Headlines

Bloomberg
Apple Refutes China's Security Claims
否認中國媒體指控，蘋果說地圖定位不會被追蹤
After China's state-owned news network reported that the iPhone's tracking software was a security risk, the company reassured customers that the activity of individuals remains private. China Central Television reported that the iPhone function collects data that could result in state secrets being divulged. Apple's response was direct: It has never "worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services."
中國媒體日前指出iPhone的追蹤軟體會搜集用戶資訊，這些數據可能會洩露國家機密，危及國家安全。蘋果說，iPhone不會追蹤用戶定位，使用者不需擔心隱私問題，他們的產品與服務更從未與任何國家的政府機構合作。

Fast Company
Birth Control Goes Hi-Tech
高科技避孕法
By 2018, birth control could become more convenient than "popping" a pill. The 50-year old oral contraceptive pill could soon be replaced by a hormone secreting chip that is implanted under the skin and activated remotely. The Gates Foundation is backing the development of MicroChips in which levenorgestrel is stored in microscopic channels covered by a thin seal that is temporarily melted when an electrical current passes through the device, thereby releasing the hormone on demand or based on a predetermined schedule. The technology has yet to be fully tested on humans, and security issues remain: the technology could invite the remote hacking of a woman's reproductive system.
到2018年，遙控避孕晶片將取代行之有年的口服避孕藥。蓋茲基金會資助的Micro Chips研發的晶片，植入女性皮膚後，可透過遙控的方式，決定啟用或是停用這個晶片。避孕晶片尚未進行人體測試，現階段的安全疑慮是：萬一駭客入侵生殖系統怎麼辦？

WIRED
A $3 Billion Wager that the Silicon Microchip is History
IBM的30億後矽時代
To achieve competitive differentiation, IBM is betting a hefty $3 billion on alternatives to conventional silicon chips. The inexorable pressure of Moore's Law (over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years), could mean that microchip technology is getting so tiny, that the era of silicon chips is soon history. Alternative technologies include carbon nanotubes or silicon nanophotonics(which use light rather than electrical signals to communicate data throughout the chip). Beyond that, IBM has also invested in Neurosynaptic chips. The company said that its goal is to build a neurosynaptic system that closely emulates the human brain, complete with 100 trillion synapses and 10 billion neurons.
IBM宣布將投注至少30億美元研發新式矽晶片。除了強化碳奈米管和矽光子的研究，IBM也開始投資可以打造人工大腦的材料：「類神經晶片」，可以模擬大腦認知和活動計算、通訊和記憶。

Harvard Business Review
The Pirates of Capitalism
失衡的金權帝國
In the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gekko reveals all: "Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another." Wealth is redistributed, not created. Wall Street's modus operandi rewards companies that achieve the most profit on the least assets, based on RONA. Markets want results fast; short-term liquid assets are preferred, so nonfinancial corporations are pressured into making investor payouts rather than investing in real assets. Thus, publicly held companies invest approximately half as much in assets as private companies do. The U.S. economy is misallocating resources, including the cream of its educated youth who enter finance, at the expense of innovation and long-term economic growth.
電影《華爾街》裡麥克道格拉斯一語中的：「錢本身不會變多或變少，它只不過是簡單地從一個人轉到另一人手裡。」
華爾街短視近利的價值觀，創造了驚人獲利，增強金融影響力，金融機構於是有能力花費巨資在政策遊說和政治捐獻，以支配政府。經濟「金融化」帶來的惡果是導致資源錯誤配置。因應來自華爾街的壓力，民間企業常常做出不符合公司最佳利益的決策。

The Economist
The Travesty of the Arabs
阿拉伯世界的難題
Islam and innovation were once in lock-step marching ahead of Western civilization as a center of intellectual progress, trade, and tolerance. Most of the world now marches toward a collective global if imperfect progress, while the Arabs are static – bound by the shackles of religious fanaticism and brutal political regimes. When the possibility of peace and progress within the Arab Spring collapsed, the nightmare of the Middle East returned with a vengeance. For the Arabs and the rest of the world to be safe, and for Arabs to be lifted from poverty, the Arabs must reverse their civilizational deterioration by seizing their own destiny.
伊斯蘭地區一度是世界的發展核心，全世界經濟、科技、政治版圖競爭之激烈，阿拉伯社會卻被宗教狂熱和蠻橫政權所束縛。阿拉伯之春帶來和平進步的可能已然崩毀，傳統中東勢力的復仇隨之而來。追求穩定與脫離貧窮需要改革，阿拉伯社會的命運，只有阿拉伯人自己能扭轉。■

本文刊載於英語島English Island 2014年8月號
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