VOA标准英语2009年-Want to Lose That Double Chin?

（单词翻译）

Ted¹ Landphair | Washington, DC 30 November 2009

One of the hottest terms in the mushrooming field of personal communication devices - including cell phones and other palm-sized gadgets² - is app - short for application.  These handheld phones, texting machines, and entertainment centers can be - and many have been - loaded with hundreds of such applications of your choosing.  Many apps are free; others cost a few dollars at most.

Popular apps include music playlists, weather radar³ readings, audio books, computer games, broadcasts of your favorite sports, and television shows.  You name it, and there's probably an app for it.

But would you have guessed that there's a brand-new app on which you can practice . . . plastic surgery!? 

Virtually, of course.  You don't wield⁴ a scalpel.  You can upload pre-programmed images of ordinary people and, using just your thumbs on your PDA, give them a tummy tuck, a nose job, or tighter skin around their eyes.  It's a complete image modification⁵, as the application's developer calls it.

And the person getting the fuller cheeks or more bountiful bosom⁶ could be YOU if you upload your own image.  According to Michael Salzhauer, the Miami, Florida, plastic surgeon who developed "isurgeon," this app delivers realistic photo alterations⁷ while allowing users to partake in plastic surgery games playing the role of the surgeon. 

The game mode costs less than a dollar for unlimited⁸ play.  The advanced version costs less than two dollars, for which one can practice the kind of dramatic cosmetic⁹ changes seen in beauty-makeover shows on television. 

Of course, once you've seen yourself with perfectly¹⁰ reshaped ears, pouty¹¹ lips, and a flat tummy, what will you think the next time you pass a mirror?

Read more of Ted's personal reflections and stories from the road on his blog, Ted Landphair's America.