Title:
A Whole New World, Brought to Us by Gizmos and
Gadgets
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Technology Report.
See text below
Text:
Today we tell about some of the top technology
developments of the last ten years. The
technological revolution is changing the way we work
and play. Mobile phones became smartphones, with
abilities like computers. Many people started
reading books on electronic readers. Televisions
became high-definition and the screens became flat.
Digital music players got smaller in size but large
enough for people to download their entire music
collections. Worldwide broadband subscriptions
passed five hundred million. And, at least two
billion people were expected to be online by the end
of two thousand ten. Stephen Baker is the vice
president of industry analysis for the consumer
electronics market research group NPD. He says the
technological developments of the twenty-first
century have brought about some historic advances in
consumer electronics. He said ten years ago might as
well be a hundred years. If you look back at the way
people interacted with electronics in two thousand
and the way they interact with them today, there is
no comparison. Ten years ago there were no flat
panel televisions. There were no mobile web devices
or smartphones. There were no e-book readers. And
very few people had notebook computers.Bruce
Bachenheimer is with the MIT Enterprise Forum in New
York City. He is also the director of
entrepreneurship at Pace University. He talked about
what he believes are the most important
technological developments of the twenty-first
century. They are mobile computing, digital media
content, broadband, social media platforms and
user-generated content. Also, digital photography
and global positioning systems for consumers. Mr.
Bachenheimer says all of these things have worked
together to revolutionize technology. And, he says
the technology is constantly changing, faster than
at any other time in history. He said telephones had
not changed for three or four decades. They could be
on a wall or on a table top. But now cell phone
technology is changing every year. He asked: "How
many people have a cell phone that is more than a
year or two old?"For VOA Special English I'm Alex
Villarreal. You can learn more about technology on
our website, voaspecialenglish.com. And you can
follow us on Facebook, Twitter and iTunes at VOA
Learning English.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
