词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Infowalker

Broadcast: July 22, 2004

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: a new way to walk through the Web.

RS: Infowalker is a free computer program available on the Internet. It's called a browser² companion, and the focus is on foreign-language learners, children and the visually impaired³. It reads Web pages out loud, finds pictures to illustrate⁴ words, and translates text into or out of English.

BOB MYERS: "At the moment we have Spanish, French, German, Portuguese⁵ and Italian. But we do have plans to expand that list of languages in the near future."

AA: Bob Myers is founder⁶ of a software company in West Hollywood, California, called Naturally Open. Infowalker is its first product. Bob Myers calls it a better way to browse¹ the Web, though it's not meant for pages with lots of graphics⁷ and without much text.

BOB MYERS: "There are also a large number of Web pages which are basically huge masses of text. And those are really the pages that Infowalker is trying to help people read better, translate better."

AA: "I liked the way you could speed up or slow down the rate of speech, to help a little bit with the understanding, and there's also a selection of three different voices you can [use] -- a female voice, a couple of male voices."

BOB MYERS: "The voices are, of course, computer-generated voices. And in some cases -- I hope none of your listeners try to learn English pronunciation by listening to those voices, because they'll end up sounding like a computer voice."

AA: "It wasn't that bad."

BOB MYERS: "It's not that bad, yes."

AA: "You've also got the feature where it will look for pictures related to key terms on the page that's being read. It was kind of funny to see the photos that it would pull up to illustrate the texts."

BOB MYERS: "Right. This is a feature where Infowalker, when you point it to a sentence, will automatically go into the sentence and identify keywords within the sentence which it thinks represent the important concepts in that sentence. And then based on those keywords, it goes out onto the Internet and automatically finds a picture which represents those concepts it identified. And it shows that picture to you also in the little Infowalker window in the lower right hand corner of your screen."

AA: "Although I must point out that in some cases the photos had absolutely nothing -- or at least didn't seem to have anything to do with the sentence. But other photos certainly did. It helped illustrate what it was reading."

BOB MYERS: "There's a new feature which we have added in the version which we are going to be releasing actually in just a few days which I think will partially⁸ solve that problem. What it lets you do is instead of only working on a sentence-by-sentence basis, it actually lets you select specific text within anywhere on the Web page. And then it does all the same things that Infowalker does now, which is it can translate that text, put up an image about that text, speak the text aloud."

RS: "Now this is a free service."

BOB MYERS: "This is absolutely free. It's not shareware that you're expected to pay something for later. The way we make our money is that, as your users will see if they download this product, there's a small, non-intrusive line which displays an advertisement. Which actually in some cases is useful, and people may want to click through and see what the advertisement is about."

RS: "So what are your expectations for this product?"

BOB MYERS: "The vision that I have is that Infowalker could become an integral part of the browsing⁹ process for many different kinds of people. I certainly think that includes foreign language learners. I think it also includes visually impaired people; another feature of Infowalker is that it can display text in large type, which is useful obviously for the visually impaired. I think it has a potential market in the educational area and also among children, especially using this automated¹⁰ ability to illustrate the sentence or phrase that you selected."

AA: And it's not just groups like these that Bob Myers thinks can benefit. He says Infowalker is a useful tool for general Web searching. So where can you download it?

RS: You can go directly to his company's Web site at naturallyopen.com/infowalker. Or you can also link from our site, voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address here is。。。。。。With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

 

1 browse   

vi.随意翻阅，浏览；(牛、羊等)吃草

参考例句：

• I had a browse through the books on her shelf.我浏览了一下她书架上的书。
• It is a good idea to browse through it first.最好先通篇浏览一遍。

2 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

3 impaired   

adj.受损的；出毛病的；有（身体或智力）缺陷的v.损害，削弱( impair的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Much reading has impaired his vision. 大量读书损害了他的视力。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• His hearing is somewhat impaired. 他的听觉已受到一定程度的损害。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

4 illustrate   

v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图

参考例句：

• The company's bank statements illustrate its success.这家公司的银行报表说明了它的成功。
• This diagram will illustrate what I mean.这个图表可说明我的意思。

5 Portuguese   

n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语

参考例句：

• They styled their house in the Portuguese manner.他们仿照葡萄牙的风格设计自己的房子。
• Her family is Portuguese in origin.她的家族是葡萄牙血统。

6 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

7 graphics   

n.制图法，制图学；图形显示

参考例句：

• You've leveraged your graphics experience into the video area.你们把图形设计业务的经验运用到录像业务中去。
• Improved graphics took computer games into a new era.经改进的制图技术将电脑游戏带进了一个新时代。

8 partially   

adv.部分地，从某些方面讲

参考例句：

• The door was partially concealed by the drapes.门有一部分被门帘遮住了。
• The police managed to restore calm and the curfew was partially lifted.警方设法恢复了平静，宵禁部分解除。

9 browsing   

v.吃草( browse的现在分词 )；随意翻阅；（在商店里）随便看看；（在计算机上）浏览信息

参考例句：

• He sits browsing over[through] a book. 他坐着翻阅书籍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Cattle is browsing in the field. 牛正在田里吃草。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 automated   

a.自动化的

参考例句：

• The entire manufacturing process has been automated. 整个生产过程已自动化。
• Automated Highway System (AHS) is recently regarded as one subsystem of Intelligent Transport System (ITS). 近年来自动公路系统(Automated Highway System,AHS)，作为智能运输系统的子系统之一越来越受到重视。