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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?
它會將世界置于你的指掌之中，改變你的購物、娛樂和學習等活動的方式。這種未來生活的前景何時才會變成現實呢?
Barbara Kantrowitz with Joshua Cooper Ramo
巴巴拉康特羅維茨，亞叔華庫帕拉莫
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.
由過去的歷史可以推知未來。在新澤西州西奧蘭治鎮的愛迪生國家歷史紀念館里，有一個陳列留聲機的展廳，里面陳列了十二臺老式留聲機。這些留聲機有些是由托馬斯o愛迪生制造的，正是他于1877年發明了留聲技術;而另外的一些則是那些競爭對手們制造的。在這些展出的留聲機所反映的那幾十年的歷史中，留聲技術的概念和功用發生了巨大的變化。在愛迪生的認識里，留聲機就是一種能幫助遠隔兩地的人們進行通訊交流的工具。他只想要錄下人們的聲音-一點也沒想到別的，但那些競爭者們卻想到了它在娛樂和藝術方面的更大發展潛力。愛迪生從留聲機里看到了備忘記事本，別人卻從中發現了貝多芬。
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.
將來某一天，完全有可能出現一個類似的紀念館來紀念最新的突破性技術--互相作用技術發明者們的尚未實現的預言。這項技術真的能夠改變世界嗎?一個尚處于理論設計階段的技術發展計劃既得到巨額的資金投入，又成為人們無限的期望所系，也無怪乎其能夠轟動一時了。其實，說白了，這一計劃的最高期望目標是：任何人只要觸動一個按鈕即可得到大量的信息--從航空班機時刻表到深奧的專業雜志到最最新百老匯戲劇實驗中心的戲劇錄像節目，各種信息應有盡有。看電影將不再是一種消極被動的經歷。
