经济学人下载:互联网商业,又一轮的数字淘金热

Yet both sides agree that the internet world is being transformed by a number of powerful forces, three of which stand out. First, technological progress has made it much simpler and cheaper to try out myriad bright ideas for online businesses. Second, a new breed of rich investors has been keen to back those ideas. And, third, this boom is much more global than the last one; Chinese internet firms are causing as much excitement as American ones.

但是双方都认同，互联网世界为一系列的强力所改变，而站得最为靠前面的是3种力量：首先，科技的进展使得互联网世界为在线商业试出繁多的聪明的点子更为简单，也更为廉价。其次，新孕育出一股富有投资者热心于支持这些点子。再者，这一轮的勃兴比上一次更为全球化；中国的互联网公司就像美国的一样让人胸襟激荡。

Start with technology. Moore’s law, which holds that the number of transistors that can be put on a single computer chip doubles roughly every 18 months, has continued to work its magic, leading to the proliferation of ever more capable and affordable consumer devices. Some of today’s tablet computers and smartphones are more powerful than personal computers were a decade ago. IDC, a research firm, estimates that around 450m smartphones will be shipped worldwide this year, up from 303m in 2010.

先从科技开始吧。如其所言，大约每18个月，集成到一台单机电路板上的传感器的数量能够翻一倍——摩尔定理继续发挥非凡的效能，引发性能更优、更能消费得起的消费设备的激增。今天，有些平板电脑和智能电话比起十年前的某些个人台式电脑都更为强大。研究机构IDC估计，今年装船运往世界各地的智能电话，将从2010年的3.03亿台上升到约4.5亿台。

Moore’s law also underpins the growth of “cloud” services, such as Apple’s iTunes music store, which can be reached from almost any device, almost anywhere. Such services are hosted in data centres, the factories of the cloud, which are crammed with hundreds of thousands of servers, whose price has plunged as their processing power has soared. Everything is connected ever faster, with ever fewer wires.

摩尔定理同样可以支援“云”服务的增长，像苹果公司（Apple）的iTunes的音乐库，几乎可以为任何地方的任何设备所接入。这些服务都积存于数据中心——集聚了成千上万种的服务的“云”工厂，随着处理能力的飙升，价格直跌向下。所有一切都被更快连接起来，都只用更少的电线。