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· 每日跟讀單元 Daily English,國際時事跟讀Daily Shadowing

Topic: Apple Feels the Sting From an Oscar Slap

Apple has a Will Smith problem.

蘋果有個威爾史密斯的麻煩。

Smith is the star of “Emancipation,” a film set during the Civil War era that Apple envisioned as a surefire Oscar contender when it wrapped filming earlier this year. But that was before Smith strode onto the stage at the Academy Awards in March and slapped comedian Chris Rock, who had made a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.

史密斯是「解放」(暫譯)的主角,這部設定於南北戰爭期間的電影今年初拍攝殺青時,蘋果視為奧斯卡必勝參賽者,但那是在3月的奧斯卡頒獎典禮前。史密斯在典禮時走上舞台,掌摑喜劇演員克里斯洛克,因為他開了史密斯妻子、潔達蘋姬史密斯的玩笑。

Will Smith, who also won best actor that night, has since surrendered his membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and has been banned from attending any Academy-related events, including the Oscar telecast, for the next decade.

威爾史密斯那晚贏得最佳男主角獎,那之後他退回美國影藝學院會員資格,且被禁止未來十年參加所有學院相關活動,包括奧斯卡獎。

Now Apple finds itself left with a $120 million unreleased awards-style movie featuring a star no longer welcome at the biggest award show of them all and a big question: Can the film, even if it succeeds artistically, overcome the baggage that now accompanies Smith?

現在蘋果發現,它花1.2億美元拍攝這部符合奧斯卡得獎風格的未上映電影,片中明星在這個最大獎項會場卻已不再受歡迎。一個很大問題是:即使在藝術上成功了,這部電影如今能夠克服史密斯帶來的包袱嗎?

According to three people involved with the film who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the company’s planning, there have been discussions inside Apple to release “Emancipation” by the end of the year, which would make it eligible for awards consideration. Variety reported in May, however, that the film’s release would be pushed into 2023.

要求匿名談論蘋果公司計畫的三名參與電影人士說,蘋果內部曾討論在今年底前上映「解放」,好讓電影符合獎項考慮資格。然而,「綜藝」雜誌5月報導,電影上映可能推遲到2023年。

When asked for this article how and when it planned to release “Emancipation,” Apple declined to comment.

當被問到計畫如何及何時上映「解放」時,蘋果拒絕置評。

“Emancipation,” directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”) and with a script by William Collage, is based on the true story of a slave known as “Whipped Peter,”who joined the Union Army while still in the South.

「解放」由「震撼教育」導演安東尼法奎執導,編劇為比爾克爾吉,根據一名叫做「鞭傷彼得」的奴隸,在南方加入聯邦軍的真實故事改編。

Apple set up a general audience test screening of “Emancipation” in Chicago earlier this year, according to three people with knowledge of the event who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to discuss it publicly. They said it generated an overwhelmingly positive reaction, specifically for Smith’s performance, which one of the people called “volcanic.” Audience members, during the after-screening feedback, said they were not turned off by Smith’s recent public behavior.

根據三名知曉活動、但不被允許公開談論此事而匿名的人士表示,蘋果今年初在芝加哥進行一場針對一般大眾的「解放」試映。他們說,電影得到驚人的正面反應,特別是史密斯的演技,有人形容為「有如火山爆發」。在試映結束後的觀眾回饋中,有人說他們不會因為史密斯最近的公開行為而討厭他。

Smith largely disappeared from public view following the Oscars. But in July, he released a video on his YouTube channel in which he said he was “deeply remorseful” for his behavior and apologized directly to Rock and his family.

奧斯卡獎典禮後,史密斯幾乎自公眾目光中消失。但他7月在自己的YouTube頻道上傳一段影片,表示對自己的行為「深感悔恨」,並直接向洛克及其家人道歉。

Next Article

Topic: Apple’s Eye-Catching New Home Disrupts Silicon Valley

 

Things change when a spaceship comes to town.

Tourists stroll by, whipping out their iPhones to get a photo. New businesses move in. And real estate prices go up even more.

當太空船來到城裡,許多事情都變了。遊客在這裡流連,迅速拿出iPhone拍照。新商家進駐。房地產價格漲得更高。

 

Apple’s new home in Cupertino — the centerpiece being a $5 billion, four-story, 2.8 million-square-foot ring that can be seen from space and that locals call the spaceship — is still getting some final touches, and employees have just started to trickle in. The full squadron, about 12,000 people, will arrive in several months.

But the development of the headquarters, a 175-acre area officially called Apple Park, has already helped transform the surrounding area.

蘋果公司在加州古柏迪諾市的新家——核心是耗資50億美元(合台幣約1500億元),面積280萬平方英尺(約7萬9000坪)的4層樓環狀建物,能從太空中看到,當地人稱為太空船——仍處在最後裝修階段,員工才剛開始陸續遷入。總計1萬2000人將在數月內入駐。

不過,蘋果新總部修建已推動周邊地區的變化。新總部占地175英畝(約21萬坪),正式名稱是蘋果園區。

 

In Sunnyvale, a town just across the street, 95 development projects are in the planning stages. The city manager, Deanna J. Santana, said she had never seen such action before. In Cupertino, a Main Street Cupertino living and dining complex opened in early 2016. This downtown enclave includes the Lofts, a 120-unit apartment community opening this fall; small shops; and numerous restaurants and cafes.

Other local businesses are also gearing up in anticipation. A Residence Inn at Main Street Cupertino, expected to open in September, has been slightly customized to meet the needs of Apple employees. Guests will have access to Macs and high-speed internet connections, said Mark Lynn, a partner with Sand Hill Hotel Management, which operates the hotel and consulted with Apple about what its employees need at a hotel.

在蘋果園區對街的桑尼維爾市,有95個開發案正規劃中。市經理迪安娜.桑塔納說,她未曾見過這樣的發展。在古柏迪諾,居住和餐飲綜合建築「古柏迪諾大街」在2016年初開幕。這個商業區包括有120戶公寓的社區Lofts,將於今秋推出;還有小商店、大量的餐廳和咖啡館。

其他本地企業也滿懷期待在做準備。古柏迪諾大街一間長住型飯店預計9月開幕,飯店稍微調整過,以滿足蘋果員工的需求。經營飯店的沙丘飯店管理公司向蘋果諮詢過其員工對飯店有什麼需求,公司合夥人林恩說,飯店客人有麥金塔電腦和高速網路可用。

 

“All the things we have, lined up with what they needed,” Lynn said. “They will represent a large part of our business.”

Tech companies are nothing new for Cupertino. Apple has called the city home for decades, and Hewlett-Packard had a campus in Apple’s new spot, employing 9,000 people. The surrounding towns have been remade as well in the last decade, as giant tech companies have transformed Silicon Valley’s real estate into some of the most expensive in the country.

林恩說:「我們所有事物都配合蘋果員工的需求,他們會在我們業務中占很大比重。」

對古柏迪諾而言,科技公司並不新鮮。蘋果把這個城市當成家已有數十年,而蘋果新總部所在地曾是惠普一個雇用9000人的園區。過去10年,古柏迪諾周遭城鎮的風貌也翻新了,因為科技巨頭已使矽谷轉變為全美房地產最貴的地方之一。

 

But city officials and residents say this project is like nothing they’ve seen before. It is even bringing tourists.

Onlookers snap pictures of the spaceship from the streets. TV helicopters circle above. Amateur photographers ask residents if they can stand on driveways to operate their drones, hoping to get a closer look at Apple Park.

“I just say, ‘Hey, go ahead,'” said Ron Nielsen, who lives in Birdland, a Sunnyvale neighborhood across the street from the spaceship. “Why not?”

但城市官員和居民說,蘋果園區跟他們看過的其他開發案不一樣。園區甚至帶來了遊客。

遊客在街頭拍攝太空船的照片。電視台的直升機在它上方盤旋。業餘攝影師問居民可否站在他們的私家車道上操作無人機,以便更近一點看看蘋果園區。

尼爾森住在桑尼維爾市伯德蘭德地區,就在太空船對街,他說:「我就說,『好啊,行』,為什麼不可以呢?」

Source: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/315730/web/

Next Article

Topic: New Apple Watch heralds ‘smart healthcare’ revolution for aging societies

The new model iPhone was released mid-last month to a somewhat muted reaction from the market. However, at the same event Apple Inc also released an updated Apple Watch, called the Apple Watch Series 4, which showed that the company is working furiously behind the scenes to break into a new field, as it quietly builds an eco-system around “smart healthcare.” Due to the importance of safeguarding human life, the entry threshold into the healthcare market is high, but the potential rewards are significant. As humans live longer, we are becoming ever more reliant on technology and artificial intelligence as a means to look after our health.

新款iPhone在上個月中發表,市場反應是無甚驚奇。不過從同場發表的Apple Watch,可看出蘋果已在另一個領域鴨子划水,悄悄建起了生態系「智慧醫療」。因為人命關天,這是一個門檻極高的市場,但商機也很大,尤其在人類壽命愈來愈長的未來,勢必仰賴更多科技和人工智慧來照顧我們的健康。

The definition of “smart healthcare” is extremely broad. Starting with the da Vinci surgical robot, already on the market for over a decade, the area now includes specialist fields such as the automatic transfer of patient blood pressure monitoring data to hospitals and AI-assisted artificial gene synthesis (gene printing), which is able to rapidly compile DNA sequences and produce biopharmaceuticals. While attending a discussion forum by the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan last month, major pharmaceutical company Merck & Co predicted that revenue from AI-related health care alone — which currently stands at about US$600 million — will grow to around US$20 billion by 2026. Furthermore, AI constitutes just one small piece of the overall smart healthcare market.

智慧醫療的定義廣泛,從問世十幾年的達文西手術機器人、將數據自動回傳醫院的血壓機、到基因合成學借助AI及機器學習,能快速編寫DNA序列,製造生物藥劑來治療疾病等等。國際大藥廠默克上個月來台出席工研院產業創新論壇時就估計,目前光是與AI相關的醫療保健產值,全球約六億美元,二零二六年將達兩百億美元;而AI不過是智慧醫療的一小塊領域。

Humanity is on the cusp of an imminent medical care crisis. According to US research, there is a positive correlation between the patient-to-nurse ratio and patient mortality rate: For every additional patient that a nurse has to care for, the 30-day mortality rate for hospitalized patients increases by 7 percent.

人類面臨的醫療窘境,已迫在眉睫。美國研究指出,每位護理師照顧的病人數,和病人死亡率呈現正相關:護理師每多照顧一名病人,病人住院三十天的死亡風險增加百分之七。

As a result of various background factors, “smart healthcare” will be an unstoppable force in the future. As such, global manufacturers, whether involved in communications, machinery, pharmaceuticals or consumer technology, are all getting involved, and Apple naturally wants to claim a piece of the pie for itself. At last month’s launch of the updated Apple Watch, Apple revealed that the device now supports a heart rate monitor and wrist sensor and represents a significant step forward for the wearable device. Previously, the watch was only able to record a wearer’s heart rate, but the technology has been upgraded so that Apple Watch can now monitor a user’s heart condition in a way that provides real medical value.

在種種背景下,智慧醫療是必然之勢;因此全球廠商不論其專長是通訊、機械、製藥或3C,都在積極投入,蘋果當然也不缺席。上個月發表的Apple Watch,能支援心律檢測及手腕感應,這讓穿戴裝置邁進了一大步,從以往只能記錄心跳幾下,升級到可監測具有醫療價值的心律狀況。

In addition to the above new hardware functionality, Apple is also building a health eco-system. Last year, Apple embarked on a partnership with Stanford University Medical Center to found the Apple Heart Study program, which uses Apple Watch to collect large amounts of data on heart rate activity from volunteers. This year Apple has signed agreements with more than 90 hospitals across the US so that patients can use their mobile phones to access their own medical records, making it possible for users to bring their medical history with them wherever they go. If the results are successful, it may well create a snowball effect and spread to other medical institutions.

蘋果不只推出上述的硬體新功能,也在建構生態系。去年它和史丹佛醫學中心合作啟動「Apple Heart Study」計畫,透過Apple Watch收集自願者的心律大數據。今年又與全美逾九十家醫院簽約,病人可透過手機看到自己的醫療紀錄,落實病歷帶著走。若成效良好,未來很可能產生滾雪球效應,擴及更多醫療機構。

Source article: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang/archives/2018/10/09/2003701979/2