首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
For office innovators, the unrealized dream of the "paperless" office is a classic example of high-tech hubris(傲慢). Today’s offi
For office innovators, the unrealized dream of the "paperless" office is a classic example of high-tech hubris(傲慢). Today’s offi
admin
2017-05-11
47
问题
For office innovators, the unrealized dream of the "paperless" office is a classic example of high-tech hubris(傲慢). Today’s office drone is drowning in more paper than ever before.
But after decades of hype, American offices may finally be losing their paper obsession. The demand for paper used to outstrip the growth of the US economy, but the past two or three years have seen a marked slowdown in sales — despite a healthy economic scene.
Analysts attribute the decline to such factors as advances in digital databases and communication systems. Escaping our craving for paper, however, will be anything but an easy affair.
" Old habits are hard to break," says Merilyn Dunn, a communications supplies director. " There are some functions that paper serves where a screen display doesn’t work. Those functions are both its strength and its weakness. "
In the early to mid-1990s, a booming economy and improved desktop printers helped boost paper sales by 6 to 7 percent each year. The convenience of desktop printing allowed office workers to indulge in printing anything and everything at very little effort or cost.
But now, the growth rate of paper sales in the United States is flattening by about half a percent each year. Between 2004 and 2005, Ms. Dunn says, plain white office paper will see less than a 4 percent growth rate, despite the strong overall economy. A primary reason for the change, says Dunn, is that for the first time ever, some 47 percent of the workforce entered the job market after computers had already been introduced to offices.
"We’re finally seeing a reduction in the amount of paper being used per worker in the workplace," says John Maine, vice president of a pulp and paper economic consulting firm. " More information is being transmitted electronically, and more and more people are comfortable with the information residing only in electronic form without printing multiple backups. "
In addition, Mr. Maine points to the lackluster employment market for white-collar workers — the primary driver of office paper consumption for the shift in paper usage.
The real paradigm shift may be in the way paper is used. Since the advent of advanced and reliable office-network systems, data storage has moved away from paper archives. The secretarial art of "filing" is disappearing from job descriptions. Much of today’s data may never leave its original digital format.
The changing attitudes toward paper have finally caught the attention of paper companies, says Richard Harper, a researcher at Microsoft. " All of a sudden, the paper industry has started thinking, ’We need to learn more about the behavioural aspects of paper use, ’" he says. "They had never asked, they’d just assumed that 70 million sheets would be bought per year as a literal function of economic growth. "
To reduce paper use, some companies are working to combine digital and paper capabilities. For example, Xerox Corp. is developing electronic paper: thin digital displays that respond to a stylus, like a pen on paper. Notations can be erased or saved digitally.
Another idea, intelligent paper, comes from Anoto Group. It would allow notations made with a stylus on a page printed with a special magnetic ink to simultaneously appear on a computer screen.
Even with such technological advances, the improved capabilities of digital storage continue to act against " paperlessness," argues Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster. In his prophetic and metaphorical 1989 essay, " The Electronic Pinata(彩罐)," he suggests that the increasing amounts of electronic data necessarily require more paper.
The information industry today is like a huge electronic pinata, composed of a thin paper crust surrounding an electronic core, " Mr. Saffo wrote. The growing paper crust "is most noticeable, but the hidden electronic core that produces the crust is far larger — and growing more rapidly. The result is that we are becoming paperless, but we hardly notice at all. "
In the same way that digital innovations have increased paper consumption, Saffo says, so has video conferencing — with its promise of fewer in-person meetings — boosting business travel.
"That’s one of the great ironies of the information age," Saffo says. "It’s just common sense that the more you talk to someone by phone or computer, it inevitably leads to a face-to-face meeting. The best thing for the aviation industry was the Internet. "
The two innovations by Xerox Corp. and Anoto Group feature______.
选项
A、integrated use of paper and digital form
B、a shift from paper to digital form
C、the use of computer screen
D、a new style of writing
答案
A
解析
推理题。文章第十一段提到,为了减少用纸,一些公司致力于将数字和纸的性能相结合,接着以施乐公司和安诺拓集团为例进行说明,故本题选A。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/EJFO777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Davidloveshisdaughters,heisstrictwiththem.
WhenItrytounderstand_____thatpreventssomanyAmericansfrombeingashappyasonemightexpect.itseemstomethattherea
Futuristshaveidentifiedtwochangesthatseemtobecentraltocontemporarysociallife.First,theUnkedStatesisbeingrest
Readthefollowingpassagecarefullyandthenparaphrasethenumberedandunderlinedparts.("Paraphrase"means"toexplainthem
AnintelligentTVviewermayoccasionallybecomeenragedbythe____argumentationincommercials.
democracyimaginationdifferentflexibilityovercomeonlineoffertraditionalmodern
Since1000A.D.,around30billionpeoplehavebeenbrnonourplanet.Thevastmajorityhavecomeandgoneunknowntoallbutt
Theconceptofpersonalchoiceinrelationtohealthbehaviorsisanimportantone.Anestimated90percentofallillnessesmay
AfricanAmericanwomen’ssearchforsocietalacceptanceoftenencompassesstrugglebetweennaturalandsociallyconstructedidea
AfricanAmericanwomen’ssearchforsocietalacceptanceoftenencompassesstrugglebetweennaturalandsociallyconstructedidea
随机试题
论无效合同的概念、含义、种类及合同被确认无效后的法律后果。
A.肺癌B.乳腺癌C.结肠癌D.皮肤癌E.四肢肉瘤(2002年第112题)可经椎旁静脉系统转移到骨的肿瘤是
A.观察B.立即行剖宫产C.减弱宫缩D.吸氧E.静滴缩宫素
选择技术上先进、可靠、适用、合理的新技术可以取得多方面的效果,其主要表现在:降低物质消耗,缩短工艺流程,提高劳动生产率,还表现在()。
()常被政府用作弥补赤字的主要方式。
某企业生产A品牌机电设备,同时市场上存在B和C两种品牌的同类产品,该企业采用投票评分法对3种品牌产品的耐用性、可靠性、交货可靠性和服务质量等方面进行评分,分别得到A、B、C品牌产品的评分为0.4175、0.3275、0.2550,假设该类产品的市场平均价格
下列对“中国特色社会主义”认识正确的有()。
操作系统主要有两个方面的重要作用,下面叙述最恰当的是()。
Inprimitivetimes,poetrywaswrittentobeheard.Today,wefrequentlyoverlooktheofthepoet’swork.
Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteacompositiononthetopicALetterInvitingAForeignTeacherToVisitAnEx
最新回复
(
0
)