比如，消費品的生產(chǎn)幾乎回到了一年前的水平。這是因為對汽車(chē)及其他物品的消費需求以及房屋產(chǎn)業(yè)在經(jīng)濟衰退期間都保持了健康發(fā)展，而且在2002年初仍然在增長(cháng)。

此外，過(guò)去兩個(gè)月中每月房屋建造和房產(chǎn)市場(chǎng)指數都在整個(gè)2001年的平均數以上。這表明房屋建造有了好的開(kāi)始，可能不會(huì )成為今年GDP增長(cháng)的累贅。

對于經(jīng)濟前景同樣重要的是穩固的房產(chǎn)市場(chǎng)將有利于刺激對房屋相關(guān)物品和服務(wù)的需求。傳統消費者在置家后的一年內會(huì )購買(mǎi)大部分家具、電子產(chǎn)品和紡織品。因此，今年在這些物品上的消費將看好。甚至現在當汽車(chē)銷(xiāo)售下滑時(shí)，這些商品刺激也沒(méi)有失去吸引力。期望消費商品的產(chǎn)量在未來(lái)的月份里超越年前的水平。

甚至辦公設備部門(mén)的生產(chǎn)似乎也要降至最低點(diǎn)。它的產(chǎn)量因電腦設備0.6%的漲幅在1月上升了0.4%。第四季度里資本物品訂購的上升表明未來(lái)的月份里生產(chǎn)的速度雖然緩慢但仍將繼續上升。

Text 4

Timothy Berners-Lee might be giving Bill Gates a run for the money, but he passed up his shot at fabulous wealth—intentionally—in 1990. That’s when he decided not to patent the technology used to create the most important software innovation in the final decade of the 20th century: the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee wanted to make the world a richer place, not a mass personal wealth. So he gave his brainchild to us all.

Berners-Lee regards today’s Web as a rebellious adolescent that can never fulfill his original expectations. By 2005, he hopes to begin replacing it with the Semantic Web—a smart network that will finally understand human languages and make computers virtually as easy to work with as other humans.

As envisioned by Berners-Lee, the new Web would understand not only the meaning of words and concepts but also the logical relationships among them. That has awesome potential. Most knowledge is built on two pillars: semantics and mathematics. In number-crunching, computers already outclass people. Machines that are equally adroit at dealing with language and reason won’t just help people uncover new insights; they could blaze new trails on their own.

Even with a fairly crude version of this future Web, mining online repositories for nuggets of knowledge would no longer force people to wade through screen after screen of extraneous data. Instead, computers would dispatch intelligent agents, or software messengers, to explore Web sites by the thousands and logically sift out just what’s relevant. That alone would provide a major boost in productivity at work and at home. But there’s far more. 

Software agents could also take on many routine business chores, such as helping manufacturers find and negotiate with lowest-cost parts suppliers and handling help-desk questions. The Semantic Web would also be a bottomless trove of eureka insights. Most inventions and scientific breakthroughs, including today’s Web, spring from novel combinations of existing knowledge. The Semantic Web would make it possible to evaluate more combinations overnight than a person could juggle in a lifetime. Sure scientists and other people can post ideas on the Web today for others to read. But with machines doing the reading and translating technical terms, related ideas from millions of Web pages could be distilled and summarized. That will lift the ability to assess and integrate information to new heights. The Semantic Web, Berners-Lee predicts, will help more people become more intuitive as well as more analytical. It will foster global collaborations among people with diverse cultural perspectives, so we have a better chance of finding the right solutions to the really big issues—like the environment and climate warming.

1. Had he liked, Berners-Lee could have _____.

［A］created the most important innovation in the 1990s

［B］accumulated as much personal wealth as Bill Gates

［C］patented the technology of Microsoft software

［D］given his brainchild to us all

2. The Semantic Web will be superior to today’s web in that it _____.

［A］surpasses people in processing numbers

［B］fulfills user’s original expectations

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