Б). Бесприбыльные исследовательские организации.
Бесприбыльные исследовательские организации не ставят своей целью получение коммерческой прибыли. Это освобождает их от федеральных налогов и делает их относительно независимыми. Бесприбыльными исследовательскими организациями являются исследовательские отделы университетов, федерально финансируемые исследовательские центры, научно-технические общества, музеи, частные благотворительные фонды. Сюда же относятся независимые исследовательские институты, профессиональные общества и Академия наук.
Наибольший объем исследований среди бесприбыльных организаций выполняют независимые исследовательские институты. Они не входят в состав фирм и университетов и различны по своим размерам и структуре. Это, как правило, специализированные исследовательские организации. Старейшими бесприбыльными организациями являются Меллоновский, Беттелевский и Рокфеллеровский фонды. Особое место в этой группе бесприбыльных федеральных исследовательских центров занимает «РЭНД корпорейшен». Это специализированный научный центр, который дает независимую экспертную оценку качества и способов исполнения различных научно-исследовательских проектов. Эта корпорация проводит предварительные исследования, предшествующие выполнению проекта, но не принимает практического участия в их осуществлении, хотя консультирует исполнителей в ходе выполнения проекта. Ее часто называют «мозговым центром», или «мыслительным резервуаром».
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В). Университеты и научные исследования.
В настоящее время университеты США, оставаясь центрами высшего образования, превратились и в центры фундаментальных исследований. Их значение в проведении научных исследований можно сравнить в известной мере с ролью Академии наук у нас в России. Это обусловлено концентрацией в университетах значительного числа высококвалифицированных научных работников, а также значительной государственной и частной финансовой поддержкой фундаментальных исследований.
Организация исследований в университетах проводится в двух формах: на основе субсидий и по контрактам. Для получения субсидий ученый должен составить план-заявку и в ней кратко изложить суть предложения. В случае принятия ведомством положительного решения ученый получает средства, за которые он несет личную ответственность. Университеты проводят исследования не только в своих лабораториях, но и в лабораториях, принадлежащих различным правительственным ведомствам. Наиболее крупные федеральные исследовательские центры управляются по контрактам университетской администрацией. Примером может служить Лаборатория им. Линкольна при Массачусетском технологическом институте.
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Характерным для современной Америки является быстрый рост научно-промышленных комплексов, появившихся благодаря сотрудничеству университетской науки с промышленностью. Такие комплексы объединяют университеты, научно-исследовательские учреждения и промышленные фирмы, связанные общими интересами в области исследований и производства. Среди таких комплексов важнейшими являются: Кембридж-Бостон, Сан-Франциско, Лос-Анджелес, Принстон и Хьюстон. Превращение университетов в центры фундаментальных исследований значительно повысило их статус в обществе.
Г). Русские американцы. Без России не было бы телевизоров и вертолетов.
На всем протяжении американской истории, причем в ее самые ответственные моменты, русские всегда были готовы прийти и помочь. Первый «русский американец», друг президента Мэдисона ФедорКаржавин (1745-1812)внес свою лепту в борьбу за независимость. Жизнь и дела его - сюжеты для авантюрного романов. Полковник Российской армии Иван Тупчанинов после Крымской войны вышел в отставку и эмигрировал в Америку. Там во время гражданской войны добровольцем записался в армию северян, командовал бригадой и был произведен Линкольном в генералы. Его жена стала первой в Америке женщиной - полевым хирургом.
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Александр Северский (1894-1974) был конструктором военных самолетов. Среди его идей были автопилот и система дозоправки в воздухе. Степан Тимошенко(1878-1972)-ученый-металлург, крупнейший в мире специалист по сопротивлению материалов…
Тысячи фамилий в русском мире Америки являются гордостью наших стран:.нобелевский лауреат, экономист Леонтьев, изобретатель телевидения Зворикин, авиаконструктор Игорь Сикорский, выдающийся американский офтальмолог Елена Федукович, Нина Федорова – генетик, академик Национальной академии наук, физик Георгий Гамов. А еще – писатели, артисты балета, музыканты, певцы, художники!
Part II. Silicon Valley – What is This?
Read and translate the following words and word combination:
To spawn - создавать, зарождаться, размножаться
An entrepreneur – предприниматель, владелец предприятия
To be charged with a project – поручать проект
Venture capital –капитал, вложенный в предприятие
Synergy - явление в деловой практике, когда общий результат превосходит
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сумму отдельных эффектов
To endow - капитал, вкладываемый в предприятие
To impede - обеспечивать капиталом
Insulator - диэлектрик, непроводник
Impurities - примесь
Boron - (хим.) бор
Flagship - флагман
To embark on - начинать дело, браться за что-то
To earn a doctorate – получить докторскую степень
Te be bootstapped to – быть загруженным… … -
Embedded - включенный
Hubs - втулки
Outers up to the – до отказа, по уши
Geographically, the Silicon Valley is the northern part of the Santa Clara County, an area stretching from the south end of the San Francisco Area to San Jose- the capital of Santa Clara County, limited by the Santa Cruz Mountains in the west and the northern part of the Diablo Range in the east. The name Silicon Valley was coined in 1971 by Don C. Hoefler, editor of the Microelectronics News, when he used this term in his magazine as the title for a series of articles about semiconductor industry in Santa Clara County. Silicon Valley saw the development of the integrated circuit, the microprocessor, the personal computer and the video game and has spawned a lot of high-tech products as pocket calculators, cordless telephones, lasers or digital watches. Looking at our high-tech society in which the PC has become indispensable-both in businesses and at home, the crucial role of Silicon Valley as the birthplace of the microelectronics and then the PC revolution has become even more evident.
Silicon Valley is also seen as a place where many entrepreneurs backed by venture capital have made the American Dream come true as “Overnight Millionaires”. This makes Silicon Valley a philosophy saying that everything which seems impossible is feasible and that improvements in the US society can take place. The mayor of San Jose Thomas Enery called it the “economic and cultural frontier where successful entrepreneurship and venture capitalism, innovative work rules and open management styles provide the background for the most profound inquiry ever into the nature of intelligence” which might, together with “bioengineering and artificially intelligent software”, affect our evolution. The revolutionary inventions and developments, which have been made in this «Valley», affect the daily life and it is hard to imagine high-tech society without them.
The story of the “Silicon Valley” starts with Stanford University, which has been of fundamental importance in the rise of the electronics industry in Santa Clara County.
In 1887, Leland Stanford, a wealthy railroad magnate who owned a large part of the Pacific Railroad, decided to built a university and dedicate it to the memory of his son who died very young. The university was opened in 1891 and became later one of the world’s greatest academic institutions.
Frederick Term who is known today as a godfather of the Silicon Valley changed the position of this university fundamentally. After graduation from Stanford University he decided to go east to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which was then the leading university in technology. After receiving his doctorate in 1924 he turned to Palo Alto and became the head of the engineering department in 1937.Terman established strong cooperation between Stanford and the surrounding electronics industry to stop the brain drain among the university graduates, as they could not find good jobs in California at that time. Due to his prepaid leasing program Terman received more than $18 million. Thanks to him many companies endowed the university with gifts, which Terman used to hire qualified professors from all over the USA. Thus, he created a mechanism, which increased the settlement of the electronics industry.
During World War II, after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor in 1942, a great deal of the US military forces and of the military production was moved to California. Within a few years, California became a booming industrial state and the military center of the USA. After World War II, the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) was founded to provide the industry with more skilled specialists and increase the number of companies in Santa Clara County. More firms - among them Hewlett-Packard as one of the first residents - settled their departments in this park.
During the Korean War the US government placed Stanford with a great deal of the projects, which made more and more electronics companies (among them IBM and Lockheed) opened R&D departments in Santa Clara County. Military funding for high-tech products was responsible for the rapid growth of Silicon Valley. Such firms as FMC, GTE, Varian Associates, Westinghouse, and finally Lockheed opened their R&D departments in the Stanford Research Park and started Lockheed Missiles and Space Company (LMSC) in Sunnyvale. They were to become the core of the early explosive growth of Silicon Valley Lockheed’s (with 24,000 Employees now) move to Northern California was crucial for the developments in Santa Clara County.
The invention of the microprocessor in the early 1970s represented the next step towards the modern way of computing, providing the basis for the subsequent personal computer revolution .
The first microprocessor was designed at Intel Corporation (Integrated Electronics) representing the key to modern personal computers. With its logic and memory chips, the company started providing the basic components for microcomputers.Intel, the most successful semiconductor company is regarded as Silicon Valley’s flagship, owing its worldwide leading role to a perpetually high spending on research and development (R&D).
The foundation of the corporation started in 1968 by Bob Noyce together with Gordon Moore and Andy Grove. Their aim was to embark on a new venture and “to regain the satisfaction of research and development”. After Bob Noyce had developed a new photochemical process, the three engineers developed the ideas of integrating many transistors on a chip of silicon. Initially they focused on building the first semiconductor chips used for computer memory, which could replace the dominant memory storage technology at the time, called “magnetic core”. The young company started with 12 employees and with the first two products gained the technological lead in the field of memory chips.
Within a year, Intel developed its first product - the 3101 Schottky bipolar 64-bit static random access memory (SRAM), which was soon followed by the 1101. This chip (1101) was a 256-bit SRAM developed on Intel’s new “silicon gate metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) process”.
Intel’s first really successful product was the 1103 dynamic random access memory (DRAM), which was manufactured in the MOS process. Introduced in 1970, this chip was “first merchant market LSI (large-scale integrated) DRAM”, and received broad acceptance because it was superior to magnetic core memories. So, by the end of 1971, the 1103 had become the world’s largest-selling semiconductor device and provided the capital for Intel’s early growth.
Until today, semiconductor has adhered to Moore’s Law, which has been framed by the cofounder of Fairchild and Intel when the first commercial DRAMs appeared in the early 1970s. This law predicts that the price per bit drops by 30% every year. It implies that one will receive 30 % more power (speed/capacity) at the same price. Moore’s Law, which could be applied to both memory chips and microprocessors, showed the unprecedented rapid progress in microelectronics.
Intel’s revenues surpassed operating expenses for the first time in 1971. This year the company introduced a new memory chip EPROM (“erasable, programmable read only memory”). Invented by Intel’s Dov Frohman, the new memory could store data permanently but besides could be erased simply by a beam of ultraviolet light and be used again. The invention of the microprocessor marked a turning point in Intel’s history. It showed the real significance of the EPROM, which could be used by original equipment manufacturer customers to store microprocessor programs in a “flexible and low-cost way”. The unexpected synergy between the EPROM and the microprocessor resulted in a growing market for both chips and contributed a great deal to Intel’s early success.
The story of further technological breakthrough began in 1969, when a Japanese calculator manufacturer Busicomp asked Intel to design a set of chips for a family of programmable calculators. Marcian Ted Hoff, a young and very bright ex-Stanford research associate who had joined Intel as employee number 12, was charged with this project. However, Ted Hoff did not like the Japanese design calling for 12 customs chips - each of them was assigned a distinct task. Hoff thought that designing so many different chips would make the calculators very expensive. His idea was to develop a four-chip set with a general-purpose logic device as its center, which could be programmed by instructions stored on a semiconductor memory chip.With the help of new employee Stan Mazor, Hoff perfected the design of what would be the 4004 arithmetic chip. After Busicomp had accepted Hoff’s chip set, Frederico Faggin, one of the best chip design experts, began transforming the design into silicon. The 4004 microprocessor, a 4-bit chip (processes 4 bits - a string of four ones or zeroes-of information at a time), contained 2300 MOS transistors, and was as powerful as the legendary first electronic computer ENIAC.
Soon after the first 4004s had been delivered, Intel realized the market potential of the chip, and successfully renegotiated with the Japanese to regain the exclusive rights, which had been sold to Busicomp. In November 1971, Intel introduced the 4004 to the public in Electronic News ads. They announced not just a new product, but also “a new era of integrated electronics”, a micro programmable computer on a chip. The microprocessor is - as Gordon Moore called it - “one of the most revolutionary products in the history of mankind, and ranks as one of 12 milestones of American technology in a survey of the US” (“News and World Report”, 1982). The introduction of a microprocessor made possible the creation of a microcomputer.
Today, Intel supplies the computing and communications industries with chips, boards and systems building blocks that are the “ingredients” of computers, servers, and networking and communications products. Industry members use these products to create advanced computing and communications systems. Intel’s mission is to be the prominent building block supplier to the worldwide Internet economy.
Communications building blocks for next-generation networks and Internet data centers are offered at various levels of integration. These products are used in communications servers, network appliances and computer telephony integration equipment.
Component-level building blocks include communications silicon such as network processors and other board-level components, software and embedded control chips. These products are integrated in communications hardware such as hubs, outers, switches and servers for local and wide area networking applications. Embedded control chips are also used in laser printers, automotive systems and other applications.
Intel’s measures resulted in a remarkable technological lead against its competitors. The most significant consequence, which was a landmark in the company’s development, was IBM’s decision to rely on the Intel 8088 microprocessor for its PCs in 1980.
IBM (short for International Business Machines) has been the world’s leading company in the big mainframe computers since the 1950s. Due to its dominance, it was often compared with a giant and referred to as “Big Blue”. Because of IBM’s dominance and worldwide reputation, its PCs soon became industry standard and penetrated the office market. Other established computer companies followed and introduced their own PCs - the so-called “clones”-which were compatible to IBM’s models. To maintain compatibility, all these manufactures were forced to rely on Intel’s microprocessors, which thus were bootstrapped to industry standard, too. MS-DOS was chosen as the IBM PC’s operating system and became industry standard, essential to every compatible IBM PC.
The Apple company provides one of Silicon Valley’s most famous stories. It shows features that are typical for most star-up firms in the valley, however, it is unique and its early success and its contribution to the personal computer field are unmatched.
Apple’s history starts with the story of two young and exceptional people “Two Steves” who began building a computer in their garage and launched the microcomputer revolution, changing our daily life in many respects.
Stephen G. Wozniak was a typical Silicon Valley child. Born in 1950, he grew up with the electronics industry in Silicon Valley, and became intrigued by electronics from the very start, since his father was an electronics engineer. Wozniak, known to his friends as “Woz”, was an electronics genius. At the age of 13, he won the highest award at a local science fair for his addition-subtraction machine. His electronics teacher at Homestead High School recognized Woz’s outstanding talent and arranged a job for him at a local company, where Steve could work with computers once a week. It was there that Wozniak saw the capabilities of a computer (it was the DEC PDP-8 minicomputer).
In 1971, Wozniak built his first computer with his high-school friend Bill Fernandez. This computer (they called it Cream Soda Computer) was developed in his friend’s garage. Bill introduced Woz to a friend of his, named Steven P. Jobs. Jobs’ parents were - like most other people in Silicon Valley-blue-collar workers. Growing up in an environment full of electronics, Steve came in contact with this fascinating technology and was caught by it. Jobs was a loner and his character can be described as brash, very ambitious and unshakably self-confident. With his directness and his persistency he managed to persuade most people. He had the ability to convey his notions and visions to other people quite well. And he was not afraid to talk to famous people until they gave in and did what he wanted.
In 1972, Steve Jobs went to Reed College in Oregon, but dropped out a year later and returned to Silicon Valley, where he took a job with a young video game company Atari., which at that time planned to develop a new game called “Breakout”. Jobs boasted he could design it quicker and better than anyone else. Jobs told his friend Woz about it, and the two designed the game in record time, working four nights and days, and were paid the promised $700 for it. This experience showed them that they could work together on a tough project and succeed.
When the Homebrew Computer Club came into existence, Wozniak began attending its meetings. There he met people who shared his love for computers and exchanged the technical expertise. Soon after, Chuck Peddle at MOS Tech released his new 6502 microprocessor chip for only $20, which was a sensation compared to the usual price of $400. Suddenly, Woz saw his chance and decided to write the first BASIC for it, which was the most spread programming language. After finishing with the BASIC, he made a computer for it to run on. The other hobbyists at Homebrew were impressed by Wozniak’s kit, which actually was a board with chips and interfaces for a keyboard and a video monitor.
The breakthrough for the two Steves came in July, when Paul Terrell ordered 50 Apples for his Byte Shop, however on condition the computers were fully assembled in a case and equipped with a cassette interface to enable external data storage. Working hard in Job`s parent’s garage they managed to construct the 50 Apples within those 30 days.
The Apple I was continuously refined by Wozniak, and its sales made the young company known, partly because the company’s name appeared on top of computers lists, which were published by electronics magazines in alphabetical order. By the time the first Apple was being sold, Steve Wozniak had already begun working on another computer, the Apple II. This machine had several special features, which had not appeared in any microcomputer before and would make it the milestone product that would usher in the age of personal computer.
Steve Job’s persistency persuaded Wozniak to build up a company. In 1979, Daniel Fylstra, a programmer from Boston, released VisiCalc for the Apple 11. This spreadsheet was a novelty in computer software. It relieved business calculations considerably and could be used to do financial forecasting. It was the first application that made personal computers a practical tool for people who do not know how to write their own programs. VisiCalc was very successful and contributed to the skyrocketing of the Apple 11.
The same year Mike Markkula made another important decision for Apple future growth. His idea was to create a new market in the field of education and schools. The Apple Education Foundation was established, which granted complete Apple systems equipped with learning software to schools. This market should account for a major part of the company’s sales in the subsequent years, since Apple 11 soon became the most popular machine for students.Apple remains the second-biggest personal computer manufacturer after IBM and has released innovative products such as Quick Time, easy to use multimedia software combining sound, video and animation. Its further development is Newton, a personal digital assistant (PDA), which serves as an electronic notepad and “integrates advanced hand-writing recognition, communication and data-management technologies”.
Practically at the same time a graduate student of Stanford University Andy Bechtolsheim conceived and designed the Sun workstation for the Stanford University Network communication project..In February 1982 he together with Vinod Khosia, and Scott McNealy founded Sun Microsystems ( Stanford University Network) and started initial public offerings in 1986 under the stock symbol SUNW, changed in 2007 to JAVA;
At present Sun holds the patent of the widely used Java Development language and offers certification and support to the Java development community. The company makes network computing products such as workstations, servers, storage systems, network switches, software, microprocessors, and provides associated services and support with its mission to connect everyone, everywhere via sun solutions.
The founder and leader of Microsoft Corporation. William Henry Gates was born in the family of upper middle class businessman in Seattle. He went to Lakeside Prep. School, where he was first introduced to computers. At that time, computers were still too bulky and expensive for the school to purchase their own ones, but the school made agreements with various companies that allowed its students to use the computers. Bill Gates, his friend Paul Allen and a handful of other students took up computing. They read books on computers, tried to write programs, hack the systems, alter and crash the files. Soon Bill and his friends were invited by the computer company to find bugs and explore weaknesses in the system. According to Gates, “ the boys used their time eating, drinking, and breathing computers”. When the company that was hiring the group went out of business in 1970, the boys were soon hired by Information Sciences Inc. to write a program for the payroll. Later they were also contracted by other computer firms to find bugs and fix them.
In 1973 Gates was enrolled to Harvard University as a prelaw student, though he spent most of the time programming in the campus computer center. A year later his friend Paul Allen showed Bill the picture of the first personal microcomputer on the cover of a magazine ”Popular Electronics” along with a lengthy article. They both realized that their “star time” had come – the home PC business was about to explode and needed software for the machines. Gates arranged a meeting with the Altair manufacturers and by the time of the appointment Gates and Allen had already got the program Basic Interpreter– the result of their feverish night work. They sold the program and licensed it to their first customer MITS.
After Bill Gates had dropped out of Harvard, Paul Allen also left MITS ( where he was invited to the position of the Director of Software) to devote the time completely to their new joint company “Microsoft”( 1977). The company went through some rough first years, coming out with its second programming languages FORTRAN and third COBOL In 1980 Microsoft released the Z-80 Soft Card, announced an interactive, multi-user, multi-tasking system XENIX OIS, compatible with the programs written for UNIX OS.
In 1981 Microsoft became a great corporation with Bill Gates as President and Chairman of the Board, and Paul Allen as Executive Vice President in the State of Washington, introduced its PC, multi-feature word processing program, Microsoft Word for MS-DOS1.0 and the Microsoft Mouse.
In 1984 Microsoft took the leading role in developing software for the Apple Macintosh, created a new Hardware and Peripheral Division and announced their new personal computer, the IBM PC AT. When in August 1985 Microsoft celebrated its 10PthP anniversary it already employed 1.442 workers and had expanded its growing empire to Europe.
In 1995 Gates knew that the Internet was the next area of focus, and the course of Microsoft shifted dramatically. The popular Internet Explorer browser soon became a bestsellar. By the time of the company’s 20PthP anniversary Microsoft had reported revenues of $2.02 billion dollars for the first quarter of fiscal year and counted more than 525,000 members. It had released the final version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0 for Windows 95.Two new businesses were created. One of them was a 24 hour news and information cable television channel. The other is an interactive news service distributed on MSN. In 1998 Microsoft Windows 98 was announced and in 2000 Microsoft Windows 2000 NT became available.
For many consumers Microsoft has become synonymous with the terms “PC Computer” and “Internet”.
Answer the questions.
1.What does the name “Silicon Valley” first of all mean to you?
2.Which part did Stanford University play in the story of the Silicon Valley?
3. Where was the first microprocessor designed?
4. Who were the three scientists awarded with the Nobel Prize for the inventions in computer technology?
5. What is the situation with Microsoft now? Which are the main fields of Bill Gates’ interest lately?
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