科技与生活的英语文章
许多乡村延聘农业科技人员，把这当作招财进宝的好办法，为了攻克技术难关，科技人员废寝忘食，日夜奋战。下面小编整理了关于科技与生活的英语文章，希望大家喜欢!
索尼拟进军手机游戏领域
Sony is set to push aggressively into mobile gaming, having watched from the sidelines as itsconsole rival Nintendo enjoyed meteoric success with the Pokémon Go augmented reality(AR) game.
在目睹游戏机方面的竞争对手任天堂(Nintendo)享受《口袋妖怪GO》(Pokémon GO，又译精灵宝可梦GO)这款增强现实(AR)游戏带来的惊人成功后，索尼(Sony)计划积极推进手机游戏。
[Mobile gaming] is something we are aggressively getting into, Sony chief executive Kaz Hiraitold the Financial Times at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin. It’s quite a shift frombeing just a console-based business to being on mobile phones as well, he said.
(手机游戏)是我们积极进军的领域，索尼首席执行官平井一夫(Kazuo Hirai)在柏林国际电子消费品展览会(IFA)上向英国《金融时报》表示，从只关注游戏机业务到同样参与手机游戏业务，是一次重大转变。
Pokémon Go is a real game-changer.
《口袋妖怪GO》真正改变了行业局势。
I’m very interested in the fact that it has the potential to really change the way people move,literally.
我对于它有可能改变人们的移动方式的情况非常感兴趣。
AR, the feature that allows Pokémon Go to superimpose animated characters on to asmartphone screen showing the real world, is a great innovative idea that’s going to lift allboats for the video game industry, the Japanese boss said, adding that he would like to add ARcapabilities to his company’s stable of games.
平井一夫表示，AR是使得视频游戏行业的所有人受益的伟大创意 。他补充称，他希望在索尼的游戏中加入AR功能。该技术使得《口袋妖怪GO》在显示现实世界的手机屏幕上叠加动画角色。
Despite Nintendo’s surprise hit, the two Japanese console competitors have been slow to jointhe smartphone gaming party to date.
尽管任天堂造成了意想不到的轰动，但这两家日本游戏机竞争对手迄今在加入智能手机游戏市场方面动作缓慢。
Sony and Nintendo own their platforms and want to retain control and make as much moneyas possible from them, says Steve Bailey, gaming analyst at IHS Markit.
索尼和任天堂都拥有自己的平台，他们想维持控制地位，从平台上赚到尽可能多的钱。
But the landscape has now changed considerably.
IHS Markit的游戏行业分析师史蒂夫•贝利(Steve Bailey)说，但如今，市场状况已发生了很大变化。
The threat from mobile is so big, they can no longer ignore it.
来自手机游戏的威胁太大，他们再也无法对此视而不见。
Nintendo launched its first-ever mobile app, Miitomo, in March this year, while Sony has had achequered history in the market.
今年3月，任天堂推出了公司历史上第一款移动应用Miitomo，而索尼在这一市场一直不很成功。
There have been several failed initiatives to port PlayStation games to handheld consoles and itsXperia smartphones.
索尼曾多次尝试把PlayStation游戏移植到掌上游戏机和它的Xperia智能手机上，但都以失败告终。
经典关于科技与生活的英语文章苹果遇到乔布斯式对手
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules.
1997年苹果(Apple)在其《非同凡“想”》(Think Different)电视广告中赞颂道：“向疯狂的人们致敬。向格格不入的人们、向离经叛道的人们、向惹是生非的人们、向方孔中的圆形螺丝、向以不同视角看问题的人们致敬。
And they have no respect for the status quo,” ran the eulogy of Apple’s Think Different television advertisement in 1997. In the same spirit, here’s to Margrethe Vestager.
他们不喜欢墨守成规，他们也不愿安于现状。”以同样的精神，我要向玛格丽特•维斯特格(Margrethe Vestager)致敬。
The EU competition commissioner insists she is not deliberately making trouble by deciding this week that Ireland should levy Euro13bn in taxes that it allowed the company to underpay over a decade.
这位欧盟反垄断专员本周认定，爱尔兰应该向苹果征收130亿欧元的税款，这是十多年来爱尔兰让苹果少交的税。维斯特格坚称，她这一决定不是在故意找麻烦。
“No rules have been changed — not one,” she retorted to the accusation that she is ripping up international tax treaties and diverting US tax revenues to Europe. She looked unperturbed by the rumpus.
对于有关她在撕毁国际税务协议并将属于美国的税收引至欧洲的指控，她反驳称：“没有任何规则被更改了——一条也没有。”看起来此事引起的争议并未让她不安。
Ms Vestager seems to have taken lessons from Apple about presentation. Her original 2014 complaint against the company was jammed with details. This week’s update was pared down and clean, making the argument simply.
维斯特格似乎已从苹果那里学习了关于表达方式的技巧。她2014年对苹果最初的投诉满纸细节。而本周的更新版本则篇幅大减，非常简洁，简单地陈述了论点。
Steve Jobs might have appreciated the elegant Danish design, although the content infuriated the US and Irish governments — and Tim Cook, Jobs’s successor as Apple chief executive.
史蒂夫•乔布斯(Steve Jobs)没准会欣赏这种优雅的丹麦表达，尽管她所说的内容激怒了美国和爱尔兰政府——以及接替乔布斯担任苹果首席执行官的蒂姆•库克(Tim Cook)。
Its simplicity is both a weakness and a strength. The weakness is that it is hard to believe it will hold up in court, where the argument is heading.
这种简洁既是弱点，也是优势。其薄弱之处在于，很难相信它在将要走向的法庭上能够站得住脚。
There is something a bit too neat about the way Ms Vestager sliced through the Gordian knot of transfer pricing and tax residency with one stroke by declaring Apple’s three-decade-old arrangements with Ireland invalid.
维斯特格宣称苹果与爱尔兰之间长达三十年的制度安排无效，一举突破了转移定价和纳税居地这个复杂的戈尔迪之结，不过这种快刀斩乱麻的方式有些太过简单化了。
Corporate tax is a complex matter: intellectual property can be moved to offshore locations and exploited at arm’s length according to intricate related-party formulas; sales in one country can become revenues in another; US companies can invert themselves to somewhere else.
公司税是个复杂的问题：知识产权可以转移至国外，并依照复杂的关联方安排，方便地取用;在一国的销售可能会变成在另一国的营收;美国企业可能会将自身“倒置”到其他地方去。
If any tax arrangement that beats others can be outlawed as selective state aid, a lot of tax lawyers are out of work.
如果任何优越的税务安排都可被认定为选择性政府补助、因而非法，许多税务律师就失业了。
Ms Vestager’s strength is that none of that makes much sense, or feels justifiable, to individual taxpayers.
维斯特格的优势则在于，在单个的纳税人看来，上述这些都不怎么合理，感觉上也不怎么正当。
“If my effective tax rate would be 0.05 per cent, falling to 0.005, I would have felt that maybe I should have a second look at my tax Bill,” she said. Apple insists that it paid $400m in taxes in Ireland in 2014, but her rhetoric was powerful.
维斯特格说：“如果我的有效税率原本是0.05%，它降到0.005%时，我会感觉自己是不是看错了税单。”苹果坚称2014年它在爱尔兰支付了4亿美元税款，然而维斯特格的说法十分有力。
Apple sounded quite flustered as it protested that things are not as they appear. On tax matters, it resembles the nerdy PC character in its “Get a Mac” campaign in the 2000s, with Ms Vestager as the cool, cocksure Mac.
苹果抗议称事实并不像表面看上去的那样，这话显得它很心慌。在税务问题上，苹果就像2000年代的《买台Mac》(Get a Mac)系列广告中代表个人电脑(PC)的那个呆头呆脑的角色，而维斯特格则像代表Mac的那个酷酷的、自信满满的角色。
The more it explains that it has deferred taxation, not avoided it, the more conventionally corporate it looks.
苹果越是解释它是推迟、而非逃避了纳税，它看起来就越像一家传统企业。
Its tax challenge is straightforward enough, and is common to a lot of US companies. It produces most of its value — its intellectual property and distinct approach to technology and design — in California.
它面临的税务挑战非常简单，对许多美国企业也十分常见。苹果的多数价值(它的知识产权以及它在技术和设计上的独特思路)都是在加利福尼亚州创造的。
Under existing global tax treaties, it could legitimately channel most profits from around the world back to the US through royalty fees on overseas sales.
按照现有的全球税收协议，它可以通过对境外销售收取的许可费，合法地将其在世界各地获得的大部分利润转移回美国。
It does not want to do this because that would involve paying up to 35 per cent tax in the US on the profits compared with Ireland’s 12.5 per cent rate.
然而，苹果不想这么做，原因是这么做意味着这些利润要在美国缴纳最高达35%的税款，相比之下在爱尔兰只需缴纳12.5%。
The simple answer, as Ms Vestager points out, would be to pay the latter instead; Apple is structured so it could easily do so. Its Irish subsidiaries hold royalty rights for European sales and most profits flow there.
正如维斯特格所指出的，按照后一种税率缴税是很容易得出的答案。苹果的结构让它可以轻而易举地这么做。它在爱尔兰的分公司持有欧洲销售的许可权，这样多数利润就流向了那里。
But Ireland used to offer a twist: the right to form companies that were not tax resident there or in the US. Rather than pay taxes immediately, Apple could defer them under US tax law.
不过，爱尔兰也曾经提供了可乘之机，让既非爱尔兰纳税居民也非美国纳税居民的公司得以成立。按照美国税法，苹果可以不用马上缴纳税款，而是过后缴纳。
Hence its anger about being accused of tax dodging: where others see billions in unpaid Irish taxes, Apple and the US government see future US ones. Apple is not, overall, an aggressive tax avoider: it paid $19.1bn in taxes last year.
这正是苹果被谴责避税后愤怒的原因：在其他人眼中数十亿未缴纳的爱尔兰税款，在苹果和美国政府看来却是未来将交给美国的税款。总体上说，苹果并不是激进的避税者：去年该公司缴纳了191亿美元的税款。
It is not quite so simple, though. Apple has made provisions for deferred US taxes on about half of the $215bn in cash and equivalents it held overseas in 2015.
不过，事情并没有这么简单。苹果已为其将延迟向美国缴纳的税款做了拨备，这些税款对应的是该公司2015年在海外持有的2150亿美元现金及现金等同物的约一半。
It is waiting for the US tax rate to fall before it repatriates this money to shareholders, but this could be a long time. It may never send back the rest: US companies often reinvest overseas cash in growth or acquisitions.
苹果打算等美国调低税率后，再把这笔资金转回到股东手上。然而时间可能会很长。剩余部分苹果可能永远都不会转回来：美国企业经常会把在境外的现金再次投资，用于企业增长或收购。
US corporate taxation is especially peculiar and hard to grasp and is painfully dysfunctional. The US government keeps on trying to pass tax reforms, and the details of Apple’s Irish tax structures first emerged publicly during a Senate committee investigation three years ago.
美国的公司税制特别古怪和令人费解，毛病很大。美国政府一直试图通过税务改革法案。苹果在爱尔兰的税务结构的具体情况，是三年前在一项参议院委员会的调查中首次公开的。
The Senate identified US companies’ overseas cash as a tax target for the US not the EU.
美国参议院当时确认，美国企业在美国境外的现金，由美国而不是欧盟(EU)征税。
Enter Ms Vestager, with her plan to make Ireland retrieve Euro13bn, and to let other EU countries stake their own claims to the money.
维斯特格登场了。她的计划是让爱尔兰收回130亿欧元税款，让其他欧盟国家声索对这笔钱的所有权。
Since no one else moved, she gained first mover advantage, and state aid law has given her extraordinary legal powers. It is an audacious, revolutionary and surprising move, but that was Jobs’s style too.
由于其他人没有行动，她取得了先发制人的优势，而国家援助法赋予了她惊人的法律力量。这是个大胆、革命性又令人惊异的举动，不过这也是乔布斯的风格。
Her boldness will change the rules of global taxation if it survives the legal challenges. Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder, used to get irritated that Apple was hipper than his own company but arguing with public opinion got him nowhere. In Ms Vestager, Apple faces a cool opponent.
如果能经受住相关法律挑战的考验，维斯特格的大胆举动将改变全球税收的规则。微软(Microsoft)联合创始人比尔•盖茨(Bill Gates)曾经为苹果比微软酷而愤慨，然而他争不过舆论。在维斯特格这里，苹果遇到了一个酷对手。
关于科技与生活的英语文章无人驾驶革命的主要阻力是人
Brilliant technologies transform the magical into the banal.
卓越的科技会把神奇的东西变得平淡无奇。
An idea that seems outlandish to one generation becomes commonplace to the next.
曾经在一代人看来稀奇古怪的想法对于下一代人却变得稀松平常。
So it has been with electricity, space flight and the internet.
电力、太空航行以及互联网都是如此。
So it is likely to prove with driverless cars.
因此无人驾驶汽车可能也会如此。
The past few weeks have seen a flurry of announcements.
近几周这个领域接连传出许多消息。
Singapore has launched the world’s first public trial of a robo-taxi service.
新加坡展开了全球首项无人驾驶出租车的公开测试。
Uber and Volvo announced that they would pioneer an autonomous taxi fleet in Pittsburghwithin weeks.
优步(Uber)和沃尔沃(Volvo)宣布，未来几周内，它们将率先在匹兹堡推出一支自动驾驶出租车车队。
Ford said it would build its first mass-market driverless car by 2021.
福特(Ford)表示，将在2021年前制造其首款面向大众市场的无人驾驶汽车。
To their backers, autonomous cars cannot arrive quickly enough.
对于支持者而言，自动驾驶汽车越快上路越好。
Conventional cars are inefficient, dangerous and dirty.
传统汽车低效、危险且肮脏。
They sit idle for 95 per cent of their lives, clogging up city streets and car parks.
它们有95%的时间在闲置，堵塞着城市街道和停车场。
When moving, they smash into each other, killing 3,500 people every day around the world.
在行驶中，它们会互相碰撞，全球每天有3500人死于交通事故。
Ninety per cent of accidents are caused by human error.
其中90%的事故是人为失误造成的。
Cars pollute the environment, accounting for 45 per cent of oil burnt.
汽车污染环境，占石油消耗总量的45%。
The widespread adoption of fully autonomous and, still better, electric cars could therefore bea massive boon to mankind.
因此完全自动化且质量更好的电动汽车得到广泛应用可能是人类的一大幸事。
It could lead to a far more efficient use of resources, save many lives and reduce congestionand pollution.
这可能会带来资源的更有效利用、挽救很多生命并减少拥堵和污染。
Futurologists envisage small fleets of shareable, connected cars constantly whizzing aroundour cities picking up passengers on demand.
按照未来学家的构想，一些由可分享的联网汽车组成的小型车队将时刻不停地绕着我们的城市飞驰，按照需求搭载乘客。
McKinsey forecasts that 15 per cent of new cars could be fully autonomous by 2030.
麦肯锡(McKinsey)预测，到2030年，15%的新车可能实现完全自动驾驶。
But two obstacles block their widespread adoption.
但有两个障碍因素阻碍着自动驾驶汽车的普及。
The first remains technological.
第一个仍然是技术上的。
For all the astonishing advances made in recent years, it is phenomenally difficult to replicatehumans as sensory beings.
尽管最近几年这方面技术取得了惊人的进步，但要模仿人类打造具有感觉能力的自动驾驶系统是极其困难的。
How does a car distinguish between a plastic bag blowing across a road and a runaway dog?How does a car nudge its way through a throng of people outside a football stadium?
汽车如何区分一个被风吹过马路的塑料袋和一条奔跑的狗?汽车如何穿过足球场外拥挤的人群?
Engineers argue that the genius of self-driving cars is their connectedness.
工程师辩称，自动驾驶汽车的优势在于联网。
When human drivers make a mistake the individual learns from it, says one Silicon Valleypioneer. When a self-driving car makes a mistake then every other car will learn from a mistakeonce an engineer has fixed it.
当人类驾驶员犯错时，这个人会从中吸取教训，一位硅谷先驱表示，当一辆自动驾驶汽车犯错时，一旦工程师修复了这个问题，其他所有汽车都会相应改进。
It is just a matter of time before our technology surpasses human capacity.
科技超越人类能力只是早晚的事。
But sceptics compare autonomous car technology with Zeno’s dichotomy paradox: every leapwill take us halfway to our destination without ever reaching it.
但怀疑者将自动驾驶技术比作芝诺(Zeno)的二分法悖论：每一步跳跃都是向着目的地走出剩余路程的二分之一，但永远不可能到达终点。
No matter how hard the technology proves, it may be the easier part of the puzzle.
不管事实证明要攻克技术有多难，它也可能是这个难题中较为容易的部分。
A stiffer challenge remains the human.
更为严峻的挑战仍然是人类。
Even when manufacturers and software engineers develop fully autonomous cars in which theyhave total trust, it will still take many years, if not decades, for them to be freely embraced bygovernments and consumers.
即便制造商和软件工程师开发出他们自己完全信任的全自动驾驶汽车，也需要花费多年、甚至几十年时间才能得到政府和消费者的安心接纳。
First, there is the instinctive human resistance to handing over control to a robot, especiallygiven fears of cyber-hacking.
首先，人类天生反对将控制权交给机器人，特别是在担心黑客攻击的情况下。
Second, for many drivers cars are an extension of their identity, a mechanical symbol ofindependence, control and freedom.
其次，对于多数驾驶员而言，汽车是他们身份的延伸，是独立、控制和自由的机械象征。
They will not abandon them lightly.
他们不会轻易抛弃汽车。
Third, robots will always be held to far higher safety standards than humans.
第三，针对机器人总是要实施比人类高得多的安全标准。
They will inevitably cause accidents.
它们将不可避免的导致意外。
They will also have to be programmed to make a calculation that could kill their passengers orbystanders to minimise overall loss of life.
它们还必须经过编程做出可能导致乘客或行人死亡的计算，以将总体人员损失降至最低。
This will create a fascinating philosophical sub-school of algorithmic morality.
这将引发一个有趣的关于算法道德的哲学问题。
Many of us are afraid that one reckless act will cause an accident that causes a backlash andshuts down the industry for a decade, says the Silicon Valley engineer. That would be tragic ifyou could have saved tens of thousands of lives a year.
我们很多人担心一个冒失的行为将导致一场事故，进而这个行业会遭到抗议并被封杀10年，那位硅谷工程师表示，如果你原本可以每年挽救数万人的生命，那么这种结果将是一场悲剧。
Fourth, the deployment of autonomous vehicles could destroy millions of jobs.
第四，自动驾驶汽车的使用可能会葬送数百万个就业岗位。
Their rapid introduction is certain to provoke resistance.
这些汽车的快速引入肯定会遭遇抵制。
There are 3.5m professional lorry drivers in the US.
美国有350万名职业货车司机。
Fifth, the insurance industry and legal community have to wrap their heads around sometricky liability issues.
第五，保险行业和司法界必须埋头解决一些复杂的责任问题。
In what circumstances is the owner, car manufacturer or software developer responsible fordamage?
在何种情况下，汽车所有者、汽车制造商或软件开发商要对损害负责?
Some governments, such as those of Singapore, China and the UK, as well as several states inthe US are creating permissive regulatory and legal environments.
新加坡、中国和英国等一些国家的政府以及美国几个州正在创造宽松的监管和法律环境。
Regulators can certainly speed adoption by approving designated lanes for autonomous cars,for example, and devising international safety rules and standards.
监管机构无疑可以加速推动自动驾驶汽车的使用，比如说通过批准建设自动驾驶汽车专用道，以及制定国际安全规则与标准。
Conversely, politicians may yet succumb to the pressure of public fears and vested interestsand frustrate the roll out of self-driving cars.
相反，政治人士仍可能屈服于公众担忧以及既得利益群体的压力，阻碍自动驾驶汽车的应用。
Autonomous car visionaries may soon be able to perfect the technology.
自动驾驶汽车的梦想家们可能很快就能完善技术。
But their success may be determined by how good they are — in Stalinist terminology — asengineers of human souls.
但他们能否成功可能取决于他们作为人类灵魂的工程师(用斯大林主义者的术语来说)有多优秀。
