问答题
Newspaper publishers make money mainly from subscribers and
advertisers. It's been that way for centuries. But in the last few years an
important new income stream has opened up for newspapers Among the pioneers is
The Gazette Company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which since 1993 has been providing
information to its readers delivered by both paper and, increasingly, the Web.
"If a newspaper views itself as ink on paper, I don't think it will survive,"
says Steve Hannah, vice president of information technology.
46){{U}} Online newspapers are a look into the future, and just pondering it
raises the question of whether it isn't nicer getting our daily news curled up
in your favorite chair with your ballpoint pen handy to circle items of
interests, or scissors ready to snip out articles you want to save{{/U}}. The
Gazette Company is betting its subscribers want both electronic and paper
options, and so far it seems to be right.
The rest of the world
is moving into cyberspace more slowly than the United States, and, in the
developing world, the Internet has hardly penetrated at all. 47) {{U}}U. N.
Secretary General Kofi Annan is determined to change this through the United
Nations Information Technology Service, which will train large numbers of people
to tap into the income-enhancing power of the Internet{{/U}}. Annan is also
proposing an Internet health network that will provide state-of-the-art medical
knowledge to 10, 000 clinics and hospitals in poor countries.
The onrushing Cyber Age has given newfound power to us all, as seen in
Jody Williams's one-woman organization using e-mail to promote a global ban on
land mines. Yet, this is but a glimpse of what's ahead in the minds of those
immersed in this great and accelerating transformation.
48){{U}}
At Microsoft, Bill Gates predicts that by 2018 major newspapers will "publish
their last paper editions and move solely to electronic distribution", and that
by 2020 dictionaries will redefine books as "e-Book titles read on screen"
.{{/U}}
49){{U}} Computers have metamorphosed from the University of
Pennsylvania's 1946 ENIAC--whose more than 17, 000 vacuum tubes had less
number-crunching power than today's laptop--into thumbnail-sized
computer chips containing 42 million transistors{{/U}}.
William Van Dusen Wishard, president of World Trends Research, is
concerned. 50) {{U}}In a speech to the Issue Management Council in Washington, D.
C, he noted that "researchers at Carnegie Mellon University cite a two-year
stud! showing depression and loneliness appearing at greater levels in ep.e.2ple
using the Internet than in others not using it, or not using it as much{{/U}}.
Extensive exposure to the wider world via the Net appears to make people less
satisfied with their personal lives."