2012年大学英语六级快速阅读冲刺题(6)
Smartphones A smartphone is one device that can take care of all of your handheld computing and communication needs in a single, small package. It’s not so much a distinct class of products as it is a different set of standards for cell phones to live up to. Basics of a Smartphone www.examw.com Unlike many traditional cell phones, smartphones allow individual users to install, configure and run applications of their choosing. A smartphone offers the ability to conform the device to your particular way of doing things. Most standard cell-phone software offers only limited choices for re-configuration, forcing you to adapt to the way it’s set up. On a standard phone, whether or not you like the built-in calendar application, you are stuck with it except for a few minor tweaks (调节). If that phone were a smartphone, you could install any compatible calendar application you like. Since cell phones and PDAs are the most common handheld devices today, a smartphone is usually either a phone with added PDA capabilities or a PDA with added phone capabilities. Smartphones can do many things: sending and receiving mobile phone calls, Personal Information Management (PIM) including notes, calendar and to-do list, communication with laptop or desktop computers, data synchronization with applications like Microsoft Outlook and Apple’s iCal calendar programs, E-mail, instant messaging , and playing audio and video files in some standard formats. Future applications promise to be even more impressive. For example, the Nokia 6131 is a phone utilizing near field communication (NFC) to allow the phone to act as a wireless credit card . The phone uses a two-way communication system to transfer payment information to pads at certain retail stores. Currently, it’s still in the trial phase of development. Network Protocols Smartphones use cell-phone network technology to send and receive data (such as phone calls, web browsing, file transfers, etc.). Developers classify this technology into generations. The first generation includes analog cell phone technology. Digital cell phones require more advanced protocols, which constitute the second generation. Between generation two and three, network engineers created protocols that are more advanced than generation two’s digital technology but not so innovative that they are a truly new generation. Developers refer to these protocols as generation 2.5. This generation includes several early smartphone protocols, some of which are still used today. General Packet Radio Services (GPRS) is a wireless, packet-based communication service and until recently was the standard 2.5G protocol used in most smartphones. Unlike a circuit-switched voice connection, this is a packet-switched, "always on" connection that remains active as long as the phone is within range of the service. It allows smartphones to do things like run applications remotely over a network, interface with the Internet, participate in instant messenger sessions, act as a wireless modem for a computer and transmit and receive e-mails. 相关资料 |