing’ – what does it mean? No problem in writing, of course.
It’s the spelling. When somebody is phishing in an internet context, what they’re doing is they’re creating a replica of a webpage, usually a page belonging to a major company, and the idea is to fool somebody into passing on sensitive data to the person who’s doing the phishing – in other words, your password or your personal details. So it’s really a very dangerous notion this, and people are very concerned about it on the internet at the moment. Etymologically, it’s easy. It derives from the traditional word ‘fishing’ and the idea is that the perpetrators are angling for information. So it’s very clever word play. And the fact that it is clever in that way, of course, shouldn’t hide the fact that it’s also a crime.
Listening section 2
Well, it’s one of several words that are being used at the moment to identify different types of activity on the internet that people think are a bit dubious, like ‘hacking’ for instance, ‘to hack’ - to gain unauthorized access to a computer site or a file. And, as often with these words, they develop a more general meaning outside of the internet. I’ve heard ‘hack’ now being used in a general sense meaning ‘to solve’ or ‘to work something out’ – you know, ‘I’ve hacked it’ means ‘I’ve found a solution to the problem’ - not necessarily, anything to do with computing at all.
Actually, I haven’t heard ‘phishing’ in general use yet. Probably, it won’t come into general use because of its ambiguity. If I say ‘I’m phishing’, or
‘I think you’re phishing’ – I’m sure you’d think I was down by a river, rather than sitting by a computer!
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/wordservice/learnenglish/language/uptodate)
Girl's games
Computer games have been criticised for quite some time over a whole range of issues. Some people say they are overly violent and encourage violent behaviour particularly in children. Others say that they make children hyperactive, unsociable and are bad for their eyes. Some have even attributed falling standards of literacy and a lack of interest in reading on them. Now, however, it seems that computer games have also become a feminist issue.
Game manufacturers have, for some time, been looking to increase the number of female game players. The vast majority of computer games still sell to a mainly male market. Perhaps this is because the violent nature of many of the games appeals more to males or perhaps because many of the main characters in the games are male. Manufacturers' attempts to produce more female characters and so increase their share of the female gaming market have met with serious criticism from many women's groups.
Whilst heroines such as Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider game are seen as providing positive role models of strong women, many believe that the character's unrealistic Barbie like proportions are subconsciously setting unattainable standards in the minds of young women. Perhaps a stronger criticism is that although many games now include female characters, their role is often secondary and they support the main, male, action characters within the games. Of course the nature of many of the games remains violent and destructive and this in itself could well continue to put off female gamers.
There are now, however, a number of web sites springing up on the World Wide Web to help women deal with this issue. Sites such as Game Girlz, Women Gamers and Game Gal offer game reviews, articles, discussion forums and even employment opportunities for women interested in becoming part of the rapidly expanding games industry. The games are reviewed by women from a very female perspective. Some rate the games from one to ten across a range of criteria which include the appearance of the female characters, the degree of intelligence attributed to them in the game and even the marketing attitude adopted by the company. The sites are obviously looking for games that move away from the very male dominated and violent nature of the majority of computer games. Many of them review games that are more constructive and developmental. Although the common fantasy themes of knights, witches and goblins still exist within these games, the aims are often very different. Instead of destroying opposing armies the aim of the game can be to make peace with them.
With this increased degree of awareness and involvement from women in the games industry many positive changes could be made that could encourage more women and young girls to become enthusiastic about technology and what it has to offer them. Perhaps we may even find more male gamers moving away from the traditional violent and destructive games towards the more positive values promoted by these more feminine role models, after all Tomb Raider is still one of the most popular computer games on the market, but perhaps that's too much to ask.
(http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/)