让互联网覆盖更广泛

    This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.
    这里是美国之音慢速英语科技报道。

    The world has almost seven billion people. At least two billion are expected to be on the Internet by January. New growth is mostly from developing countries. Yet only twenty-one percent of their population is online.
    全球有近70亿的人口。截止明年1月,至少有20亿人有望接入互联网。新增人数主要来自发展中国家,然而,在发展中国家仅有21%的人接入互联网。

    A group called the World Wide Web Foundation is working to make the Web more usable to more of the world.
    一个名为万维网基金会(World Wide Web Foundation )的组织正努力使网络覆盖到世界更多的地方。

    Tim Berners-Lee is the British computer scientist who invented the World Wide Web. He announced the launch of the Web Foundation last November.
    蒂姆·伯纳斯·李(Tim Berners-Lee)创建万维网的英国计算机科学家。去年11月,他宣布万维网基金会成立。

    The group says many people can access the Web but are unable to use it. The biggest reason is illiteracy.
    该组织称,很多人可以访问网络,但是不会使用网络,其最大的原因是文盲。

    The latest United Nations report says almost eight hundred million adults are unable to read or write. Even for those who can read, much of the information that is available on the Web is not in a language they can understand.
    联合国最新报告称,有近8亿成年人不会读或写。即使会读,网络提供的多数信息也是用一种他们无法理解的语言。

    Steve Bratt is chief executive of the Web Foundation.
    史蒂夫·布拉特(Steve Bratt)是万维网基金会的CEO。

    STEVE BRATT: "If you're a poor shopkeeper living in a very impoverished part of Botswana and you're trying to feed your family, trying to buy and sell goods, trying to get medical services for your kids or your employees, and you speak a local language, there's nothing on today's Web that's going to help you, right?
    布拉特:“如果你是个生活在博茨瓦纳(Botswana)一个非常贫穷的地方的店主,努力养活你的家人,买卖商品,为孩子和雇员争取医疗服务,说一口方言。当今的网络对你来说就毫无帮助,对不对?”

    "So even if they had connectivity and they had a mobile phone, or something they could get to the Web, what would they look for? What would they be able to understand?"
    “所以,即使他们网线,有移动电话,或者有其它访问网络的设备。他们上网能查什么?他们能获取什么信息?”

    Tim Berners-Lee first proposed the idea for the World Wide Web in nineteen eighty-nine. This was twenty years after Americans developed the first version of what we know as the Internet.
    1989年,伯纳斯·李首次提出万维网的设想,那是在美国人开发出我们熟知的第一代互联网20年后。
    注:互联网始于1969年。

    The Internet is a network of networks. It lets millions of computers communicate with each other. The Web is a major part. However, people now often use applications that are not Web-based, like on social networks and mobile devices like the iPhone.
    互联网是网络中的网络,它让数百万的计算机相互通信。WEB网络是主要组成部分。然而,人们现在经常使用的应用程序不是基于WEB网络的,像社会网络和iPhone这样的移动设备。

    Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web as a way to help people share information. His early work brought the Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML, used to create Web pages. It also gave us the Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- the HTTP before Web addresses.
    伯纳斯·李创建万维网做为人们分享信息的一种途径。他的早期研究带来了用于创建网页的超文本标记语言(Hypertext Markup Language),还给我们带来了超文本传输协议(Hypertext Transfer Protocol)--就是网址前面的HTTP。

    By two thousand eight, Google reported that the number of Web pages had passed one trillion. Steve Bratt says the World Wide Web Foundation wants everyone to be able to use this information.
    谷歌报告称,到2008年,网页数量已超过1万亿。布拉特称,万维网基金会希望所有人都能够使用这些信息。

    STEVE BRATT: "Our main purpose is to advance the Web to empower people. It's focusing on the Web not just as a technology, but as one of the most powerful means for connecting people to knowledge and people to each other."
    布拉特:“我们的主要目标是推动网络发展以赋予人们力量。它着眼于网络不仅仅是一项技术,还是人们获得知识,相互沟通的最强大的工具之一。”

    Partnerships with the Web Science Trust and the World Wide Web Consortium aim to create applications that make the Web more user-friendly. Steve Bratt says mobile technology is an important part of that work, as more and more people use their phones to go online.
    互联网基金会与国际网络协会(Web Science Trust)、万维网联盟(World Wide Web Consortium)的合作旨在创建让网络更方便使用的应用程序。布拉特称,随着越来越多的人使用移动电话上网,移动技术已成为这项工作的重要组成部分。

    STEVE BRATT: "One of the challenges we have is to make the Web a lot easier to use even on the simplest and least expensive mobile phones."
    布拉特:“我们现在遇到的挑战之一就是,让网络更易于使用,即使是在最简单、最廉价的移动电话上。”