Номер 4, страница 47 - гдз по английскому языку 9 класс учебник Вербицкая, Маккинли

Unit five.

Track thirty-two.

Portable phones: walk and talk.

Have you ever called up a friend and heard this? Sorry, he's not in. Can you call back later?

Have you ever been in a dirty phone box on a cold night and found the phone out of order?

Have you ever thought how wonderful it would be if you could talk to your friends anytime you wanted to?

If so, then read on.

Ever since Bell patented the telephone in eighteen seventy-six, we've been living in the age of instant communication.

But there has always been a restriction. You need to find a phone. And that isn't always easy.

Okay, we've had car phones since the nineteen fifties, but the first car phones were enormous. The machinery filled the boot of the car. More than a portable phone, it was a mobile phone box.

One of the first users was a doctor in Sweden.

Unfortunately, the phone needed so much power that he could only make two calls before the battery went dead. The first to his patient and the second to the garage to get someone to come and fix his flat battery.

By the mid-nineteen sixties, phones were small enough to fit into the front of a car. But unfortunately, they were still too heavy for people to carry around. They were also extremely expensive. So, it was no surprise that they didn't become popular.

And then, Mr. Cooper made a call.

On the third of April, nineteen seventy-three, while walking along the street in New York, Motorola employee Martin Cooper took out his portable phone, dialed a number, and made a call to a rival phone company. I don't know what he said, perhaps... Nobody has ever done this before.

But I bet he felt pretty happy when he hung up. He knew that his company was ahead of the competition.

Now, just over ten years later, the Dynatac eight thousand X portable cellular phone has arrived in the shops. And this week, I've been testing it. I must say, I'm impressed. The first thing you notice is how small and light it is. It weighs a little less than a bag of sugar and is about the same size as a brick. About twenty centimeters long. It looks really smart too. And you can talk for almost half an hour without recharging the battery.

You can also turn down the volume in case the phone goes off when you're in a meeting.

The disadvantage? The price. It costs almost three thousand pounds.

But don't worry. The price will come down and soon everyone will have one.

And while I have my crystal ball out, here are some more predictions about how we will communicate in the future.

Firstly, I think people will forget how to write because all communications will be oral.

And one day, before too long, we will have phones with three D video screens, which allow you to see your friends and watch T V. More good news, phone calls will be free. They'll be paid for by advertising.

And finally, I believe that eventually humans in the future will have phones in their brains. With a speaker in an ear and a microphone in a tooth, we will be able to dial numbers just by saying them. But until then, you could do worse than buy yourself a Motorola Dynatac. Become mobile and say goodbye to those cold calls in dirty phone boxes.