双语新闻：美国作为创新的摇篮还能维持多久?

2014-10-23 15:28:49来源：可可英语

　　MY model American entrepreneur of the moment isCheong Choon Ng. He has not attracted a $3 billionbid from Facebook, like the young inventors of thephoto-sharing service Snapchat. Wall Street is notcooking up an I.P.O. But Ng is a star in myhousehold. He is the creator of the Rainbow Loom,which in the middle-schooler market is the hottestdevice not called iSomething. If you have noticedthat half the children in America — and a fair numberof adults — seem to be sporting bracelets that arebraids of brightly colored rubber bands, then youhave seen the fruits of the Rainbow Loom.

　　在我看来，当下美国创业者的模范是吴昌俊(Cheong Choon Ng，音译)。他还没有像照片共享服务Snapchat的年轻创始人那样，从Facebook那里收到30亿美元(约合183亿元人民币)的收购要约，华尔街也没有在为他酝酿首次公开募股，但是在我的家里，吴昌俊是一个明星。他发明的“彩虹织机”(Rainbow Loom)是美国中小学生市场上最热门的非苹果设备。可能你已经注意到，美国一半的儿童，以及相当数量的成年人，手上戴着颜色鲜艳的橡皮筋编制而成的手环，那其实就是用彩虹织机织出来的。

　　Ng told me he has sold about three million of them, even before cracking the overseas market.Not least among the charms of his simple device is the fact that it unplugs children for a whilefrom the mind-sucking Matrix in favor of projects that require focus and creativity. (Infairness to the Internet, I should note that kids learn new bracelet designs fromdemonstration videos on YouTube.)

　　吴昌俊告诉我，甚至在打入海外市场之前，他就已经售出了约300万台彩虹织机。他这个简单的设备富有魅力，其中重要的一点就是可以把孩子们的注意力从令人上瘾的网络世界里拉出来一段时间，转移到需要集中精力和发挥创造力的活动上。(我也应该为网络说句公道话，孩子们是通过YouTube上的演示视频学习新的手环设计的。)

　　The United States may not manufacture as much stuff as it used to, but we are still theworld's cradle of innovation. Inventiveness has been an American point of pride dating backto the days when the country was in its infancy. The Atlantic magazine, in one of thoseexercises that manages to be both arbitrary and fascinating, this month asked a panel ofsmart people to identify the greatest inventions since the wheel. If you discardbreakthroughs made before the United States was up and running, an astonishing number ofcivilization-altering innovations — 16 of 30 on that list — were born here. Oil drilling. Thetelegraph. Refrigeration. Anesthesia. Electricity. The airplane. The Pill. The semiconductor. Youmight say that America itself is something of a civilization-altering innovation.

　　美国制造的东西可能没有以往那么多了，但这里仍然是全球创新的摇篮。创造力一直是美国引以为豪的东西，这可以追溯到这个国家创立的初期。《大西洋》(The Atlantic)月刊推出过很多既武断又吸引人的调查，这个月，它让一组聪明人列出自车轮之后最伟大的发明。如果不算美国建国之前人类取得的那些突破性发明，大量改变文明进程的创新都出现在这个国家——占据了名单上30个发明中的16个。石油钻探、电报、制冷、麻醉、电、飞机、避孕药、半导体。你可能会说，美国本身就是一个改变文明进程的创新。

本文关键字: 美国创新的摇篮