Battling for the palm of your hand

To be translated in writing.

Just as mobile phones have changed dramatically in recent years, the industry that makes them is being transformed too. Next time you pick up your mobile phone, try to imagine how futuristic it would look to someone from ten years ago. Back then, mobile phones were far less sophisticated devices. Brick- like, they had tiny monochrome screens and ungainly protruding aerials, and they were only used for one thing: talking to other people. Today’s latest models, in contrast, are elegantly shaped pocket computers.

This spectacular outward transformation of the mobile phone is being reflected by an internal transformation of the industry that makes what have now become the most ubiquitous digital devices on the planet. Over half a billion phones are sold every year, and despite sluggishness in other parts of the technology industiy, the number continues to grow. Meanwhile, the number of mobile phones in use, at around 1.4 billion, overtook the number of fixed-line phones last year.

It seems unlikely. For one thing, mobile phones are far more personal items than pCs; in effect, they have become fashion items.

As a result, the firms that have historically dominated the industry- large, specialized firms such as Nokia and Motorola- now face a host of new challenges as well as opportunities. The desire for “ownership” of each mobile- phone subscriber poses another threat to the incumbent handset- makers, as mobile- network operators seek to promote their own brands and to differentiate themselves from their rivals. The result is a little-seen, but almighty, struggle for control of a $70 billion industry: a battle, in short, for the palm of your hand.

TEXT X

First steps in practical application of radio

Read the text. Is there any new information for you in it?

Popov reported to the Fourth International Electrical Congress that took place in Paris in August 1900, on the results of the work conducted. The address entitled “The Direct Application of a Telephone Receiver in Wireless Telegraphy” was read by Shatelen. It ran as follows: “Transmission was conducted regularly from February to April 1900 during the saving of the battleship. At the same time one station was installed on board a ship. In the course of 84 days 440 official telegrams were exchanged at regular hours. The largest message, which was carried by the newspaper, was 108 words, reporting that the battleship was saved. For two days communications were interrupted because of a storm. But immediately afterwards they were reestablished. The snow fell so fast that it was impossible to see anything at more than two metres, but it did not interfere with the regular functioning of the instrument. It may even be said that the state of the weather improved the

hearing, since the effect of atmospheric disturbances was less. I believe this case to be the first in which wireless telegraphy operated regularly and successfully; this proved that wireless telegraphy could be put to practical use between these islands, which before had not had any telegraph communication between them. The distance between Kotka and Gogland is 47 km.” A World Electrical Exhibition had opened up in Paris at the same time the Congress was in session- Popov’s radio stations and a number of his original instruments were exhibited there. The jury of the Exhibition awarded Popov an honorary diploma and the Grand Gold Medal.

TEXT XI RADIO BBC

Read the text and answer the questions.

The development of broadcasting in the United Kingdom was dominated by the BBC and its first director general Lord Reith. Starting in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, a private commercial company, its original motive was to stimulate the sale of radios. It became established as an autonomous public body, the British Broadcasting Corporation, by Royal Charter in 1927, with a self-declared mission to “inform, educate and entertain”. Its chairman and a board of govemers are nominated by the government.

The BBC began a television service in 1936, the first such operation in the world. By 1939, however, when television was taken off the air for reasons of national defence, the viewing figures were still insignificant. TV transmissions began again in 1946 and figures for ownership of sets rose steadily. The rise accelerated with the televising of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953 and again when a second channel (BBC 2) began colour transmissions in 1964.

The BBC now transmits five national radio programmes, with some regional variations provided by BBC Scotland and BBC Northern Ireland. Radio One provides popular music. Radio Two is also music based, aiming at an older audience and including general information programmes. Radio

Three concentrates on serious music and culture. Radio Four is a speech programme and is the BBC’s principal news and current affairs output. Its morning news magazine, the Today Programme, regularly has an audience of 6 million listeners. Radio Five, which began transmission for the first time in August 1990, will concentrate on education, sport and the younger listener. In addition, the BBC operates 32 local radio stations.

The BBC is in essence financed by a licence fee, the level of which is set by the government. It does not carry paid advertising on either radio or television. While the penetration of television sets was growing steadily up to the end of 1970’s, this gave the BBC a buoyant source of revenue. However, once the point was reached where effectively all households had a television set, the level of the licence fee became a political issue .The BBC’s relations with the present government have not been easy. For the time being the licence fee is being increased each year by a percentage that is somewhat less than the going rate of inflation and the BBC has been told to investigate other ways of increasing its revenue, such as the sale of subscription-based services or sponsorship.

The BBC also runs an overseas service, which transmits in English and 40 other languages around the world. This service, though managerially an integrated part of the BBC's operations, is financed separately by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Answer the following questions about the text.

5. When did the BBC start?

6. What was its original motive?

7. What did Royal Charter write about the mission of the BBC?

8. Who nominates its chairman and a board of governors?

9. Who was the first director general of the BBC?

10. When did the BBC begin its television service?

11. Why was television taken off the air by 1939?

12. Why were the viewing figures insignificant at that time?

13. When did TV transmissions begin again?

14. How many national radio programmes does the BBC transmit?

15. What are the programmes?

16. What does Radio Five concentrate on?

17. How many local radio stations does the BBC operate?

18. How is the BBC financed?

19. What is the attitude of the BBC to paid advertising on radio and TV?

20. Why do you think the licence fee became a political issue?

21. Why has the BBC been told to investigate other ways of increasing the revenue?

22. What kind of subscription-based services of TV can you name?

23. What programmes are financed by the Foreign and Commonwealth office? Why?

24. In how many languages does the BBC transmit around the world?

TEXT XII INDEPENDENT LOCAL RADIO

Read the text and write down ten questions based on it Answer the

questions working in pairs.

Since the Independent Local Radio stations went on the air at the end of 1973, ILR has firmly established itself as an accepted feature of everyday life. In eighteen areas of the United Kingdom, ranging from major cities like London, Birmingham or Glasgo to smaller towns like Ipswich, Swansea or Plymouth and their surrounding countryside, the local ILR station is a popular and reliable source of news, local information and entertainment for its many listeners. Throughout the country, over seventeen million people living within ILR areas now listen each week to their local service, tuning in to it for an average of around two hours each day.

At breakfast time, when most people listen to the radio, the directly local relevance of the news and information provided by ILR gives it a strong edge over the national radio services. During the day-time, the companionship and friendliness of the local ILR station is appreciated by lis­teners who tune in for long periods, including housewives at home,' the elderly and the housebound. With ten of the nineteen ILR stations now broadcasting continuously for 24 hours each day, ILR has also pioneered the provision of an entertaining and useful radio service for a section of community that is usually neglected by the media — the night workers.

Consultation with the public goes on at all stages in the development of ILR, right from the time that the new areas are being selected. Quite apart

from the close links that the ILR programme companies themselves establish with the public in their areas, the Authority needs to keep itself closely informed of views and opinions about the ILR services. Much of this work outside London is done by the IRA’s Regional Offices. There is also regular use of audience research, to provide a systematic and reliable picture of audience reactions.

In addition the Authority has special Local Advisory Committees for ILR, and in each area holds public meetings from time to time after the station has come on air. The public meetings are another means of assessing local attitudes towards the ILR services. The meetings are helpful, too, as a source of practical suggestions for programming, and as a means of making the work of the Authority and its Local Advisory Committees better known.

The ILR public meetings have probably succeeded more than most, however, in attracting individual listeners, including many young people. Undoubtedly this has been helped by the meetings having been publicised on the relevant ILR stations. Letters inviting organizations to send representatives to the meetings have also contributed to the large number of people who have turned up on each occasion. Posters and local press advertisements have also played a part.

Inevitably, not all the suggestions for programming put forward at public meetings can be adopted: some may not take account of the fact that ILR must be self-financing and has to cater for many different local tastes on a single channel; others may not recognize efforts already being made by ILR stations to meet the various needs of their listeners. Even though not all proposals can be pursued, however, suggestions can be useful by indicating, for example, what gaps there might be in existing services, or maybe highlighting a need of which programming staff were not previously aware.

TEXT XIII PREHISTORY OF TELEVISION Read the text and answer the questions.

Of all the secret human desires which are echoed in the old fairy-tale, and which modern science has now turned into reality, television seemed the most fantastic idea, the most unlikely one ever to become a fact, to people only a generation or two ago.

Yet the idea of transmitting picture by electricity is about as old as the electric telegraph. Alexander Bain, a young Scottish psychologist, devised in 1842 a machine for transmitting drawings by electric wire. It bears an astonishing similarity to modern photo-telegraphic equipment. This system of photo-telegraphy, by wire or wireless, is still widely in use for the transmission of photographs, documents, and so on for the press, for the police, and every postal and cable network in the world offers facilities for picture transmission.

Once photo-telegraphy had become a fact in the early years of this century, the idea of transmitting “living” instead of still pictures no longer seemed quite so fantastic. It was, in fact, merely a problem of speed — of scanning the scene to be transmitted, of sending the impulses to the receiver, and of assembling them there so quickly that the eye would accept them as the image of a real-life scene. As in the cinema, the inertia of the human eye was expected to be of great help in this process of reproduction.

A practical solution of the scanning problem had been found as far back as 1884 by a student at Berlin University, Paul Nipkov. Two developments had stimulated his technical imagination, the invention of the telephone and the discovery that the element selenium allows an electric current to pass much more freely when the sun is shining on it — the discovery which later led to the invention of photo-electric cell.

Nipkov patented his invention under the name of “Electrical Telescope”. But that was as far as he could get: the technical difficulties were so enormous that he decided to wait until developments caught up with his idea. As it happened, he never returned to it but took up the career of a railway engineer.

Boris Rosing, of the St. Petersburg Technological Institute, seems to have been the first physicist who thought of using Braun’s tube for the reception of images. As early as 1907 he suggested a system of remote electric vision, with a Nipkov disc for scanning the scene to be transmitted and a cathode-ray tube as the receiver.