Exercise 11. Underline the correct variant and discuss the questions below.
Over one billion people used / usage Facebook last Monday. This is the first time the site has had this / these many visitors in one day. The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, said it was an importance / important achievement for his company. He posted in / on his own Facebook profile that: "We just passed an important grindstone / milestone. For the first time ever, one billion people used Facebook in a singles / single day." He said that on Monday, "one by / in seven people on Earth used Facebook to connect / connection with their friends and family". He added that: "This was the first time we / us reached this milestone, and it's just the beginning of connecting the whole world." Mr Zuckerberg also said a connected world, "brings stronger / strength relationships with those you love".
Zuckerberg created Facebook in 2004, which / while he was a student at Harvard University. The website quickly / quick became one of the biggest sites in the world. Today, it has nearly / nears 1.5 billion users and Zuckerberg thinks that number will grow / growth. In October 2012, he announced that Facebook had one billion users who / whose used the site at least once a month. Three years late / later, the site had one billion visitors in just one / once day. Zuckerberg said the company needs to grow a lot in countries / country where Facebook isn't such / so popular, such as in many African and Asian countries and some in Central and South America. Facebook has made Zuckerberg the ninth richer / richest person in the world, at the age of 31.
Questions
| 1. What springs to mind when you hear the word 'Facebook'? |
| 2. Why do you think Facebook is so popular? |
| 3. How does Facebook compare to other social network sites? |
| 4. How long do you spend on social networks every day? |
| 5. What would life be like without the Internet? |
| 6. Are there any dangers to using Facebook? |
| 7. What do you know about the boss of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg? |
| 8. How safe or dangerous is it for young people to use Facebook? |
| 9. What would you do to make Facebook better? |
| 10. What do you think of the name 'Facebook'? |
WRITING
1. INTERNET: Search the Internet and find out more about mobile phones and learning. Share what you discover with your group mates in the next lesson.
2. BANNED: Write a magazine article about banning mobile phones in the classroom. Include imaginary interviews with people who are for and against this.
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3. LETTER: Write a letter to an expert on mobile phones. Ask him/her three questions about mobile phones. Give him/her three of your ideas.
UNIT 23
VIRTUAL REALITY
Vocabulary Bank Unit 23
Task 1. Read, write the translation and learn the basic vocabulary terms:
| 1. along with 2. ambitious 3. appropriate 4. astray 5. black holes 6. bookmark 7. boundary 8. challenged by birth 9. chronological order 10. computer combat 11. computer-enhanced 12. cyberspace 13. down-to-earth application 14. entertainment 15. exact 16. fibre-optic 17. gear 18. goggle (n) 19. handicapped 20. helmet 21. horizontal strip 22. IRC (Information Reception Service) 23. ISDN (Integrated Services Data Network) terminal adaptor 24. leading edge 25. liquid-crystal26.mind trip 26. mind’s content 27. oblivion | 28. paraplegic 29. perceptive depth 30. popup 31. prepared skull 32. public television documentaries 33. regardless 34. roller coaster ride 35. sensory environment 36. simulation 37. substitute (n) 38. surgical procedures 39. swoop 40. telepresence 41. timeline 42. to affect 43. to backtrack 44. to be featured 45. to guide 46. to mix up 47. to seek out 48. to slip 49. to straddle 50. to strap on 51. to surf 52. traversing 53. TV sitcom 54. wearer 55. wide-angle lenses |
Text 21 A. VIRTUAL REALITY
One of the most exciting new areas of computer research is virtual reality. Having been featured in TV sitcoms as well as public television documentaries, virtual reality is merely an ambitious new style of computer interface. Virtual reality creates the illusion of being in an artificial world — one created by computers.
Virtual reality visitors strap on a set of “eyephones”, 3-D goggles that are really individual computer screens for the eyes. Slipping on the rest of the gear allows you not only to see and hear, but also to sense your voyage. The world of virtual reality has been called cyberspace, a computer-enhanced fantasy world in which you move around and manipulate objects to your mind’s content.
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When you move your head, magnetic sensors instruct the computer to refocus your eye phones to your new viewpoint. Sounds surround you, and a fiber-optic glove allows you to “manipulate” what you see. You may seek out strange new worlds, fight monsters in computer combat, or strap yourself into the seat of a Star Wars-type jet and scream through cyberspace, blasting all comers to oblivion (computer oblivion, at least). Or, with your stomach appropriately settled, you might even try out the most incredible roller coaster ride you will ever take in your life.
For the disabled, virtual reality promises a new form of freedom. Consider the wheelchair bound paraplegic child who is suddenly able to use virtual reality gear to take part in games like baseball or basketball. Research funded by the government takes a military point of view, investigating the possibility of sending robots into the real conflict while human beings don cyberspace gear to guide them from back in the lab.
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