Welcome, Cybernauts!

(1) Ever since they were first staged in 19th century Europe, world’s fairs have enabled people from around the globe to visit wondrous stands where they can discover distant lands and new technologies. The 1996 world’s fair is no exception, but it also has a decidedly eve-of-the-21st-century twist: the whole event happens in cyberspace.

(2) A nonprofit project dreamed up by Americans Carl Malamud, a computer consultant, and Vinton Cerf, and Internet pioneer and telecommunications-company vice president, the Internet 1996 World Exposition is a digi-tal work in progress, a multi-chambered forum? that cybernauts can help build and renovate throughout the year — and perhaps long after the fair’s official close in December.

(3) While high-tech pavilions? set up by sponsoring corporations are featured prominently, as in real fairs, this virtual exposition is closer in spirit and reality to a vast, busy bazaar?, a marketplace for the talents and offer-ings of thousands of individuals and small groups. Anyone with a computer and a moderm can not only “attend” but also participate as an exhibitor by creating an individual multimedia Website. Visitors can easily navigate from an introduction to Luddism to an exhibition on the wildlife of the Galapagos Islands and then to a virtual Bengali religious festival.

(4) All the linked sites are supported by Central Park, a global infrastructure of six computer servers — ex-pected to triple to 18 by year’s end — located in such cities as Tokyo, Amsterdam, Adelaide and Washington. In addition, Japan boasts “public-access points” — from a group of cybercafes in Tokyo’s “in” Harajuku area to computer stations at the headquarters of telecommunications giant NTT — where people can walk off the streets and into the Internet. Amsterdam has a similar setup; more are planned for South Korea and Taiwan.

(5) Getting the fair up and running was by no means easy. Malamud, 36, spent the past year shuttling among 30 countries, lobbying companies that initially dismissed the project as unwieldy and unworkable. While some nations immediately supported the idea, others completely missed the point of Malamud’s vision: to make the fair a public-works project that focuses on what the Internet can offer ______ or novice?. Once grass-roots groups started backing the project, though, businesses were not far behind. By donating equipment and services, these companies will gain access to millions of potential consumers eager to see the firms’ latest technologies.

(6) Japanese corporations were quick to seize the chance of putting their technological prowess on show. Sony, for example, focuses its pavilion on its Cyber Passage software, which can combine three-dimensional images with sound and motion. The technology behind Cyber Passage — similar to that used in the Play Station, Sony’s successful new 32-bit video-game player — may have applications for distributing and playing 3-D games over the Net.

(7) Since the exposition’s Jan. 1 launch, as many as 40,000 visitors each day from more than 40 countries have tried the major Websites (the main home page is at http: //park. org ). Most virtual visitors log on from the U.S and Japan, but the United Arab Emirates, Sweden, Singapore and Estonia have been represented. Com-ments logged in the fair’s guest book are overwhelmingly positive. “Wow, the world is shrinking,” wrote a visi-tor from the Netherlands.

(8) Since their initial hesitancy, the major sponsors — primarily telecommunications and software compa-nies — have become firm believers. Beyond the diversity of content and international scope, the fair is a tech-nological marvel. A total of $100 million has been contributed toward producing the exposition, $25 million for computer equipment alone. The central servers have a storage capacity of a terabyte? — the equivalent of a million floppy? disks. Says Rob Blokzijl, a nuclear physicist and a member of the exposition’s executive com-mittee: “To make all those machines work happily together, you need the Internet.” But since the existing inter-national capabilities of the Internet were inadequate, he says, “we built a sort of backstage of our own.”

(9) And that backstage — a high-speed telecommunications pipeline — is the exposition’s true showpiece. Just as the 1889 Paris Exposition gave rise to the Eiffel Tower, this world’s fair will leave behind a structure that embodies its vision of the future: a transoceanic “railroad” of high-speed fiber-optic links. MCI and the Japa-nese telephone company KDD donated an estimated $ 20 million to the cost of the 45-megabit-per-second data hook-up. Laid down across the Pacific to connect the U.S. with Asia and Europe, the pipeline adds speed and quality to audio and video transmission: moving from noe screen to the next, which may take minutes on a phone circuit, can be done as quickly as switching TV channels with a remote control.

(10) The fastest international link ever installed, this pipeline could be the first step toward laying a permanent network that will eventually hardwire every nation in the world into the Internet. The organizers hope that the infrastructure — and awareness — nurtured by this exposition will lauch a boom in Net use. “By the end of 1996,” says organizer Cerf, “my hope and expectation is that people will discover there is such a strong busi-ness need for it that we’ll keep [the links] in place.” Malamud puts it in simpler terms: “I want this to be a fair-ground that goes on forever.”

【參考譯文】: 網(wǎng)絡(luò)游俠大集合

(1) 自從19世紀(jì)歐洲首度舉行世界博覽會以來，全球各地已經(jīng)有許多人借此參觀神奇的攤位，發(fā)現(xiàn)遙遠(yuǎn)的國度與新奇的科技。1996年世界博覽會也不例外，但是它加上了一個很有21世紀(jì)預(yù)感的變奏：整個博覽會在網(wǎng)絡(luò)世界進(jìn)行。

(2) 卡爾? 馬拉木德是電腦顧問，文通? 瑟夫是國際互聯(lián)網(wǎng)拓荒者，也是電傳通訊公司副總裁，這兩位美國人構(gòu)想出這個非營利的計劃。國際互聯(lián)網(wǎng)1996世界博覽會是一項進(jìn)行中的數(shù)位作業(yè)，有許多展示間的公共討論會場，網(wǎng)絡(luò)游俠有一整年的時間可以參與建造與更新，甚至可能會延續(xù)到12月正式結(jié)束之后很久。

(3) 贊助廠商設(shè)的高科技攤位固然像在真的博覽會中一樣占了顯著的地位，可是這場虛擬博覽會的氣氛與實務(wù)更接近一個龐大、熱鬧的商場，展售數(shù)以千計個人與小團(tuán)體的才能與商品。只要有一部電腦和調(diào)制解調(diào)器就可以“參加”，甚至也可以自己設(shè)計多媒體網(wǎng)址來參展。參觀者可以看到一個攤位有關(guān)反科技潮流的介紹，然后輕易轉(zhuǎn)到一場加拉帕戈斯群島野生生物的展覽，再去參觀虛擬的孟加拉宗教慶典。

(4) 所有連網(wǎng)的網(wǎng)站都由“中央公園”支援，這是6部電腦伺服器構(gòu)成的全球性基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施（年底預(yù)計會增加到18部），分別坐落在東京、阿姆斯特丹、阿德萊德與華盛頓等各大都市。此外日本還設(shè)有“大眾出入口”，民眾可以離開街道就走進(jìn)國際互聯(lián)網(wǎng)。這些出入口包括東京時髦的原宿區(qū)網(wǎng)絡(luò)咖啡館，以及電傳通訊巨人日本電報電話（NTT）公司總部的電腦站。阿姆斯特丹也有類似的設(shè)備，韓國和臺灣也在規(guī)劃中。

(5)這次博覽會能熱熱鬧鬧地進(jìn)行，絕非易事。36歲的馬拉木過去一年都在30個國家間穿梭，游說各大公司。起初這些公司都認(rèn)為他的計劃太龐大、不可行，也有一些國家立即支持這個構(gòu)想，有些國家則完全沒掌握住馬拉木夢想中的重點：把博覽會辦成公共工程計劃，焦點在于國際互聯(lián)網(wǎng)能給專家和新手哪些服務(wù)。到了基層的團(tuán)體開始支持這項計劃時，企業(yè)界也很快跟進(jìn)。各大公司捐贈設(shè)備與服務(wù)，為的是能接觸到數(shù)百萬潛在客戶——他們都急著想看看這些公司最新的科技。

(6)日本的公司很快抓住機(jī)遇把他們的科技實力公開展出。例如索尼公司攤位強(qiáng)調(diào)其“網(wǎng)絡(luò)通道”軟體，它可以組合立體影像與聲音、動作�！熬W(wǎng)絡(luò)通道”用到的技術(shù)和新力暢銷的新型32單元電視游樂器“游樂站”的技術(shù)類似，也許可以應(yīng)用在網(wǎng)絡(luò)上來傳送、執(zhí)行立體游戲。

(7) 自從1月1日推出以來，博覽會的主要網(wǎng)站一天能吸引到40多國的4萬名參觀者（主網(wǎng)頁設(shè)在http://park.org）。大多數(shù)的虛擬游客從美國、日本進(jìn)入，可是阿拉伯聯(lián)合酋長國、瑞典、新加坡與愛沙尼亞也不乏上網(wǎng)者。博覽會留言簿上的評語絕大多數(shù)是好評。一名荷蘭來的參觀者留言：“哇！世界變小了。”

(8)各大贊助公司——主要是電傳通訊公司與軟件公司——起初還有點遲疑，后來都變成堅信不渝。這場博覽會不僅內(nèi)容五花八門，涵蓋領(lǐng)域無遠(yuǎn)弗屆，在技術(shù)方面也是一項奇跡。為了順利推出博覽會，總計捐款達(dá)1億美元，光是電腦設(shè)備就值2500萬美元。中央伺服器的儲存量高達(dá)兆兆字節(jié)——相當(dāng)于100萬片軟盤。核子物理學(xué)家、博覽會執(zhí)行委員會委員羅布? 布洛柯錫說：“讓那么多機(jī)器一起愉快工作，只有靠國際互聯(lián)網(wǎng)。”可是因為國際互聯(lián)網(wǎng)現(xiàn)有的國際傳輸容量不足，他表示“所以我們自己蓋了一個后臺�！�

(9)那個后臺是高速的電傳通訊通道，也是博覽會真正的明星展示品。1889年的巴黎博覽會留下了埃菲爾鐵塔，這一次的世界博覽會也會留下一個結(jié)構(gòu)來代表未來的遠(yuǎn)景：越洋的高速光纖電纜——“鐵路”。MCI公司和日本電話公司（KDD）共捐贈約2000萬美元來建設(shè)這條每秒可傳45兆位資料的電纜。這條穿越太平洋，連通美國與歐、亞的通道，增強(qiáng)了音響與視訊的傳送速度與品質(zhì)。如果用電話線路來換畫面，一次要好幾分鐘�，F(xiàn)在可以快到像用遙控器轉(zhuǎn)換電視頻道一樣。

(10)這條通道是歷史上最快的國際連線，也是邁出了第一步，將來可能埋下永久性的網(wǎng)線，逐步將世界上每一個國家都直接連入國際互聯(lián)網(wǎng)中。博覽會的規(guī)劃者希望，此次大會培育出來的基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施——以及網(wǎng)絡(luò)意識——可以推動使用網(wǎng)絡(luò)的新熱潮。主事者瑟夫說：“到1996年底，我很希望，也很期待人們會發(fā)現(xiàn)我們建立的聯(lián)網(wǎng)為企業(yè)界迫切需要，那么就可以把它留著�！瘪R拉木講得更簡單明了：“我希望它是永不結(jié)束的市集�！�