An Interactive Life
互相作用的生活
It will put the world at your fingertips, changing the ways you shop, play and learn. But when will the future arrive?
它会将世界置于你的指掌之中，改变你的购物、娱乐和学习等活动的方式。这种未来生活的前景何时才会变成现实呢?
Barbara Kantrowitz with Joshua Cooper Ramo
巴巴拉康特罗维茨，亚叔华库帕拉莫
To get an idea of what the future might bring, step into the past. At the Edison National Historical Site in West Orange, N. J., there's a room full of a dozen old phonograph machines. Some were built by Thomas Edison, who invented recorded sound in 1877, and others were produced by competitors. In the decades represented by the display, the concept and purpose of sound recording changed dramatically. Edison conceived of his phonograph as a business machine that would help people in distant places communicate. He intended to record voices – nothing more. His competitors envisionedthe greater potential for entertainment and art. Where he saw internal memos, someone else saw Beethoven.
由过去的历史可以推知未来。在新泽西州西奥兰治镇的爱迪生国家历史纪念馆里，有一个陈列留声机的展厅，里面陈列了十二台老式留声机。这些留声机有些是由托马斯o爱迪生制造的，正是他于1877年发明了留声技术;而另外的一些则是那些竞争对手们制造的。在这些展出的留声机所反映的那几十年的历史中，留声技术的概念和功用发生了巨大的变化。在爱迪生的认识里，留声机就是一种能帮助远隔两地的人们进行通讯交流的工具。他只想要录下人们的声音-一点也没想到别的，但那些竞争者们却想到了它在娱乐和艺术方面的更大发展潜力。爱迪生从留声机里看到了备忘记事本，别人却从中发现了贝多芬。
Someday, there may well be a similar memorial to the unfulfilled prophecies of the creators of the latest breakthrough-interactivity. Will it really change the world? With so much big money and so many big dreams pinned to an idea that is still largely on the drawing boards, there's no limit to the hype. Simply put, the ultimate promise is this: a huge amount of information available to anyone at the touch of a button, everything from airline schedules to esoteric scientific journals to video versions at oft-oft-off Broadway. Watching a movie won't be a passive experience.
将来某一天，完全有可能出现一个类似的纪念馆来纪念最新的突破性技术--互相作用技术发明者们的尚未实现的预言。这项技术真的能够改变世界吗?一个尚处于理论设计阶段的技术发展计划既得到巨额的资金投入，又成为人们无限的期望所系，也无怪乎其能够轰动一时了。其实，说白了，这一计划的最高期望目标是：任何人只要触动一个按钮即可得到大量的信息--从航空班机时刻表到深奥的专业杂志到最最新百老汇戏剧实验中心的戏剧录像节目，各种信息应有尽有。看电影将不再是一种消极被动的经历。