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.
57) Online newspapers are a look into the future, and just pondering it raises the question of whether it isn't nicer getting your daily news curled up in your favorite chair with your ballpoint pen handy to circle items of interest, or scissors ready to snip out articles you want to save. 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. 58) 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. 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 on-rushing 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.
59) 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 " eBook titles read on screen. "
60) Computers have metamorphosed from the University of Pennsylvania's 1961 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. William Van Dusen Wishard, president of World Trends Research, is concerned. 61) In a speech to the Issue Management Council in Washington D. C, he noted that "researchers at Carnegie Mellon University cite a two-year study showing depression and loneliness appearing at greater levels in people using the Internet than in others not using it, or not using it as much. Extensive exposure to the wider world via the Net appears to make people less satisfied with their personal lives. /