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Things We Can't Live Without
1. a) Read the text and from the list below choose the sentence that best expresses the idea of each paragraph.
1. A popular electronic device.
2. Computers: from the past to the present.
3. Huge calculators.
4. Machines that can work wonders.
5. People's "helping hands".
6. What can we expect in the future?
A. The first calculating machine was invented by Charles Babbage, a professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, in 1912. This machine could do complicated calculations faster than a human mathematician. The first computers were very big, because there were thousands of tubes in them. Those machines cost millions of dollars and only few huge companies had them. But they were not used for a long time, as scientists invented first transistors instead of tubes and then microdia-grammes. Computers became smaller, and now they can stand on a writing desk in a flat, but do calculations much faster. Now a computer can do one million sums in one second. No human can do that.
B. Today computers have changed the way we live — the Information Age has jumped on the Information Super-highway. Computers are used widely. They can calculate the orbits of sputniks and spaceships, control machines in factories, work out tomorrow's weather, reserve seats on plane, pay wages, play chess, write poetry or compose music. Computers can also make a translation from one language into another. They are a great help to a student, a doctor, a teacher, a librarian, a composer, a designer, an agronomist. They are ready to help people at any moment. In fact, they can do many of the things we do, but faster and better.
C. Many people believe that in the next few years we will be able to sit at the computer and see high quality video sent from any place on Earth. They predict we will also have a wallet-size personal computer. With it we will be able to store photographs, get the news, send messages, see movies and even travel around the world.
b) Discuss the following questions.
1. What are your predictions about the development of computers in the future? How will people use them?
2. What do you think a computer will look like in the future?
2. Listen to the texts about great inventions of the past and say if the statements are true or false.
1. The first alphabet had symbols for syllables.
2. The first alphabet was invented by the Greeks.
3. The first books were not made of paper.
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