This book is about the future of technology. In it we will examine some of the many recent developments in a few key fields and try, in a limited way, to forecast where they will take us in the next fifteen years or so. 这是一部关于未来科技的著作。在本书中,我们可以查询到近期的在一些关键领域及尝试中的发展情况,以一种有限的方式,去报告在接下来的十五年或更长的时间里,他们对人类的作用。 If that sounds like a modest goal, it’s not 这看似像一个基本的目的,然而事实不是如此。 It changes so rapidly that no scientist or engineer can keep up with his own field, much less with technology in general. 它的改变如此迅速以至于没有任何科学家或工程师可以始终在他自己的领域处于领先位置,或在一般的技术方面。 We live in technology as fish live in the sea, and we have only a little better chance of forecasting the details of its changes. 我们生活在科技世界中,犹如鱼生活在海洋里,并且我们有更好的机会去展望它变化的一些细节。 In an age of uncomfortable challenges, this is reassurance we all can use. 在这个竞争激烈充满挑战的时代,这是我们都能够享用的资源。 For an idea of what is to come—in magnitude if not in specifics—look to the past. In the last ninety years, the world has shrunk, while human experience has expanded almost beyond the recognition of those who grew up in our grandparents’ generation. 一个理念诞生了——从宏观来看——回顾过去,在故去的九十年里,世界被震撼了,人类的经验已发展到超越我们父辈那一时代认识。 In transportation and communications, the changes have been even more pronounced 在交通鱼交流方面,这些改变已被更多的人所了解。 In 1945, when the first atomic bomb fused the sand of Alamogordo, New Mexico, the shot was not heard around the world; rumors of a massive explosion in the desert were easily contained. Only a half century later, someone born in Massachusetts is more likely than not to attend college in Chicago, find a job in Seattle, vacation in Mexico, and retire in Florida. From our offices in suburban Virginia and rural New Hampshire, Paris, Singapore, Buenos Aires , and Sydney are all as close as Washington and Boston, none more distant than the few steps to the computer. Around the globe, we will spend the rest of our lives finding things to say to people we will never meet in person. 在1945年,当第一颗原子弹在新墨西哥,阿拉莫个多引爆时,全世界都没有听到这个巨响,巨大规模的爆炸在沙漠中很容易被控制。只是在半个世纪好后,一些出生在马萨诸塞州的人可能不在芝加哥读大学,在西雅图找工作,在墨西哥度假,或是在福罗里达州退休。从我们在弗吉尼亚郊区的办公室和在新罕布什尔农村的,以及在巴黎、新加坡、布宜诺斯艾利斯和悉尼的办公室都像时在华盛顿和波士顿那样紧密的联系在一起的。对计算机而言没有任何距离时遥远的,在全世界,我们会用我们的余生去找寻一种对我们从未谋面的人去进行交流的一种方式。
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