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Culture | Technology and terminology
技术和术语
英文部分选自经济学人202200730期文化版块
Culture | Technology and terminology
技术和术语
In “The Metaverse”, Matthew Ball explains where the idea came from
马修·鲍尔在《元宇宙》一书中解释了这一概念的发展历史
And where it might be going
以及未来的发展方向
Do you remember the information superhighway? In the early 1990s pundits predicted that high-speed data networks would soon connect millions of people, letting them exchange information and linking them to “movies and television shows, shopping services, electronic mail and huge collections of data”, as the New York Times put it. Yet today millions use Netflix and Amazon, Gmail and Wikipedia, and no one talks of “cruising the information superhighway”—or ever did. The vision was prescient, but the jargon died.
你还记得信息高速公路吗?上世纪90年代初,专家曾预测高速数据网络很快就能连通数百万人,人们可以(通过数据网络)交流信息,并且按照《纽约时报》的说法,人们还可以观看电影和电视节目、享受购物服务、收发电子邮件并获取海量的数据。尽管如今有数百万人都在使用网飞、亚马逊、谷歌邮箱和维基百科,但没人会(把访问大数据库)说成是畅游信息高公路”——或者从来没人这么说过。当年的设想颇有先见之明,但信息高速公路这一术语却消亡了。
Something similar may now be happening with the term “metaverse”. It is also the subject of feverish speculation—this time about the possibilities of 3d virtual worlds, and a sense that video-game technology and online communication are converging in interesting ways. But its definition is elusive, and none of the multitudes who congregate in virtual worlds today, such as players of the game “Fortnite”, actually use the word.
现如今,元宇宙这一术语或许正经历和“信息高速公路”颇为相似的境遇。与之前一样,人们热切地对元宇宙展开各种设想,不过这一次是围绕着3D虚拟世界的无限可能,以及视频游戏技术和在线交流的有趣融合。但是关于元宇宙的定义仍然很模糊,如今虚拟世界中的大众,例如《堡垒之夜》游戏的玩家等,实际没有一个人使用“元宇宙”这个术语。
It broke into public consciousness in October 2021, when Facebook renamed itself Meta, signalling its ambitions in this new arena. People who had not previously heard the word “metaverse” assumed it was a new Facebook product. But the term has been used in tech circles for years, and other companies, including Microsoft and Roblox, had in fact already staked their own claims to be metaverse merchants.
202110月,脸书Facebook更名为Meta雄心勃勃地要在元宇宙领域大展拳脚,引起了公众对“元宇宙”的关注。此前从未听说过元宇宙的人还以为这是脸书旗下的新产品。但是这个术语已经在科技圈流传多年,微软和罗布乐思等公司实际上早就已经为进入元宇宙布局了。
Metaverse is a relatively new name for an old idea, explains Matthew Ball, a technology analyst (and occasional contributor toThe Economist), in his survey of the topic. The word was coined in 1992 by Neal Stephenson in his novel “Snow Crash”. Mr Ball traces the concept of a parallel, synthetic reality back to “Pygmalion’s Spectacles”, a short story of 1935 by Stanley Weinbaum, and later tales by Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and William Gibson. Strikingly, all their synthetic worlds are dystopias—a detail modern tech bosses have failed to notice, or chosen to ignore.
技术分析专家(偶尔也为《经济学人》供稿)马修·鲍尔(Matthew Ball)在他关于元宇宙的分析中说到,元宇宙这个概念就是新瓶装旧酒。1992年,尼尔·斯蒂芬森(Neal Stephenson)在小说《雪崩》中创造了元宇宙一词。鲍尔先生把人造平行现实的概念追溯到斯坦利·温鲍姆(Stanley G. Weinbaum1935年的短篇小说《皮格马利翁的眼镜》,以及后来雷·布拉德伯里(Ray Bradbury),菲利普·K·迪克(Philip K. Dick),阿西莫夫·艾萨克(Isaac Asimov)和威廉·吉布森(William Gibson)所写的故事。令人吃惊的是,这些作家笔下的平行世界都是反乌托邦式的——这个细节现代科技大佬们不曾察觉,抑或刻意忽略。
注释:
1. 在《雪崩》中,斯蒂芬森创造了一个并非以往想象中的互联网——虚拟实境(Metaverse),而是和社会紧密联系的三维数字空间,与现实世界平行,在现实世界中地理位置彼此隔绝的人们可以通过各自的化身进行交流娱乐。
2.1935年,美国科幻小说家斯坦利·温鲍姆发表了小说《皮格马利翁的眼镜》。小说里的精灵族教授阿尔伯特·路德维奇发明了一副眼镜,戴上这副眼镜后,就能进入到电影当中,“看到、听到、尝到、闻到和触到各种东西。你就在故事当中,能跟故事中的人物交流。你就是这个故事的主角”。威因鲍姆的这篇小说是对“沉浸式体验”的最初描写,教授发明的眼镜更是预言了今天的虚拟现实装置。
Mr Ball’s summary of the history of virtual worlds, in both fiction and computer science, provides helpful context. But his book’s most valuable contribution may prove to be his definition of the metaverse: an interoperable network of 3dvirtual worlds that can be accessed simultaneously by millions of users, who can exert property rights over virtual items.
鲍尔先生对虚构小说和真实电脑科技中的虚拟世界进行了总结,提供了有用的背景信息。但是鲍尔书中最可贵的贡献可能在于他对元宇宙的定义:几百万用户能够同时访问协同互通的3D虚拟世界网络,并且用户在其中能够行使对虚拟物品的物权。
This definition is interesting as much for what it leaves out as for what it includes. It is not simply a rebranding of virtual reality: headsets are optional, and today virtual worlds are mostly accessed using flat screens. Nor are blockchains or non-fungible tokens mentioned, though Mr Ball concedes they may have a role. He insists that, just as there is only one internet, made up of many different networks and services that have more value for being connected, there should be only one metaverse, made up of many virtual worlds.
该定义十分有意思,包含的内容很多,但同样留白的空间也很大。这并非只是简单地将虚拟现实重新包装:头戴式设备并非必需品,现如今人们大多是通过平面屏进入虚拟世界。书中也未提及区块链和非同质化代币,尽管鲍尔先生承认这两者都在原宇宙中有所体现。他坚称,正如因特网只有一个,但是却包含了很多不同的网络和服务,并且这些网络通过互联产生了更大的价值,同样,元宇宙也应只有一个,只不过是由很多个虚拟世界组成。
Given that virtual worlds already exist, the next steps will include scaling them up to support more users (online games carefully limit their numbers), making them more realistic and accessible, and devising new hardware to allow greater immersion. Progress is being made on all those fronts. But by far the biggest challenge will be to make connections between what are currently separate worlds. For example, it is not yet possible to take an item of virtual clothing from “Fortnite” into “Minecraft”.
鉴于诸多虚拟世界业已存在,接下来要做的便是拓展规模,以承载更多用户(网游严格限制玩家人数);提升虚拟世界的真实感,使其更便于用户访问;设计新的硬件设施,为用户带来更佳的沉浸体验。这些方面均持续取得进展。然而,迄今为止面临的最大挑战是如何在彼此分隔的世界间构建互联。例如,用户在网游《堡垒之夜》上购买的虚拟服装暂时还无法到《我的世界》中使用。
Mr Ball is optimistic that “economic gravity” will drive companies to co-operate in devising and adopting open standards, because the market that this will unlock will be much bigger than any of them could create alone. He adduces the so-called protocol wars of the 1970s-90s, when rival computer-networking standards vied for supremacy. Ultimately an open standard prevailed, the Internet Protocol, because a common format created a bigger market.
不过,鲍尔乐观地认为,“经济引力(economic gravity)”将促使企业共同设计并采用开放的标准,因为这样创造的市场规模远胜于单打独斗。他援引上世纪70-90年代的“网络协议之战”为例证。当时,各计算机网络标准都想一家独大。最终,《网际互连协议》这一开放标准为众人采纳,因为统一格式可创造更大的市场。
9-Similarly it makes economic sense, Mr Ball argues, for virtual worlds to share data and interoperate. Today people buy fewer objects inside games and other virtual worlds than they might if ownership rights were firmer and items more portable. Tackle those problems, and more people might be willing to fork out. Economics, Mr Ball says, “will drive standardisation and interoperation over time”.
鲍尔表示,同样,虚拟世界间共享数据、协同互通也能产生更好的经济效益。假如物品所有权管理更为严格,且物品可在各平台间跨区,那么如今人们在游戏和其他虚拟世界中购置的物品可就远不止这么些了。若能解决上述问题,将有更多人愿意买单。鲍尔说,经济学“最终将促进标准化和协同互通”。
He draws an illuminating analogy with the history of smartphones. Another way to think of the metaverse, he points out, is as the successor to the rise of the mobile internet. Mobile devices extended, but also changed, the way people experience the internet, with the advent of things like navigation apps and ride-hailing. The metaverse could represent a comparable kind of shift, transforming what the internet can do and how it is used.
鲍尔将元宇宙与智能手机的发展史进行了类比,很有启发性。他指出,元宇宙在某种程度上可以认为是移动网络崛起的后继。随着导航、打车这些软件的出现,人们体验网络的方式也通过移动设备得以延伸和改变。元宇宙同样能承载这种转变——它改变了我们使用互联网的方式,也拓展了互联网的外延。
But isn’t the smartphone industry dominated by the duopoly of Apple and Google? This is one case where “economic gravity” has not led to interoperability. Mr Ball thinks regulatory action is needed to loosen the duo’s grips on payment systems and app stores, which “limit the growth potential not only of virtual-world platforms, but also the internet at large”.
然而,智能手机行业不是被苹果和谷歌这两家寡头统治了么?在这一领域中,经济引力最终未能带来协同互通。鲍尔认为,这两家寡头在应用商店以及支付系统上牢固的统治力,“阻碍了虚拟世界平台,乃至整个互联网的发展”,监管部门必须对此进行治理。
The author wisely avoids spending too much time trying to imagine all the future uses of the metaverse, or analysing which of today’s tech giants are best-placed to exploit it. Nor does he dig very deeply into the inevitable regulatory and governance challenges. It is far too early in the game. Think of those predictions from 1993: they were broadly correct, but Netflix, Amazon, Gmail and Wikipedia did not exist. The rise of smartphones, too, toppled previous industry leaders. The metaverse could cause a similar changing of the guard.

在本书中,作者很明智地选择避免花太多笔墨展望未来元宇宙的所有用途,也没有着力去分析今日的科技巨头中哪一家最有可能在这一领域大有可为。作者同样没有深究那些必然要面临的监管和治理挑战——毕竟谈论这些尚为时过早。想想1993年时候的预言吧:确实大方向都预测对了,但是网飞、亚马逊、谷歌邮箱和维基百科当时都不存在。智能手机的出现带来了头部科技公司的大洗牌,而元宇宙或将具有同样的颠覆性力量。
Even the word metaverse may not stick, Mr Ball admits. Something like it will have arrived by the end of the decade, but “we may ultimately use a different term for this future”. Like the information superhighway, this latest buzzword seems to point in the right direction, but may get lost along the way. For anyone who wants to understand the process and what is at stake, Mr Ball’s lucid and timely book offers a portal into a new realm. 
鲍尔在书中坦言,甚至“元宇宙”这个提法也不一定会一直存在。待这个十年结束的时候,某种类似元宇宙的东西可能已经出现,然而我们最后可能并不会使用‘元宇宙’来称呼这一未来的事物。就像信息高速公路一样,这个最新的潮流词汇确实为未来指明了方向,但是也许这个词本身在半路就翻车了。对于想要了解这一进程,以及其中利害关系的读者而言,鲍尔的书为你提供了清晰而及时的解读,引领你走进这个崭新的科技王国。
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Francis,男,但诗句的终极意义,在于你
Rachel,学理工科,爱跳芭蕾,热爱文艺的非典型翻译
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