《瘋狂英語》精選輯:比爾.蓋茨訪談錄

瘋狂英語精選輯 An Interview with Bill

Question 1: When will the information highway be here?
Bill: One of the key propositions in the book is that this will be a more evolutionary process than many people have suggested, that is, the PC will continue to get better; the internet will have more and more cool content on it; people be connecting up at higher speed through ISDN and PC cable Modems. And so all those here-and-now things that companies are going after and there is a real business case for them. The ultimate where you connect up all the video devices, as we say, information appliances in the book, ah, we'll take quite some time. I still believe that within a decade pretty much that ultimate vision will be available to a lot of people around the world.

Question 2: Why did you decide to write a book now?
Bill: I think if I had known how much time it would take to write a book, I might not have done a book. I did think it was a great time to share some thoughts on the potential of technology, and take some of the themes that come up again and again, as I talk about the topic, the fears that people have, the dreams that people have, and show those to widen the debate, and really make my contribution to, what should be, a very broad discussion about the future.

Question 3:How would the information highway affect social interaction?
Bill: I think probably the most difficult thing to predict about the electronic world, is how it would affect socialization. This is not an area that people change very rapidly. And yet the idea of being able to get so much information about the need things going on in town, and how you can get there when it’s scheduled, what your friends though about it, you know, see the menu before you go to the restaurant, that information access part I think will be a great success. The bigger question now is elderly, can’t get out as much, can share their video with other people, playing games, going to forums where you have common interests and talk about what should be done. The possibilities for socialization would be vast, and it may be that it’s really the young generation going up with these tools right now, that would take this tool’s fullest potential.