И.С. Гудилина, Л.Б. Саратовская, Л.Ф. Спиридонова - English Reader in Computer Science, страница 3

NOTES:

1. Leverage (n.) — средство, трансляционное отношение.

2. Proprietary (adj.) — патентованный, уникальный, собственный.

3. Interoperability (n.) — возможность взаимодействия.

II. Read and translate text №2 without a dictionary. Pay attention to the underlined grammar structure. Think of two problem questions.

TEXT №2

Leveraging Interoperability

These e-commerce pioneers give us a glimpse of the future. But even these state-of-the-art digital enterprises are not fully leveraging the Internet's power, says Tenenbaum. As long as they remain self-contained worlds, proprietary interfaces lock them in and prevent them from serving other marketplaces. Third parties cannot integrate these services into their operations to form a supply chain or build value-added services (such as quality assurance and referral) on top of them. To allow for this, the construction of e-commerce sites must fundamentally change. They must be openly accessible—by agents as well as by browsers—with a network services application programming interface facilitating the transfer of machine-readable information that other services can use.

CommerceNet is working with its members to promote such interoperability. It is developing an architecture called Eco System that will make existing languages and standards like HTML, Java, and CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) work together to transform the Internet int3 a global "object bus." [See the accompanying article, "Eco System: An Internet Commerce Architecture," p. 48.) ] CommerceNet is also

working with its members to create and populate prototype Internet markets like the ones for auto parts and the mall of malls in Japan.

Unit 4

I. Read and translate text №1 in written form using a dictionary if necessary.

II. Give a detailed answer to the questions:

1. Why are professional services considered to be the area of expanding job possibilities?

2. What is called WangCare?

3. What was the result of cooperation between North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp. and Arthur Anderson and Co.?

Make up a short summary of the text (see pp.5-8).

ТЕХТ №1

Growth Area: Computer Services

One area of expanding job possibilities in the computer field is professional services. In the past, computer companies have emphasized the development and sale of their products. But now many businesses have already invested in computer systems, the focus has shifted to demonstrating new uses for them as well as working out specific business problems through computer applications. Many hardware and software companies believe that through personalized instruction, demonstrations, and applications analysis, they will sell more of their products. In addition, as businesses are becoming more sophisticated in the use of computers, they want systems that are designed for their own particular needs. Computer consultants are professionals who may work for the computer or software companies, meeting with customers to advise them on the use of their company's products; within a traditional business consulting firm; in special departments of large companies that use computers; or in independent firms that specialize in computer consulting.

In 1984 Wang Laboratories Inc. started a special computer services unit called WangCare. Consultants work on two- to three-day projects, helping Wang customers to select the right software for their needs, individually tailoring the hardware to fit the customers' applications, and installing and maintaining Wang systems. After a system is in place, WangCare consultants may return periodically to bring the system up to date, For these services WangCare receives about 12,000 to 3,000 for each initial project. Manager Donna L. Cheney expected total revenues to double in its third year of business.

IBM has been involved in the computer services area for thirty years, but lately this segment of its business is expanding dramatically. One division of the company. Federal Systems, employs 5,000 people. While Federal Systems did only government work until recently, today the division is moving into consulting for private businesses, including an extensive project for United Airlines, which will develop an improved computer reservation system.

Recently, North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp. hired Arthur Andersen & Co., a Big Eight accounting firm that has begun working in the area of computer consulting, to sort out a number of problems in distribution, marketing, and management. Arthur Andersen set up a team of45 computer consultants to study Philips's operations. The consultants' task was to talk with distributors, salespeople, company executives, and customers in order to analyze problem areas and generate possible solutions. The total project cost to North American Philips was S5 million, and it lasted 18 months. The end result was a reorganization in the company's marketing department and a simplification of the ordering process. More importantly, though, the team designed a new computer system that set up a network of distributors, shippers, salespeople and manufacturers. While the cost of the project was high, Philips executives believe that it will result in a reduction of the business's overall operating costs.

Smaller firms involved in consulting are focusing on areas of industry in which they have specialized knowledge. Management Science America Inc., a software company in Atlanta, concentrates on developing systems for education and manufacturing, while Control Data Corp. consults mainly electric utilities and oil companies and Burroughs Corp. focuses its services on hospital systems.

As this area continues to grow, it will provide increasing opportunities for professionals working in a variety of settings—from computer and software companies, large and small, to consulting companies with broad or narrow focus.

Unit 5

1. Read and translate text №1 in written form using a dictionary if necessary.

ТЕХТ № 1

Visual Thinking

Professor BS Benzon of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, New York, theorizes that expressing ideas in a visual form is an aid to thinking. For this reason, Benzon believes that the Apple Macintosh is a highly significant development in microcomputing, as it makes expressing ideas visually easy, even for people with no artistic ability. Benzon points to highly creative mathematicians such as Einstein, whose ideas first took shape as visual images before he was even able to express them as words or in mathematical symbols, Benzon contends that in order to hold the image of an idea in mind while developing it, it is beneficial to create some kind of representation of it in the form of a model or drawing. This is what James Watson and Francis Crick did when they discovered the structure of DNA: They built a three-dimensional model of it in order to be able to both understand and work with their idea, as well as to demonstrate it to others. "Writing and drawing provide external support for thought" (p. 114), Ben2on contends. But while writing is relatively easy to learn, drawing and building three-dimensional structures are not. With its easily mastered graphics capabilities, Benzon says, the Macintosh can be a tool to facilitate thinking.

As an example of how images help us to think, Benzon cites the phenomenon psychologists call the gestalt switch, or moving back and forth from one interpretation of an image to another. At one moment a particular image looks like a white vase centered on a black background. In another glance, you see the silhouettes of two faces in profile looking at one another. According to Веnzon, images like these that convey an idea are similar to proverbs and fables, which of course are communicated verbally. But images are more difficult to pass on to others. And this is where the Macintosh comes in. By making visual expression almost as easy as writing, the computer and its software enable people to create images of their ideas, work with them, and pass them on to others in the form of printouts.

Benzon discusses the method of loci as an illustration of the fact that integrating visual and verbal information is important in thought processes. The method of loci is a system for remembering verbal material by visualizing it in a particular location. In ancient Greece, young people trained in public speaking used this technique of visualizing the ideas of the speech as situated in various parts of a particular place. The Greeks might have used a temple and pictured themselves walking around it to retrieve this idea from the first column on the left and that idea from the statue in the comer. On a memorized mental walk through the temple, the speaker goes from idea to idea, the images of each place in the temple activating each subsequent idea of the talk. In a sense, Benzon points out; this kind of memory-retrieval system works in a way that is similar to that of a computer. Whereas the computer assigns codes to information stored in memory, the human mind assigns a place to each piece of data. Both systems later use their own particular indexing system to retrieve stored information.

NOTES:

1. bar graph (n.) — столбчатая диаграмма.

2. helix scan — винтовая развертка.

II. Read and translate text №2 orally without a dictionary, mind the notes. Summarize orally the main idea of the text.(see pp.5-8)

TEXT № 2

Bar Graphs

Today we use illustrations to make our ideas more understandable. Columns of numbers showing profits of a particular company over the last three decades are easier to grasp when presented as a bar graph. People studying grammar often draw diagrams of sentences, as an aid to understanding grammatical structure and the way sentence's various parts work together. More complex images, the double helix that Watson and Crick worked with, for example, while highly informative and useful in communicating concepts, are quite difficult for most people to draw. For this reason, many ideas that would be simple to grasp visually must be described verbally; a method that is ill suited to them.

The Macintosh allows users to access images that have already been drawn by others and to employ them in their own representations. Without any artistic skill whatsoever, Benzon points out, MacPaint can help users to create not only recognizable images of, say, a horse but also abstract images representing concepts. In addition, users can create completely new images to work with to help in the development of an idea or to pass it along to someone else. Benzon believes that in this way the Macintosh can be used as a tool for better, more productive thinking.

Unit 6

Read and translate text .№1 in written form using a dictionary if necessary.

ТЕХТ № 1

IBM's Personal System/2 Line

Choosing to buy IBM's Personal System/2 line is not merely a decision of hardware and software. It is a choice to follow IBM's connectivity philosophy for the future. IBM's announcements may force MIS managers to rethink the direction computing will take in their organi2ations during the next 20 years.

IBM's OS/2 environment introduced for its PS/2 line is part of a broader IBM software scenario that includes applications on hosts and mid-range systems and IBM System Application Architecture. OS/2 was designed as the workstation-level component of this scheme, with IBM's data base management, communications and end-user interface features reflected in offerings throughout the firm's product line ....

IBM's JPS/2 line is not just a personal computer, and OS/2 is not Just a personal computer operating system. Granted, these products provide multitasking, Intel Corp. 80286 protected mode, windows, high-resolution graphics and numerous other PC features, but IBM designed this principal PC product line to form an integral part of the firm's broader product scenario.

The extent to which the OS/2 operating environment is integrated into the full IBM scenario is striking. In particular, OS/2 Extended Edition, as a set of bundled capabilities, does not suppose a user may want to pick and choose his features; for the extra $470, you get connectivity to virtually the entire IBM product line, a commitment to an SQL-based relational data base management system (DMBS) and the core of an end-user interface that will ultimately provide transparent access to every facility of even' system in an IBM network. It is rather like a workstation integration Solution Pack, a comprehensive set of "load-and-go" features.

IBM obviously put a lot of planning into its latest move, whose origins can be traced to 1983, when IBM started putting together a global software infrastructure designed to form the core of its large end-user solutions well into the 21st century. Some of these capabilities have been implemented, some are due soon and some are still in IBM programming laboratories.

These capabilities include a complex of relational DMBS reflected in OS/2 Extended Edition's Database Manager; a multiformat communications environment reflected in OS/2 Extended Edition's Communications Manager; and a common end-user interface implemented in OS/2 under its Presentation Manager component. The whole of these capabilities will ultimately serve as the vehicle through which a user may access the full range of facilities available on all IBM systems in an IBM complex network.

II. Read and translate text №2 orally.

TEXT № 2

System Software

The end-user interface in OS/2 is based on Microsoft Windows. The interface is implemented in OS/2 Standard Edition as the Presentation Manager, with baseline windowing, pointing device and all-points-addressable graphics....

By now, we are getting close to the Big Blue concept of the Compound Electronic Document (CED). This futuristic concept enables end users to create, edit, store, communicate, receive and play back fully integrated documents incorporating data, text, graphics, image, voice and noncoded or scratch-mark information. As presented by IBM, CED manipulation would include routine data, text and graphics components with some new twists.

The first component of CED is image processing in the form of scanner-inputted material. This material could be expected to consist principally of paper documents that have been entered into an IBM database and then called up by the workstation user to incorporate a copy of one or more images into a compound document.

The second component is scratch-mark data manipulation. Ibis element allows the possibility of being able to electronically sign a document with a light pen or comparable pointing device, thereby removing the necessity for a separate hard copy of a document in applications in which a personal signature is required

The principle is simple: IBM wants to create a common user environment in which access to systems for business applications and programming can be performed regardless of the actual IBM hardware and software that the user is utilizing