百度上市后够折腾的，做了好多的公关宣传活动，这是百度内部庆祝IPO的一个宣传短片，配音被人改成了四川话，不过，作为四川土著，我不得不说，片中人物的四川话已经“黑们的不正宗了”。

科技遇上自然灾害 电力成通讯网络关键因素

作者： CNET科技资讯网 翻译：李海

CNETNews.com.cn 2005-10-24 09:45 AM

CNET科技资讯网 10月24日国际报道 美国南部居民现在又在准备迎接另外一场飓风，这次，维护电力供应成为每各家通讯运营商的重点。

卡特里娜飓风时，很多事情搞的一团糟，而大部分的技术问题都和当地的通讯网络中断有关，这一问题直接影响到了救援工作的开展。美国联邦通讯委员会表示，卡特里娜让路易斯安那州，密西西比及阿拉巴马3百万电话线，1千个手机基站，38个应急呼叫中心瘫痪。

是什么令99.99%可靠的电话网络瘫痪，整个地区的电视停播，当地通讯受损？答案很简单：洪水漫入设施，商业电站受损。

Verizon通讯公司的发言人Mark Marchand说：“不管是何种自然灾害，只要没电，网络就无法运行。”

作为赈灾的一部分，手机公司，通讯运营商以及有线公司都在现场准备了应急发电机维持设备运行，但有时候，这仍然无法解决问题。

贝尔南方公司主要服务于美国东南部地区，主要包括墨西哥湾以及佛罗里达部分地区，自从1992年以来，这一地区已经遭受了22场飓风。但直到卡特里娜飓风，贝尔南方公司从来没有当过机。但这次，情况完全不同。肆虐整个地区的大洪水灌进了公司的中心办公室，令它的备用发电机熄火。

贝尔南方公司的市话网络的瘫痪给其它通讯网络造成了影响。

Sprint Nextel的公关部经理John Taylor说：“人们不太清楚手机网络，市话网络以及商业电力公司之间的关系。我们依赖市话网络以及电力公司来运行我们的无线网络。”

在手机网络当中，一个手机信号发射塔服务于某个地区，这个发射塔一般通过T1数据连接与当地的电话网络进行连接。如果当地的电话网络瘫痪，那么手机信号发射塔也无法正常工作。另外，手机信号发射塔也受电力供应的影响，因为它们需要电力来进行信号的发射与接受工作，一旦电力中断，手机信号塔也不能运行。

许多手机信号发射塔配备有备用电源，但并不是每一个都有。一般来讲，手机通讯运营商会在发射塔附近配备一个车载发电机装置，一旦停电，车载发电机会第一时间赶往事发地进行救援。

在通常情况下，当地的电话网络是一个国家中最可靠的网络设施。它的可靠性一般可以达到99.99%。

但在某些情况下，本地电话网络也可能瘫痪，就像在卡特里娜飓风时候那样。当时，新奥尔良束手无策的官员和布什的第一个电话不是通过传统的电话网络或者手机网络完成的，他们的通话是在笔记本电脑上，由互联网语音电话实现的。Ray Nagin市长及同僚当时在Hyatt Regency酒店，而这个酒店当时还有备用发电机，这样互联网才得以保持畅通。

互联网设计本身就非常难以瘫痪，因此，在遭遇到飓风这样的灾难时，互联网是最灵活，最可靠的通讯网络。互联网及其底层技术使得它成为一个分布式的网络，即使某一个连接点坏掉了，也不会影响全局网络的使用。

传统电话网络是建设在电路交换技术的基础上的，它可以进行点对点的连接。一个电话通话直接就连接到另外一个目的方。但是， IP网络是一个网状的连接，因此，互联网电话可以从多个途径到达目的地。

Verizon和贝尔南方等许多公司已经开始将自己的部分网络改造成为IP网络。

但是，互联网语音电话仍然需要电力的支持。贝尔南方公司的首席技术官Bill Smith就认为，IP技术不是增加网络可靠性的救世主。他说：“互联网语音电话是很棒的一件事情，但它仍然需要另外一些东西的支持。最大的问题就是电力供应。大部分的互联网语音电话仍然需要电力的支持。”(编辑：孙莹)

Tech vs. Mother Nature

By Marguerite Reardon

Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: October 21, 2005, 3:00 PM PDT

As parts of the southeastern United States prepare for yet another hurricane, maintaining electrical power remains a top priority for every communications service provider.

While many things went wrong during the aftermath and relief effort of Hurricane Katrina, the technical issue that sticks out the most is the failing of the local communications network, a failure which hamstrung rescuers. The storm knocked out 3 million telephone lines, 1,000 cellular sites and 38 emergency-call centers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

So what was the weak link in the chain that caused the supposedly 99.999-percent-reliable telephone network to go down, local television stations throughout the area to go off the air, and cable operators to suspend service? The answer is simple: Flood waters poured into facilities, knocking out commercial electrical power sources as well as back-up generators and batteries.

"It doesn’t matter what kind of natural disaster it is," said Mark Marchand, a spokesman for Verizon Communications. "If you don’t have power, the network doesn’t work."

As part of their disaster relief plans, phone companies, cellular providers and cable operators have emergency generators and batteries standing by to keep their equipment running. But still, sometimes things fall apart.

Dependence on electrical power and what happens when that power is cut off is best illustrated by BellSouth’s problems during Hurricane Katrina. BellSouth, which serves much of the Southeast, including the Gulf Coast and parts of Florida, has been through more natural disasters than any other phone company in the United States. Since 1992, 22 hurricanes have hit the state. And prior to Katrina, BellSouth never lost service in a central office. But this time was different. Massive flooding throughout the region made its way to the company’s central office, making its back-up power generators essentially useless.

"BellSouth has a foolproof plan for dealing with loss of power," said Nadine Randall, a spokeswoman for BellSouth. "The problem occurred when flooding caused the central office to go down. We knew the office in New Orleans was in a floodplain, so we actually built the facility on stilts and put all the critical switching gear on the second and third floors and filled them with sandbags before the storm hit. But in the end, Mother Nature wins." The switches may not have gotten wet, but technicians couldn’t get any power to them.

The failing of BellSouth’s local phone network also had a ripple effect on other communications networks.

"One thing that people don’t understand is the relationship between the mobile phone network, local phone companies and commercial power companies," said John Taylor, senior manager of public affairs for Sprint Nextel. "We depend on local phone and power to run our wireless networks."

In a mobile phone network, a cell tower will service a particular region. The tower is usually connected to the local phone network via a T1 data link. If the local phone network is out, the cell tower is unable to transmit the traffic. Cell towers are also vulnerable to power outages because they need electricity to run the radios that transmit signals to customers and the switches that send the traffic to the local phone network. Without power, the cell tower cannot operate.

Many cell towers have backup batteries, but unlike the central offices of the local phone network, not every tower has its own back-up generator. Instead, cell phone operators deploy trucks with generators to a particular region and then work to restore power in affected areas as quickly as they can after a storm or other emergency situation subsides.

Designed for resiliency, the local phone network is among the most reliable utilities in the country. From the facilities that house the critical equipment that switches and routes calls to the network itself, the traditional telephone network boasts a reliability rate of 99.999 percent. If a link on the network is cut, the network usually is able to reroute traffic around the outage. This often happens during ice storms, hurricanes and earthquakes. Phone companies, in particular, have learned to keep their networks decentralized and to build redundancy into links.

But sometimes the network fails, as it did during and after Hurricane Katrina. The first call between stranded officials in New Orleans and President Bush was not carried over the traditional phone network or even the cell phone network. It went over the Internet using a laptop running software from voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider Vonage. Mayor Ray Nagin and his staff were able to use the Vonage service because the New Orleans Hyatt Regency hotel, where they were stationed during the hurricane, had emergency power and a fairly hardy T1 access line. As a result, the broadband connection to the hotel remained up and they were able to receive the call from Bush.

The Internet itself originally was designed to be redundant and hard to bring down, so it stands to reason that during a major

disaster, it is one of the most resilient and reliable communications networks. The benefit of the Internet and the underlying technology is that they have been designed in a distributed fashion, with no single points of failure. So if one or two links are destroyed, traffic automatically finds a different path.

The traditional phone network is built on circuit-switched technology, which establishes point-to-point links. One call is routed by connecting directly to a destination on the other side. But an IP network is built like a mesh; when calls are made, it establishes connections as the call is passed from one part of the network to the next until it reaches the final destination.

Many phone companies, including Verizon and BellSouth, are starting to convert parts of their networks to IP. But, although traditional phone networks eventually will adopt IP technology, that won’t solve all the old problems, like access to electrical power.

According to media coverage of an industry event in Boston last month, Bill Smith, BellSouth’s chief technology officer, cautioned audience members during a keynote speech that IP technology is not a panacea for increasing network reliability during a disaster. You can’t count on a lucky break like emergency power returning and a T1 line holding up, he said.

"VoIP is a wonderful thing, but it has to run on something," he said, according to TelephonyOnline. "The biggest problem (in the areas hit by Katrina) was power. Most VoIP equipment runs on power. It does a disservice to the industry to create an impression that VoIP can run under any conditions. It requires some fundamental infrastructure."

共享重组再造 Google地图服务“遍地开花”

作者： CNET科技资讯网 翻译：李海

CNETNews.com.cn 2005-10-21 09:20 AM

CNET科技资讯网 10月21日国际报道 Google地图不那么简单。

你仍然可以用Google地图来进行寻路工作，但是，你为什么不用它来在辛辛那提寻找犹太餐馆，在都柏林寻找交通监视器，或者在美国范围内寻找热温泉呢？或者，在西雅图搜寻提供免费无线互联网接入的咖啡店？或用它来搜索你老板刚刚购买的府邸，然后计算其价值？

一些程序员，多数出于逗乐的目的，已经利用Google地图软件的代码开发出了这些有趣的地图服务。

没有人知道Google地图的衍生服务究竟有多数，因为每天都有新的服务出现。但是，还是有一些网络日子作者对介绍新的 Google地图衍生服务乐此不彼。安大略湖地区的Mike Pegg就是其中一位。几个月前，他创办了“Google地图狂人”的日志网站，专门对这一现象进行追踪。

几乎每一天，他就要罗列好些新的地图服务，从一般的性侵犯发生地图到专业的地图应用，象印度的观鸟地图等等，应有尽有。 Pegg表示：“我就是它们的新闻发布会。”

为什么这些人可以做这些东西出来？答案很简单：因为他们能够这么做。Google已经公布地图生成软件，也就是“应用程序接口”（API）。利用应用程序接口，程序员能够将Google地图和其它数据进行结合，创建出新的地图应用，比如来自Craigslist上的公寓信息，或者美国统计局的人口地理信息等等。编程技术本身也是嫁接性质的，比如“异步JavaScript＋XML”（AJAX）等等。

这种“共享、重组、再造”（Mash-ups）技术并不是网络上的新现象。音乐家有时候也做类似的事情，最著名的要数DJ Danger Mouse将披头士的“White Album”和“Black Album”专辑进行组合再造，推出了全新的“The Grey Album”专辑。在网上，Hopstop.com网站将纽约，波士顿及华盛顿的地铁，巴士以及餐馆，娱乐场所的信息进行了结合。

现在，大公司纷纷鼓励用户进行这样的活动。Amazon已经允许一些人利用其数据库及软件代码去创建新的应用，比如MusicPlasma 等，MusicPlasma可以在地图上显示音乐家们的地理位置所在地。

加州伯克利的一位资深程序员Jef Poskanzer说：“这种东西出现得如此得迅速。现在得情况有点象上个世纪90年代得情况，人人都想在网上做点什么东西出来。”

他说，两个时间的不同点在于，现在的出现东西更加的趋于平民化，原因是制造这种东西本来就非常的容易。他说：“现在仍然需要程序员来动手开发诸如Google地图这样的东西，但工作已经变得异常的简单了，因为你可以到其它网站上复制，粘贴就行了。”

Google已经意识到，自己不可能满足所有用户的特色需求，而共享、重组、再造爱好者们正好可以弥补这种不足。

雅虎也已经开放了它的几项网络服务的应用程序接口，其中包括照片储存网站Flickr，雅虎购物以及雅虎地图。甚至反对代码分享的微软也已经为它的地图服务公布了应用程序接口。但是，Google地图吸引了大量的开发者，它的衍生应用发展也是最快的。

Google本地搜索的产品经理Bret Taylor表示，他们的地图受欢迎的一个主要原因是，Google允许开发者分享其地图广告放置获得的收益。他说：“对开发者，对Google来说，这都有好处。”

一群新创业者也因此应运而生。2004年从斯坦福商学院毕业的Pete Flint和他的同班同学Sami Inkinen就创办了这样一个共享、重组、再造网站，Trulia.com，它能够在Google找到不动产的信息。

然而，Google开放性的地图也存在一些限制。一旦这些共享、重组、再造网站在商业上扩大到一定的规模，Google就会寻求分享其收入。Trulia就是这样，Google的律师已经在和这家公司进行协商，准备签署专利使用合同。Flint表示：“目前，Google 还是免费的，我们正在利用这一特点。”(编辑：孙莹)

A journey to a thousand maps begins with an open code

By Damon Darlin
Published: October 19, 2005, 10:10 PM PDT

A Google map is no longer just a Google map.

You can still search Google Maps to figure out how to get from here to there, but why would you, when you can use it to pinpoint kosher restaurants in Cincinnati, traffic cameras in Dublin, or hot spring spas anywhere in the United States? How about finding coffee shops in Seattle that provide free wireless Internet access? Or would you prefer to locate the McMansion your boss just bought and find how out exactly how much he paid for it?

An army of programmers, most of them doing it just for fun, has grabbed the software code that generates the distinctive maps with their drop-shadowed virtual pushpins, and combined it with other data like the locations of potholes, taco trucks and UFO sightings, and even the sites of murders and muggings.

The result is Google map mash-ups, the latest form of Internet information repackaged for entertainment and, perhaps, profit. For instance, type the official airline flight abbreviation and flight number into the Google search engine and FBOweb.com should come up at the top of the results page. Click on that and you will see a pushpin marking the spot where the plane is. The service also provides a data box listing the speed, altitude and estimated time of arrival of the flight.

Another service, Homepricerecords.com, combines the home sales data with a Google map when you type in an address. (It currently has data only for homes in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas, but the service promises that Chicago and New York data are coming soon.)

No one really knows how many Google map mash-ups are out there, and it is difficult to hazard a guess on how many new ones are created each day. But that does not stop some bloggers from desperately racing to keep up with the latest. Mike Pegg, an account manager for a software company in Waterloo, Ontario, is one of them. He created Google Maps Mania several months ago in a quixotic attempt to chronicle the phenomenon.

Almost every day he lists a dozen new ones, ranging from the commonplace, like sex offender maps, to the esoteric, like bird sightings in India. "I am their press release," Pegg said.

Why are people doing this? The flippant answer is also the honest one: because they can. Google has revealed the map-generating software, called an API, or application programming interface. And with that API, a programmer can create a mash-up by combining it with other data–like apartment listings on Craigslist, or demographic data from the United States census. The programming technique, itself a mash-up of programs, is also known as AJAX, for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML.

Mash-ups are not a new phenomenon on the Web. Musicians have been doing something similar with other artists’ songs for some time. The best-known example is DJ Danger Mouse’s combination of the Beatles’ "White Album" with Jay-Z’s "Black Album" last year to yield "The Grey Album." Online, Hopstop.com combines subway and bus directions in New York, Boston and Washington with a database of restaurants and entertainment spots.

What is new is that big companies are encouraging users to tap into the information. Amazon has been allowing entrepreneurs to hijack parts of its database and software code to create new applications like MusicPlasma, which graphically displays connections between various musical artists. (Type in the band Weezer and a constellation of other bands, like Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails and Zwan, surround it). The site, recently renamedLiveplasma.com, has created a similar search tool for movies and–no surprise–has a free mapping feature for its habitues.

"It is happening so fast," said Jef Poskanzer, a longtime programmer in Berkeley, Calif., who has created a hot springs map as well as maps of old star forts in Paris, a yacht race and public transportation systems in Paris and the San Francisco Bay Area. "This is like the 1990s, when everyone was creating everything on the Web."

The difference, he said, is that it is now even more democratic because it is so simple to do. "It still takes a programmer to write these kinds of Google maps, but it is easier because you can go to another site and copy the code," he said.

It just got a lot easier. A company started by Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Netscape, hopes to democratize map mash-ups even more. He created Ning.com, which automates the tools needed to create a Google-based map so almost anyone can make one.

Once you have registered for "developer status," the site copies the code behind a particular Web site you want to imitate, allowing you tweak it and make it your own. In less than five minutes, you could have the Mung Bean Salad Restaurant site up and running.

Google recognized while developing the mapping feature that it would not have the time or the desire to create a host of special interest maps. Yet having numerous mash-ups would serve Google’s strategy of becoming the ubiquitous organizer of the world’s information–hence its openness. The company made it economically and technically feasible for Web sites to present data in map form, said Bret Taylor, product manager for Google Local.

Yahoo has opened the APIs behind several of its Web services, including Flickr, its photo-storing site; Yahoo Shopping; and Yahoo Maps. Even Microsoft, which has been guarded about sharing its code, has released the API for its mapping feature. But Google Maps caught on fastest and now seems to have the greatest number of developers writing for it. (Exactly how many, Google said, is a closely guarded secret.)

Taylor said one reason for Google Maps’ popularity may be that Google allows mash-up creators to share in the revenue from ads that Google sells and places on sites. (In fact, in exchange for allowing use of the maps, Google reserves the right to run ads on the sites in the future.) "It’s great for the developer and it’s great for Google," Taylor said.

A new class of entrepreneur is jumping in as well. Pete Flint, a 2004 graduate of Stanford University’s business school, and a classmate, Sami Inkinen, started a mash-up called Trulia.com, which pinpoints real estate listings on a Google map. Click on a pushpin in a favorite neighborhood and up pops the listings, along with comparables from recent home sales and other nearby properties.

Trulia has posted data only for five California cities, and that data is a bit thin because it uses publicly available sources like newspapers and Web sites, not the Multiple Listing Service, the copyrighted databases belonging to local broker associations. Trulia plans on adding additional layers of information, like census data.

But it is already easy to see the income-earning possibilities, either through advertising or generating highly specific leads for real estate agents. "We very much follow the Google model," Flint said. "It is just a much more focused model of the Google search engine."

Google’s openness to the use of its maps does have limits, though. Once a mash-up turns into a large-scale commercial enterprise, Google looks to share in the revenue. That is happening at Trulia; Google lawyers are trying to negotiate a royalty agreement. "At the moment it is free," Flint said, "and we are taking advantage of it."

Entire contents, Copyright © 2005 The New York Times. All rights reserved.

这是一款基于点对点(P2P)技术的网上媒体播放系统，你可以用它来观看网上电影，电视台，目前节目数量比较丰富，速度流畅。

由于使用了P2P技术，这款播放器在观看电视节目时，具有观众越多，速度越快的特点。

下载：http://www.ppstream.com/download/

注意：需要最新版本的windows media player 以及realplayer支持，推荐宽带网用户使用。另外，如果是Windows XP SP2用户，建议安装一个解除连接限制补丁。

以下是目前的节目清单：

MMTV
游戏藏经阁
中关村电视
明星在线
天映电影台
法国时尚台 
湖南卫视
综艺秀1台
综艺秀2台 
好莱坞电影 
CCTV-6 
CCTV-4
凤凰中文 
Channel[V] 
卫视体育中文台 
凤凰资讯 
东方卫视 
[电台]45度网络广播
CCTV-2 
CCTV10 
SuperMovie
GamesTV[网通] 
上海体育台 
我游网综合娱乐
日韩连续剧台 
大长今连播 
SuperMusic 
湖南卫视 
联播《魔戒·黑客帝国》 
卫视电影台
CCTV-3
新片热映《神话》 
CCTV-5 
CCTV-1 
联播《仙剑奇侠传》 
5617网游网ChinaJoy 
江苏综艺 
经典足球赛事回顾
综艺秀3台 
录播《NBA季前赛》 
Xinbs[猫和老鼠] 
Xinbs[我猜我猜] 
广西电视台卫星频道-www.gxtv.cn
联播《周星驰系列{粤}一》 
联播《周星驰系列{粤}二》 
GamesTV[电信]

做翻译的码字工作也有几年的时间了，逐渐发现一些有趣的东西。

首先是语序，汉语和英语在引述某人说某话时存在语序上的不同，比如汉语当中，正经的报道，语序必定是这样：忽悠科技公司的首席执行官李海说，“这简直是无稽之谈！”；而洋人喜欢倒过来说：“这简直是无稽之谈！”，李海,首席执行官,忽悠科技公司的说。在汉语里面，说话的主体，人，是排在一大堆修饰词之末的，而在英语里面，人是排在职务修饰词之前，说的话之后的。中国人比较谦虚，比较含蓄，所以不喜欢一上来就暴露自己的姓名，喜欢先用一大堆修饰词将自己隐藏了再说。鬼子个性张扬，崇尚自我价值，所以必定先自报家门。这一点，还反映在姓名的说法上，洋人的名在前，姓在后，比如 Tom Lee，汤姆是名，李是姓，而中国人要先说姓，后说名，叫做“李汤姆”，在洋鬼子的脑海当中，汤姆为大，李其次，而在我们的脑海中李才是重要的姓名构件，至于名，则不大那么重要，家族的姓氏大过名。在引述当中，鬼子的语序重点，考虑的尊卑是这样的：说的话>人的名>人的姓>职务>公司，我们的重点完全相反，公司>职务>人的姓>人的名>说的话。所以，看外国人的文章，一般看前三段就行了，而看中国人的文章，最后几段是重点，需要仔细阅读才行。所以，在中国，公司的价值大于个人的价值，集体的利益大于个人的利益。

中国人和洋鬼子在表述数字的时候也存在差异，中国人喜欢从大往小，从左向右说，而鬼子虽然也是从小往大，从右往左说，但却是三个一组的说。譬如 1234567，我们说一百二十三万四千五百六十七，鬼子得从左边开始，每隔三位加一个逗号，1,234,567，然后先说一个一百万，one million，然后说二百三十四个千，234 thousand,最后说五百六十七。在我看来，这两种数字表述方法都比较费脑筋，不过幸好有阿拉伯数字，不然还真够费劲的。

另外一个有趣的东西是出现在口语当中，中国人的“他”和“她”发音是完全一样的，而在英文当中是分开的，he or she，很分明。在洋人的脑海当中，男女的称谓绝对不能搞错，否则就要闹出误会，而在汉语当中，如果光听发音，是完全不知道说的这个人是男还是女，个人以为，这是汉语的一个缺憾。要不，国家文字语言委员会应该规定，今后凡称女性的她，就呼“伊”，男性的他还是“他”好了。不过这样的提议施行起来可能困难重重，毕竟语言还是约定俗成，慢慢形成的东西。