7. Find English equivalents in the text, learn them by heart:

1) відшукувати (зчитувати) інформацію; 2) цифровий універсальний диск; 3) лазерний промінь; 4) випалювати заглиблення; 5) потік даних; 6) спіральна доріжка; 7) внутрішня доріжка; 8) край диска; 9) фільми високої роздільної здатності; 10) придатний; 11) вертикально; 12) герметично закрита одиниця; 13) захисний корпус; 14) вразливий до подряпин; 15) відбиток пальця.

8. Answer the questions:

1. How can an optical storage device save and retrieve data?

2. How fast do optical drives spin?

3. What are the differences between CD-Rs, CD-RWs, DVDs and Blue-ray discs?

4. How long is the data on optical discs conservatively estimated to be viable?

5. What are the perfect conditions for storing discs?

6. What is usullay stored on optical storage devices?

7. Why are discs losing their popularity for the purpose of making routine backup copies?

8. What are optical discs vulnerable to?

9. What types of media are optical drives designed for?

10. Will optical discs be replaced by other types of storage? What are their disadvantages in comparison with a flash memory?

11. What is the fate of vinyl records, floppy disks and tapes?

9. What words from the text are defined? Find the word defined in the databank:

Databank: a floppy disk, a medium, a stamping machine, a laser beam, vulnerable, a pit, a video game console, a spiral, to archive, to spin.

1) an intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on; 2) a source of high-intensity optical, infrared, or ultraviolet radiation produced as a result of stimulated emission maintained within a solid, liquid, or gaseous medium; 3) a small indentation in a surface; 4) a curve on a plane that winds around a fixed center point at a continuously increasing or decreasing distance from the point; 5) a power tool that stamps; 6) to rotate; 7) an interactive entertainment computer or modified computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device (a television, monitor, etc.) to display a video game; 8) to place or store in an archive; 9) a small plastic magnetic disk enclosed in a stiff envelope with a radial slit; 10) susceptible to physical injury.

10. Read and translate the text: Flash memory

We store and transfer all kinds o­f files on our computers - digital photographs, music files, wor­d processing documents, PDFs and countless other forms of media. But sometimes your computer's hard drive isn't exactly wher­e you want your information. Whether you want to make backup copies of files that live off of your systems or if you worry about your security, portable storage devices that use a type of electronic memory called flash memory may be the right solution.

Electronic memory comes in a variety of forms to serve a variety of purposes. Flash memory is used for easy and fast information storage in computers, digital camerasand homevideo game consoles. It is used more like ahard drivethan asRAM. In fact, flash memory is known as asolid state storage device, meaning there are no moving parts - everything is electronic instead of mechanical.

Here are a few examples of flash memory:

 The computer's BIOS chip

 CompactFlash (most often found in digital cameras)

 SmartMedia (most often found in digital cameras)

 Memory Stick (most often found in digital cameras)

 PCMCIA Type I and Type II memory cards (used as solid-state disks in laptops)

 Memory cards for video game consoles

Flash memory is a type of EEPROM chip, which stands for Electronically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory. It has a grid of columns and rows with a cell that has two transistors at each intersection.

The two transistors are separated from each other by a thin oxide layer. One of the transistors is known as a floating gate, and the other one is the control gate. The floating gate's only link to the row, or wordline, is through the control gate. As long as this link is in place, the cell has a value of 1. To change the value to a 0 requires a curious process called Fowler-Nordheim tunneling.

Inside the flash chip, information is stored in cells. A floating-gate transistorprotects the data that is written in each cell. Tunneling electrons pass through a low conductive material to change the electronic charge of the gate "in a flash," clearing the cell of its contents so that it can be rewritten. This is how flash memory gets its name.

(based on: http://computer.howstuffworks.com)