考研英语真题材料来源报刊100篇连载 (2)

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考研英语真题材料来源报刊100篇连载 (2)

　　Tracking your every move

　　Some families in America and elsewhere have started buying childfriendly mobile phones outfitted with GPS (Global Positioning System) technology.

　　These phones and their related tracking services allow parents to pinpoint the location of their children with ease. Parents agree to pick up the phone bill in return for the reassurance of knowing where their children are; children are prepared to put up with the snooping if they are allowed to have a phone.

　　Mobile operators in America are now launching tracking services. Under a federal mandate known as E911, they had to upgrade their networks to ensure that anyone dialling the 911 emergency number could be located to within 100 metres. Some operators opted for triangulation technology, which determines the location of the handset by comparing the signals received by different basestations. But Verizon and Sprint chose to adopt the more expensive but more accurate GPS technology instead, and are now looking for ways to make money from it.

　　Verizon calls its service “Chaperone”. For $10 a month, parents can call up the location of their child’s LG Migo handset from their own mobile phones, or from a PC. The child receives a message saying that the handset’s position has been requested, and the parents receive an address, or a marker on a webbased ap, giving the child’s location. For an extra $10 per month, they can sign up for Child Zone, a service that, among other things, fires off an alert when a youngster (or, at least, the youngster’s handset) trays outside a specified area.

　　For its part, Sprint has launched a similar service that can also let parents know when a child arrives at a particular location.

　　Another location service is available from Nextel, a mobile operator that was taken over by Sprint in 2005. Nextel opened up some of its systems to enable other firms to build their own software and services on top of its GPS technology. One example is AccuTracking, a small company which offers a tracking service for $6 a month and boasts that it is “ideal for vehicle tracking” or to keep “virtual eyes on kids”. Some customers are also using the service to track their spouses, by hiding phones in their cars.“Mine is hidden under the hood, hot-wired to the battery—it works very well and it is easy to hook up continuous power,” writes one customer on AccuTracking’s message board, who is tracking her husband.

　　Start-ups are working on everything from city-wide games of hide-and-seek to monitoring the locations of Alzheimer’s patients. Services that monitor jogging routes, and work out distance travelled and calories consumed, might also prove popular.

　　As a result, mobile operators, handset-makers and start-ups could transform and expand a small, specialist market hitherto dominated by expensive, dedicated tracking systems.

　　考研词汇：

　　outfit[ˈautˌfit]n.装备，供给

　　pinpoint [ˈpinpɔint]

　　n. 精确a.极微小的v.查明

　　reassurance[ˌri:ə'ʃʊərəns]

　　n. 放心

　　snoop[snu:p]

　　vi. 探听, 调查, 偷窃 n.到处窥视, 爱管闲事的人, 私家侦探

　　federal[ˈfedərəl]

　　a.联邦的

　　[真题例句]A few premiers are suspicious of any federalprovincial dealmaking.[2005年新题型]

　　[例句精译] 有几个省的政府官员对这种全国性代理机构持怀疑态度。

　　spouse[spauz]

　　n.配偶(指夫或妻)，保证人，主办人;vt.发起，主办;v.赞助

　　背景常识介绍：

　　GPS全称为“全球定位系统”，它是一种基于卫星的导航系统，其精确度已经达到10米以内。而用户无需为接收的卫星信号本身支付任何费用。而在手机上或者其他掌上移动设备中，当GPS的定位功能与数字地图相结合时，就可以为人们提供更加具体的更加直观的导航帮助，而不是仅仅告诉你目前的“经度、纬度”。特别是GPS系统与手机的结合，更是方便了大家的出行，既可以方便联系，也可以实现车载GPS系统的导航功能。

　　参考译文：

　　追踪你的一举一动

　　美国与其他地方的一些家庭已开始购买适合儿童使用，配有GPS(全球卫星定位系统)的移动电话。

　　这种电话与相关的追踪服务让父母可以轻而易举地查明孩子在什么地方。父母很情愿支付这笔电话费以知晓孩子身在何处，以换来自己的放心。孩子们想要父母给他们买个电话，则必须愿意忍受被秘密监视。

　　美国的移动电话运营商们正在推出追踪服务。遵照一条叫做E911的联邦法令，他们要升级服务网络，确保能找到任何拨打911呼救电话的人所处的位置，误差不超过100米。一些运营商采用了三角定位技术，此技术通过比较不同基站接收的手机信号来确定手机所处的位置。Verizon 与 Sprint 两个运营商则选用了更昂贵、但更精确的GPS技术，现在正在此基础上推出新服务，希望能以此赚钱。

　　Verizon 把它的服务叫做“陪护者”。每月花上10美元，父母用手机或个人电脑发出一个要求，就可以知道他们孩子的LG Migo手机的位置。孩子会收到一条“该手机的位置被要求发送”的信息，父母则收到一个地址，或是网络地图上的一个标记，指示出孩子的位置。如果每月多付 10美元，父母就可以成为一个叫“孩子地带”的用户，如果一个年轻人(或至少是这年轻人的手机)在一个特定的区域外游荡时，该服务就会立刻发出警告给父母，类似的服务还有一些。

　　Sprint在这方面是怎么做的呢?它推出了类似的服务，也能让父母知道孩子什么时候到达某个地点。

　　2005年被Sprint兼并的Nextel 则有另一项定位服务。Nextel开放了它的部分系统，可以让其他公司在其GPS技术平台上建立自己的软件与服务。Accu寻踪公司就是一个范例，这家小公司提供的追踪服务每月收费6美元，号称是“理想的车辆追踪工具”，还可以“时刻盯着孩子”。有些客户把电话藏在配偶的车里，用Accu寻踪公司的服务追踪他们。该公司的一个顾客在公司网站的留言版写道：“我把电话藏在引擎盖下边，并插在汽车电池上——真的很管用，而且挂接不间断电源也很容易。”这位女士是在追踪她的丈夫。

　　新生的公司正推出各种各样的新服务，从全城范围的捉迷藏游戏到追踪老年痴呆患者。一边监控慢跑路线，同时算出跑的路程与消耗的热量，这样的服务可能也会受欢迎。

　　寻踪服务的市场现在还只是个小规模的专业化市场，由收费昂贵、用途单一的各种寻踪服务把持，但移动运营商、手机制造商与许多新兴公司的介入可能使市场发生改变，并进一步扩大市场。