|
考研英语阅读理解有一部分是截取自报刊文章,因此考生在复习备考的过程中要注意提高报刊文章的阅读能力,把握时事阅读。下面新东方在线小编分享历年真题同源的30篇报刊文章,附有注释和解析,希望考生认真阅读,提高对此类文章的阅读能力和增加相关词汇量。
考研英语阅读真题同源报刊文章30篇(22)
Bluetooth’s quiet success
It was born amid a blaze of hype at the height of the dotcom boom, but
initially failed to thrive. Indeed, Bluetooth, a shortrange wireless technology
used to interconnect portable devices, has been declared dead on many occasions.
Early versions of the technology suffered from compatibility problems; an
ambitious demonstration of the technology at a trade show in 2001 failed to
work. And while Bluetooth struggled despite all the hype from its backers,
another wireless technology, WiFi, took off on its own. Obituaries of Bluetooth
have appeared many times in the technology press, usually attributing its demise
to the success of WiFi. "Bluetooth is in full retreat," declared Sean Maloney,
an Intel executive, in 2001. Other analysts issued similar verdicts.
But reports of the death of Bluetooth proved to be premature: today it is
in rude health. Sales of Bluetooth devices more than doubled in 2005 to reach
320m units, and the figure is expected to exceed 520m this year-equivalent to
more than 10m units a week and far outstripping sales of WiFi chips. Around one
in four mobile phones sold now support Bluetooth.
And after years of insisting that Bluetooth was more than just a way to
link a wireless headset to a mobile phone, its backers seem to have been
vindicated, as other uses for Bluetooth have at last begun to emerge. Last year
60% of Bluetooth chips went into mobile handsets and 15% into wireless headsets,
says Scott Smyser of iSuppli, a marketresearch firm, but the other 25% went
into other devices, from laptop computers, keyboards and mice to
Bluetoothenabled clothing.
This success, after its rocky start, is due to a combination of factors,
says Stuart Carlaw, an analyst at ABI Research. In many countries Bluetooth’s
fortunes were boosted by new legislation banning the use of mobile phones
without a handsfree kit while driving. This prompted many people to buy
Bluetooth headsets. Several carmakers, led by Audi, also began to incorporate
microphones and speakers, capable of connecting to a handset via Bluetooth, into
their vehicles.
As consumers became more aware of Bluetooth and began to ask for it,
handsetmakers started to include it as a means of differentiating their
products and increasing their margins. Adding a Bluetooth chip to a phone now
costs very littlearound $2, says Mr Carlaw, down from $20 in 2001-but allows
the manufacturer to increase the price of the handset by far more, and opens up
a new market for highmargin accessories. Finally, operators began offering
Bluetooth headsets as incentives to new customers. Again, the perceived value of
the headset is far higher than its cost to the operator, so this increases
margins.
Greater adoption has, in turn, cleared the way for the inclusion of
Bluetooth in all kinds of new products. In addition to Bluetoothenabled
jackets, motorcycle helmets and sunglasses with builtin wireless headsets, the
controllers for two nextgeneration videogames consoles due to be launched
later this year, Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii, will use Bluetooth.
Because Bluetooth is an industry standard, both consolemakers can buy chips and
software off the shelf, which is quicker and cheaper than developing their own
proprietary technologies, says Mr Carlaw.
|
|