The Magician
The revolution that Steve Jobs led is only just beginning
When it came to putting on a show, nobody else in the computer industry, or any other industry for that matter, could match Steve Jobs. His product launches, at which he would stand alone on a black stage and produce as if by magic an “incredible” new electronic gadget (小器具)in front of an amazed crowd, were the performances of a master showman. All computers do is fetch and work with numbers, he once explained, but do it fast enough and “the results appear to be magic”. Mr Jobs, who died recently aged 56, spent his life packaging that magic into elegantly designed, easy-to-use products.
The reaction to his death, with people leaving candles and flowers outside Apple stores and politicians singing praises on the internet, is proof that Mr Jobs had become something much more significant than just a clever money-maker. He stood out in three ways－as a technologist, as a corporate （公司的）leader and as somebody who was able to make people love what had previously been impersonal, functional gadgets. Strangely, it is this last quality that may have the deepest effect on the way people live. The era of personal technology is in many ways just beginning.
As a technologist, Mr Jobs was different because he was not an engineer－and that was his great strength. Instead he was keenly interested in product design and aesthetics (美学),and in making advanced technology simple to use. He repeatedly took an existing but half-formed idea－the mouse-driven computer, the digital music player, the smartphone, the tablet computer (平板电脑)－and showed the rest of the industry how to do it properly. Rival firms competed with each other to follow where he led. In the process he brought about great changes in computing, music, telecoms and the news business that were painful for existing firms but welcomed by millions of consumers.
Within the wider business world, a man who liked to see himself as a hippy (嬉皮士),permanently in revolt against big companies, ended up being hailed by many of those corporate giants as one of the greatest chief executives of his time. That was partly due to his talents: showmanship, strategic vision, an astonishing attention to detail and a dictatorial management style which many bosses must have envied. But most of all it was the extraordinary trajectory (轨迹) of his life. His fall from grace in the 1980s, followed by his return to Apple in 1996 after a period in the wilderness, is an inspiration to any businessperson whose career has taken a turn for the worse. The way in which Mr Jobs revived the failing company he had co-founded and turned it into the world’s biggest tech firm (bigger even than Bill Gates’s Microsoft, the company that had outsmarted Apple so dramatically in the 1980s), sounds like something from a Hollywood movie.
But what was perhaps most astonishing about Mr Jobs was the absolute loyalty he managed to inspire in customers. Many Apple users feel themselves to be part of a community, with Mr Jobs as its leader. And there was indeed a personal link. Apple’s products were designed to accord with the boss’s tastes and to meet his extremely high standards. Every iPhone or MacBook has his fingerprints all over it. His great achievement was to combine an emotional spark with computer technology, and make the resulting product feel personal. And that is what put Mr Jobs on the right side of history, as technological innovation (创新) has moved into consumer electronics over the past decade.
As our special report in this issue (printed before Mr Jobs’s death) explains, innovation used to sp ill over from military and corporate laboratories to the consumer market, but lately this process has gone into reverse. Many people’s homes now have more powerful, and more flexible, devices than their offices do; consumer gadgets and online services are smarter and easier to use than most companies’ systems. Familiar consumer products are being adopted by businesses, government and the armed forces. Companies are employing in-house versions of Facebook and creating their own “app stores” to deliver software to employees. Doctors use tablet computers for their work in hospitals. Meanwhile, the number of consumers hungry for such gadgets continues to swell. Apple’s products are now being snapped up in Delhi and Dalian just as in Dublin and Dallas.
Mr Jobs had a reputation as a control freak (怪人), and his critics complained that the products and systems he designed were closed and inflexible, in the name of greater ease of use. Yet he also empowered millions of people by giving them access to cutting-edge technology. His insistence on putting users first, and focusing on elegance and simplicity, has become deep-rooted in his own company, and is spreading to rival firms too. It is no longer just at Apple that designers ask: “What would Steve Jobs do?”
The gap between Apple and other tech firms is now likely to narrow. This week’s announcement of a new iPhone by a management team led by Tim Cook, who replaced Mr Jobs as chief executive in August, was generally regarded as competent but uninspiring. Without Mr Jobs to shower his star dust on the event, it felt like just another product launch from just another technology firm. At the recent unveiling of a tablet computer by Jeff Bezos of Amazon, whose company is doing the best job of following Apple’s lead in combining hardware, software, content and services in an easy-to-use bundle, there were several attacks at Apple. But by doing his best to imitate Mr Jobs, Mr Bezos also flattered (抬举)him. With Mr Jobs gone, Apple is just one of many technology firms trying to arouse his uncontrollable spirit in new products.
Mr Jobs was said by an engineer in the early years of Apple to emit a “reality distortion (扭曲)field”, such were his powers of persuasion. But in the end he created a reality of his own, channeling the magic of computing into products that reshaped entire industries. The man who said in his youth that he wanted to “put a ding in the universe” did just that.
French fries, washed down with a pint of soda, are a favorite part of fast-food lunches and dinners for millions of American youngsters. But (1) _______ a cue from health experts, a group of 19 restaurant companies are pledging to offer more-healthful menu options for children at a time when (2) ______ is growing over the role of fast food in childhood obesity (肥胖症).
Burger King, the nation’s second-largest fast food chain, for instance, will (3) ______ automatically including French fries and soda in its kids’ meals starting this month, although they will still be (4) ______. Instead, the company said Tuesday, its employees will ask parents whether they (5) ______ such options as milk or sliced apples before assembling the meals. “We’re asking the customers to (6) ______ what they want,” said Craig Prusher, the chain’s vice president of government relations. Other participating chains, with a (7) ______ of menu options, including Denny’s, Chili’s, Friendly’s and Chevy’s.
As part of the Kids Live Well campaign-expected to be announced (8) ______ Wednesday—participating restaurants must promise to offer at least one children’s meal that has fewer than 600 calories(卡路里), no soft drinks and at least two (9) ______ from the following food groups: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins or low-fat dairy. Among other requirements, they must offer a side dish that meets similar (10) ______, with fewer than 200 calories and less than 35%of its calories from sugar.
| A)adapt B)available C)begin D)concern E)criteria F)items G)nationwide H)possible I) prefer J) recommending K) species L) specify M) stop N) taking O) variety |
Throughout this long, tense election, everyone has focused on the presidential candidates and how they’ll change America. Rightly so, but selfishly, I’m more fascinated by Michelle Obama and what she might be able to do, not just for this country, but for me as an African-American woman. As the potential First Lady, she would have the world’s attention. And that means that for the first time people will have a chance to get up close and personal with the type of African-American woman they so rarely see.
Usually, the lives of black women go largely unexamined. The prevailing theory seems to be that we’re all hot-tempered single mothers who can’t keep a man. Even in the world of make-believe, black women still can’t escape the stereotype of being eye-rolling, oversexed females raised by our never-married, alcoholic (酗酒的) mothers.
These images have helped define the way all women are viewed, including Michelle Obama. Before she ever gets the chance to commit to a cause, charity or foundation as First Lady, her most urgent and perhaps most complicated duty may be simple to be herself.
It won’t be easy. Because few mainstream publications have done in-depth features on regular African-American women, little is known about who we are, what we think and what we face on a regular basis. For better or worse, Michelle will represent us all.
Just as she will have her critics, she will also have millions of fans who usually have little interest in the First Lady. Many African-American blogs have written about what they’d like to see Michelle bring to the White House—mainly showing the world that a black woman can support her man and raise a strong black family. Michelle will have to work to please everyone—an impossible task. But for many African-American women like me, just a little of her poise (沉着), confidence and intelligence will go a long way in changing an image that’s been around for far too long.
When next year’s crop of high-school graduates arrive at Oxford University in the fall of 2009, they’ll be joined by a new face; Andrew Hamilton, the 55-year-old provost (教务长) of Yale, who’ll become Oxford’s vice-chancellor—a position equivalent to university president in America.
Hamilton isn’t the only educator crossing the Atlantic. Schools in France, Egypt, Singapore, etc, have also recently made top-level hires from abroad. Higher education has become a big and competitive business nowadays, and like so many businesses, it’s gone global. Yet the talent flow isn’t universal. High-level personnel tend to head in only one direction: outward from America.
The chief reason is that American schools don’t tend to seriously consider looking abroad. For example, when the board of the University of Colorado searched for a new president, it wanted a leader familiar with the state government, a major source of the university’s budget. “We didn’t do any global consideration,” says Patricia Hayes, the board’s chair. The board ultimately picked Bruce Benson, a 69-year-old Colorado businessman and political activist (活动家) who is likely to do well in the main task of modern university presidents: fund-raising. Fund-raising is a distinctively American thing, since U.S. schools rely heavily on donations. The fund-raising ability is largely a product of experience and necessity.
Many European universities, meanwhile, are still mostly dependent on government funding. But government support has failed to keep pace with rising student number. The decline in government support has made funding-raising an increasing necessary ability among administrators and has hiring committees hungry for Americans.
In the past few years, prominent schools around the world have joined the trend. In 2003, when Cambridge University appointed Alison Richard, another former Yale provost, as its vice-chancellor, the university publicly stressed that in her previous job she had overseen “a major strengthening of Yale’s financial position.”
Of course, fund-raising isn’t the only skill outsiders offer. The globalization of education means more universities will be seeking heads with international experience of some kind of promote international programs and attract a global student body. Foreigners can offer a fresh perspective on established practices.
People are, on the whole, poor at considering background information when making individual decisions. At first glance this might seem like a strength that (1) _______ the ability to make judgments which are unbiased by (2) _______ factors. But Dr. Uri Simonsohn speculated that an inability to consider the big (3) _______ was leading decision-makers to be biased by the daily samples of information they were working with. (4) _______, he theorised that a judge (5) _______ of appearing too soft (6) _______ crime might be more likely to send someone to prison (7) _______ he had already sentenced five or six other defendants only to forced community service on that day.
To (8) _______ this idea, he turned to the university-admissions process. In theory, the (9) _______ of an applicant should not depend on the few others (10) _______ randomly for interview during the same day, but Dr. Simonsohn suspected the truth was (11) _______.
He studied the results of 9,323 MBA interviews (12) _______ by 31 admissions officers. The interviewers had (13) _______ applicants on a scale of one to five. This scale (14) _______ numerous factors into consideration. The scores were (15) _______ used in conjunction with an applicant's score on the Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT, a standardized exam which is (16) _______ out of 800 points, to make a decision on whether to accept him or her.
Dr. Simonsohn found if the score of the previous candidate in a daily series of interviewees was 0.75 points or more higher than that of the one (17) _______ that, then the score for the next applicant would (18) _______ by an average of 0.075 points. This might sound small, but to (19) _______ the effects of such a decrease a candidate would need 30 more GMAT points than would otherwise have been (20) _______.
For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay explaining Why it is unwise to put all your eggs in one basket. You can give examples to illustrate your point. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.
Why it is unwise to put all your eggs in one basket.