VOA慢速英语2010年-Technology Report - Making the World W

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.
The world has almost seven billion people. At least two billion are expected to be on the Internet by January. New growth is mostly from developing countries. Yet only twenty-one percent of their population is online.
A group called the World Wide Web Foundation is working to make the Web more usable to more of the world.
Tim Berners-Lee is the British computer scientist who invented the World Wide Web. He announced the launch of the Web Foundation last November.
The group says many people can access the Web but are unable to use it. The biggest reason is illiteracy¹.
The latest United Nations report says almost eight hundred million adults are unable to read or write. Even for those who can read, much of the information that is available on the Web is not in a language they can understand.
Steve Bratt is chief executive² of the Web Foundation.
STEVE BRATT: "If you're a poor shopkeeper living in a very impoverished³ part of Botswana and you're trying to feed your family, trying to buy and sell goods, trying to get medical services for your kids or your employees, and you speak a local language, there's nothing on today's Web that's going to help you, right?
Chinese youths use computers at an Internet cafe in Beijing "So even if they had connectivity and they had a mobile phone, or something they could get to the Web, what would they look for? What would they be able to understand?"Tim Berners-Lee first proposed the idea for the World Wide Web in nineteen eighty-nine. This was twenty years after Americans developed the first version of what we know as the Internet.
The Internet is a network of networks. It lets millions of computers communicate with each other. The Web is a major part. However, people now often use applications that are not Web-based, like on social networks and mobile devices like the iPhone.
Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web as a way to help people share information. His early work brought the Hypertext Markup⁴ Language, or HTML, used to create Web pages. It also gave us the Hypertext Transfer Protocol⁵ -- the HTTP before Web addresses.
By two thousand eight, Google reported that the number of Web pages had passed one trillion. Steve Bratt says the World Wide Web Foundation wants everyone to be able to use this information.
STEVE BRATT: "Our main purpose is to advance the Web to empower people. It's focusing on the Web not just as a technology, but as one of the most powerful means for connecting people to knowledge and people to each other."Partnerships⁶ with the Web Science Trust and the World Wide Web Consortium aim to create applications that make the Web more user-friendly. Steve Bratt says mobile technology is an important part of that work, as more and more people use their phones to go online.
STEVE BRATT: "One of the challenges we have is to make the Web a lot easier to use even on the simplest and least expensive mobile phones."And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report, written by June Simms. I'm Steve Ember.

1 illiteracy   

n.文盲

参考例句：

• It is encouraging to read that illiteracy is declining.从读报中了解文盲情况正在好转，这是令人鼓舞的。
• We must do away with illiteracy.我们必须扫除文盲。

2 executive   

adj.执行的，行政的；n.执行者，行政官，经理

参考例句：

• A good executive usually gets on well with people.一个好的高级管理人员通常与人们相处得很好。
• He is a man of great executive ability.他是个具有极高管理能力的人。

3 impoverished   

adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化

参考例句：

• the impoverished areas of the city 这个城市的贫民区
• They were impoverished by a prolonged spell of unemployment. 他们因长期失业而一贫如洗。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 markup   

n.加价，涨价，利润

参考例句：

• This mean that international delivery will line markup from today.这意味着国际快递将从今天起全线涨价。
• Our products are expensive,and distributors and retailers always want a large markup.我们的产品很贵，经销商和零售商总是要求高额利差。

5 protocol   

n.议定书，草约，会谈记录，外交礼节

参考例句：

• We must observe the correct protocol.我们必须遵守应有的礼仪。
• The statesmen signed a protocol.那些政治家签了议定书。

6 partnerships   

n.伙伴关系( partnership的名词复数 )；合伙人身份；合作关系

参考例句：

• Partnerships suffer another major disadvantage: decision-making is shared. 合伙企业的另一主要缺点是决定要由大家来作。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• It involved selling off limited partnerships. 它涉及到售出有限的合伙权。 来自辞典例句