2003 July:'The Da Vinci Code’ published

2003年7月:《达芬奇密码》出版

Dan Brown begins worldwide domination with monks-and-conspiracy thriller.

此书的热卖自不用说,更令人关注的可能是由它引发的宗教讨论。而丹布朗也因此开始专注他的“僧侣+阴谋”模式系列书……

2004 December: Google announces its plan to convert 15 million books into digital format

2004年12月:谷歌宣布新计划,将要把150万本图书转为电子版

A fully searchable, universally accessible library available on your computer. Brilliant but scary.

一座完全免费的图书馆就此出现在个人用户电脑里,但由它所引发的版权问题在6年后的今天开始给谷歌找麻烦。

2005 February: YouTube created

2005年2月:YouTube建立

When it began, this video-sharing website, founded by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, was loathed by multinational entertainment corporations as a copyright-infringing parasite. Since then it has been bought by Google, attracts more than a billion hits a day and its user-generated content makes it a major player in the Web 2.0 economy. Many of the companies who tried to sue it now distribute and promote their products through it.

YouTube建立之初和国内某豆网站一样是个盗版天堂。不幸的是国外法律太过健全,它很快就被Google收购,运行愈发规范。所幸它依然能每天吸引上亿点击率,并逐渐发展出如今大行其道的web2.0社区互动模式。如今已经有很多商业机构利用它推广自己的产品。

2006 Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature

2006年 土耳其小说家奥尔罕·帕慕克获诺贝尔文学奖

Pamuk’s work illuminates a country torn between a resurgent Islam and the West.

得奖作品《伊斯坦布尔:一座城市的记忆》,描述了这个夹在中西方文化之间的奇妙城市。

2007 January:Canongate publishes Barack Obama’s 'Dreams from My Father’

2007年1月:珂纳盖特出版了奥巴马的《我父亲的梦想》

Small Edinburgh publisher picks up little-known American senator’s memoir. Two years later...

一家不知名的爱丁堡出版社挑选了同样不知名的美国议员的回忆录出版。而两年后……

2007 July:'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ published

2007年7月:哈利波特系列的最后一本《哈利波特与死亡圣器》出版

JK Rowling sends children (and adults) into a frenzy of speed-reading.

感谢上帝,罗琳把孩子们(还有好多大人)从屏幕前拉回到书里。