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2 Billion People Expected Online by End of 2010

24 October 2010 , VOA News: Special English

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report, formerly called the Development Report.
Before we changed the name, we went on our Facebook page and asked for story ideas. Some of you suggested that we talk about ICT, information and communication technology.
Well, the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency, released its latest ICT Facts and Figures report last week.
Since two thousand five, the number of Internet users worldwide has doubled to more than one and a half billion people. At least two billion are expected to be online by the end of this year.

ANNOUNCER: And now, the weekly VOA Special English program of American stories.

Our story today is called "A Municipal Report." It was written by O. Henry and first published in nineteen-oh-four. Here is Shep ONeal with the story.



STORYTELLE: It was raining as I got off the train in Nashville, Tennessee -- a slow, gray rain. I was tired so I went straight to my hotel.

A Traditional Thanksgiving Meal, With Modern Shortcuts

23.11.2010, VOA News: Special English

This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
Thanksgiving Day is America's version of a harvest festival. The holiday is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.
This Thursday, millions of Americans will join family and friends to give thanks and eat a meal with a history that is centuries old.
Early European settlers in North America held other ceremonies where they gave thanks. But what Americans often consider the first Thanksgiving took place in Plymouth Colony. Today we call it Massachusetts.

A Whole New World, Brought to Us by Gizmos and Gadgets

27.12.2010, VOA News: Special English

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.
As the year comes to an end, we talk about some of the top technology developments of the last ten years. The technological revolution is changing the way we work and play.
Mobile phones became smartphones, with abilities like computers. Many people started reading books on electronic readers. Televisions became high definition and the screens became flat. Digital music players got smaller in size but large enough for people to download their entire music collections.
Worldwide, broadband subscriptions passed five hundred million. And at least two billion people are expected to be online by the end of this year.

iPads, E-Readers, Notebook Computers Top Wish Lists

20.12.2010, VOA News: Special English

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.
A report by the Consumer Electronics Association says electronics are among the most popular gifts being bought this holiday season. It also predicts that spending on these devices will set new records.
The CEA says consumers will spend an average of about two hundred thirty dollars on electronics. This is five percent more than last year and the highest level since the organization began keeping records of holiday spending.
Jim Barry is a spokesman for the Consumer Electronics Association. He says the CEA study found that electronics represent three of the top five things on its "holiday gift wish list" this year.

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it in the smallest pieces of money - pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by negotiating with the men at the market who sold vegetables and meat. Negotiating until ones face burned with the silent knowledge of being poor. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but sit down and cry. So Della cried. Which led to the thought that life is made up of little cries and smiles, with more little cries than smiles.

Della finished her crying and dried her face. She stood by the window and looked out unhappily at a gray cat walking along a gray fence in a gray back yard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only one dollar and eighty-seven cents to buy her husband Jim a gift. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result.

Jim earned twenty dollars a week, which does not go far. Expenses had been greater than she had expected. They always are. Many a happy hour she had spent planning to buy something nice for him. Something fine and rare -- something close to being worthy of the honor of belonging to Jim.

We present the short story "The Ransom of Red Chief" by O. Henry. Here is Shep ONeal with the story.

It looked like a good thing. But wait till I tell you. We were down south, in Alabama – Bill Driscoll and myself – when this kidnapping idea struck us. There was a town down there, as flat as a pancake, and called Summit. Bill and I had about six hundred dollars. We needed just two thousand dollars more for an illegal land deal in Illinois.

We chose for our victim -- the only child of an influential citizen named Ebenezer Dorset. He was a boy of ten, with red hair. Bill and I thought that Ebenezer would pay a ransom of two thousand dollars to get his boy back. But wait till I tell you.

About two miles from Summit was a little mountain, covered with cedar trees. There was an opening on the back of the mountain. We stored our supplies in that cave.

Justice of the Peace Benaja Widdup sat in the doorway of his office smoking his pipe. The Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee rose blue-gray in the afternoon sky. A bird, a speckled hen, walked down the main street, making foolish sounds.

Up the road came the sound of creaking wheels and then, a slow cloud of dust. Then a cart pulled by a bull with Ransie Bilbro and his wife inside. The cart stopped at the Justice's door, and the two climbed out. The Justice of the Peace put his feet back in his shoes, and moved to let them enter.

"We-all," said the woman, in a voice like the wind blowing through pine trees, "wants a divorce." She looked at her husband Ransie to see if he agreed.

"A divorce," repeated Ransie with a mournful shake of his head. "We-all can't get along together no-how. It's lonesome enough to live in the mountains when a man and a woman care for each other. But when she's a-spittin' like a wildcat, a man's got no call to live with her."