沪江小编:对于商界精英们来说,阅读《金融时报》(Financial Times)几乎成了每天的必修课。FT文章以分析为主,逻辑严密,经常被各类考试用作考题。非常适合学习BEC、TOEIC、GRE、GMAT的考生来阅读、练习。沪江小编精选FT上的双语文章,配上独家的学习指南,从词汇、短语、句式、文化、翻译等多方面来解读,长期坚持,相信会对英语学习有所帮助。

原文阅读:雅虎天价收购少年研发应用

Yahoo pays $30-million for an iPhone app that has no revenue and is made by a teenager and this is what counts as product buzz at the $25-billion internet giant? That is not to say the backstory is uninteresting. Nick D’Aloisio as a boy in London teaches himself to code. He then invents a program called Summly that truncates news articles for the impatient mobile phone set. Later the free-to-download program quickly attracts some glittering backers and ultimately 1 million downloads.

But Yahoo plans to shutter the app so why pay $30-million or $30 per user? (Recall a year ago Facebook paid roughly that price per user – $1-billion in total – for the photo app Instagram that also lacked revenue but did represent a growing and passionate community). For one, Yahoo gets the summarisation algorithm that Mr D’Aloisio created with SRI International, the Silicon Valley lab that had originated the Siri personal assistant technology embedded in iPhones. Yahoo also gets the services of Mr D’Aloisio for the next 18 months. Mostly, it gets to show momentum in mobile technology to users and investors, but also to the developer talent that must believe working for Yahoo is as cool as working at Google or Twitter or any currently unknown pre-IPO start-up.

Yahoo’s struggles in traditional internet search and advertising are well-documented but with the mobile environment still up for grabs, it has the chance to redeem itself there. The company does have strong content portfolio and its 186 million U.S. monthly unique visitors, according to comScore, surprisingly is ahead of Facebook and only slightly trails Google. And the stock is up 50 per cent since Marissa Mayer took the helm in July (though half of its equity value is tied to non-core Asian investments). It could be time to consider buying one of those web or mobile players, say Hulu, run by a full-fledged grown-up.

学习指南:

1.Word of the day

algorithm: An algorithm is a series of mathematical steps, especially in a computer program, which will give you the answer to a particular kind of problem or question.  (尤指电脑程序中的)算法

2.Phrase of the day

counts as:  If something counts or is counted as a particular thing, it is regarded as being that thing, especially in particular circumstances or under particular rules.(尤指在特定环境中或在特定规则下)将……看做,将……视为

ex1:No one agrees on what counts as a desert.
例句一:关于沙漠的界定,众说纷纭。

ex2:Any word that's not legible will be counted as wrong.
例句二:任何无法辨认的词都将被视为错字。

3.Sentence of the day

Yahoo’s struggles in traditional internet search and advertising are well-documented but with the mobile environment still up for grabs, it has the chance to redeem itself there. 
雅虎在传统互联网搜索与广告领域遭遇的困境已无需赘述。但移动领域目前仍处于群雄逐鹿的状态,雅虎有机会在这一领域一雪前耻。

小编注:up for grabs是一个英语习语,grab有“抢夺”“夺取”的意思,这个习语按照字面意思,就是有一个东西在那里,供人们随意抓取,谁抢到就是谁的。这里翻译成群雄逐鹿是非常合适的。需要注意的是这个短语总是以复数形式出现,不能说成up for grab。

4.Cultural point of the day

年仅17岁的CEO。17岁的英国男孩达洛席欧(Nick D’Aloisio)是这篇新闻的主人公,他开发出了新闻摘要软件Summly,一举成名,并创办了同名公司。这位令人羡艳的小伙子的成功并不是偶然的,在他12岁那年,Apple的iPhone应用商店开张,他便去询问工作人员如何学习开发应用程序。靠着网络视频的教程,他自学成才,每年暑假都会开发一款新的app,2011年他设计了可替用户裁切新闻的应用程序Trimit,登上App Store后累计3万人次下载。无论如何,Love&Passion永远是成功的必要因素。

5.Translation of the day

He then invents a program called Summly that truncates news articles for the impatient mobile phone set.
他设计了一款名为Summly的程序,它可以替那些缺乏耐心的移动电话人群将新闻截短。

小编注:原文中用了一个修辞手法,mobile phone set原义为“移动电话设备”,但“设备”显然不会“impatient”,这里指的是用移动电话代指那些用移动电话的人群,译文根据句意翻译了出来。

>>>>>翻页见全文双语翻译<<<<<