Exercise 2. Choose the mostly suitable title for each passage.
1. Pedestrian bumper
2. Chocolate medicine-spoon
3. Musical bra
4. Solar-cooled hat
5. Dog glasses
6. Bird diaper
7. Floating soap
8. Hitting clock
Exercise 3. Look at these questions about the gadgets and answer them using the descriptions in the text.
Which invention …
1. … was very popular with children?
2. … would grab the pedestrian around the waist to prevent him dropping to the street?
3. …was floating?
4. … contains a memory chip that plays musical works?
5. … includes corrective lenses for myopic dogs?
6. … operated by means of a solar-powered fan?
7. … would rouse a sleeper from his slumbers by hitting him?
Text 3
Exercise 1. Read the text.
Gadgets and gizmos
Cellular Phone
The cellular or portable phone was first developed in 1979 and, although exactly who invented it remains unclear, collective credit is usually attributed to Swedish giant Ericsson. (The first mobile phone network also opened in Japan the same year.)
While these initially bulky devices became reasonably commonplace during the 1980s, it wasn't until the mid-nineties that massive developments in telephony technology brought the power of instant communication to everybody. The breeze block-size cellular phone of you is now no bigger than a Swan matchbox, and functions not only as a phone but also as a fax, calculator, games console and most recently, a mini-PC.
Bush TV
The outbreak of the Second World War saw an explosion in the use of radio, not least because the various warring governments realised its potential as a powerful propaganda tool. After the war, the television – which has had probably the greatest impact on domestic lives, more than any other 20th-century invention – began its ascent. Like radios and record players, early televisions were housed in cabinets taking up half the living room, and cost as much as a car. When the cathode-ray tube appeared (capable of receiving high-definition broadcasts), the TV set began to downsize. In 1949, Britain's favourite model was the bush set with a 12in or 22in screen and dark brown dakelite casing. With the advent of 625-line tubes in 1964 (replacing 405-line), the bush TV was phased out. Legend has it that many of these obsolete TVs were shipped out to Japan and turned into fish tanks.
Transistor radio
Seventy-four per cent of Japanese homes had a radio in the mid-fifties but with typical prescience the Sony bosses reasoned "the figure is 74 per cent of households ... if we look at the market in per capita terms, there are plenty of opportunities". The US forces had introduced much-coveted portable battery-powered vacuum-tube sets – of which there were many imitations – but even so, the personal radio market remained small. Sony's TK-55 radio was ahead of its time in that it used specially developed transistors, a printed circuit-board and was manufactured entirely in Japan (Regency was the first on the market, but it used unreliable imported transistors). After its launch, Sony still had to convince the public, so it sold transistors to other companies. If trannies appeared simultaneously under the Matsushita and Sanyo companies, then the reputation of the TK-55 would soon spread. Which of course, it did.
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The Pop-up toaster
The first toaster with an inbuilt thermostat that ejected the toast before it had charred to a crisp was invented by American mechanic Charles Strite. McGraw Electric of Minnesota introduced his model to the market in 1926, but it wasn't until the 1930s that the toaster became a regular feature in American kitchens. The Sunbeam model T-9 was patented as an "ornamental" toaster by George Scharfenberg in 1937. With its smooth, rounded chrome casing, dakelite base and handles, it served both as an appliance and a status symbol. Typically, toasters didn't really catch on in Europe until the 1950s.
Pager
The Motorola trademark was so widely recognized in 1947 that the company changed its name from Galvin Manufacturing Corporation to Motorola Inc, but it wasn't until 1955 that it introduced the familiar "batwing M. A year later, it introduced a new radio communications product – a small radio receiver called a pager. It delivered a radio message to whoever was carrying the device and hospitals immediately adopted it.
Tape recorder
Dutch giants Philips developed the compact audio cassette in 1963. Measuring a mere 4in (10cm), it played back both mono and stereo recordings. The following year, the company introduced the first cassette recorder-the EL 3300. Meanwhile, in Japan, although Sony had begun developing cassette tapes, it hadn't yet penetrated the market, doth Philips and Grundig proposed the со-development of the new format and, because its cassette was smaller, Sony chose to go with Philips. Rather generously, Philips waived royalties (but did not give Sony exclusive rights) and made its technology free of charge to manufacturers worldwide. In 1966, Sony launched the TC-100 Magazine-matic cassette recorder. Weighing in at only 1.75kg, the TC-100 was less than half the weight of the lightest reel-to-reel and took half the space.
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Computer mouse
The computer mouse was born of research that Douglas С. Englebert conducted during World War Two. While staring at a radar screen, he figured it was possible to convert the markings on the screen to "figural-visual graphics, around which he could "glide". At the Augmented Human Intellect Center, which he set up in the sixties, Englebert invented the multi-window display, hypertext, the mouse and groupware – the capabilities of which were demonstrated at a conference in 1963. Englebert applied for a patent for the mouse in 1967, which was granted in 1970 as "the X-Y Position indicator for a Display System". This was for the mechanical design only and has long since expired. Xerox's advanced research arm, PARC, developed the GUI (Graphical User Interface) and, in 1974, Apple Macintosh introduced the now ubiquitous mouse – which had been refined by Hartmut Esslinger and his design team.
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