Listening comprehension: Artificial Intelligence

Exercise 1. Listen to the lecture on artificial intelligence and then speak about advantages and disadvantages of robots.

Exercise 2. Listen again and translate the lecture sentence by sentence orally.

Unit 4. E-commerce

Exercise 1. Answer the following questions:

Where do you usually buy things?

Have you ever heard of buying the product through the Web?

What are the people's impressions of this kind of purchasing?

Exercise 2. Study the list of IT terms below:

List of active terms

angle	кут; ракурс
auction	аукціон, торг, аукціонний продаж
e-commerce	електрона комерція (комерційна діяльність, що здійснюється через Інтернет)
fraud	обман; шахрайство, підробка
internet	Інтернет, всесвітня комп’ютерна мережа
internet tax freedom act	акт "Про свободу від податків в Інтернеті"
maintain	підтримувати; обслуговувати; утримувати у справності
on-line	неавтономний, управляючий ЕВМ; інтерактивний, онлайновий; підключений до комп’ютера або доступний через комп’ютер
privacy	секретність
retailer	роздрібний торговець
rotate	обертати(ся)
site	сайт
techniques	техніка, технічні засоби, методи
three-dimensional	тримірний, просторовий; об’ємний, стереоскопічний
track	стежити, простежувати; вистежувати
world wide web	мережа, веб, (всесвітня) павутина

Exercise 3. Read and translate the following text:

E-commerce

During the last few years the phenomenal growth of the Internet has been the dominant theme in computers and information systems. New World Wide Web-based companies became familiar names; ordinary people bid in on-line auctions; and traditional companies, such as banks, pursue e-commerce strategies.

E-commerce is growing with meteoric speed, powered by Internet retailers that expanded beyond selling books on-line to offering toys, consumer electronics, videos, music, auctions, gifts, and electronic greeting cards and prepared to get into the on-line grocery business. E-commerce sites continue to pop up as investors seem to believe that e-commerce will provide big paybacks in the future.

Meanwhile, technology is being adopted that will make shopping on-line more attractive. Among the new techniques are three-dimensional on-line catalogs that allow products being viewed on the screen to be rotated so they can be viewed from any angle. In addition, models with the same physical measurements as the viewer can "try on" clothes and be viewed from all angles on a computer screen. Booksellers use software to track the buying preferences of customers; the software recommends a book to a customer on the basis of buying habits of other consumers with similar tastes.

Other forms of commerce are also blooming on the Net, particularly on-line Wall Street brokerages that allow investors to buy stock at lower commission prices and to trade stocks at times when the stock exchanges are not open. These stock-trading sites have proved to be so popular, recording hundreds of thousands of stock trades daily, that the number of would-be participants often overwhelms them.

Non-Web businesses are also getting into the e-commerce act. The Bank of America disclosed a pilot project for viewing and paying bills on-line, in effect acting as a billing intermediary for other companies. Banks are said to have an interest in allowing consumers to pay bills on-line because it allows the banks to maintain control over transactions. Other nonbanking firms are pursuing a similar strategy by consolidating bills from such varied companies as utilities, credit card firms, mortgage companies, and cable TV firms.

Not everyone is happy about the growth of e-commerce. State governments fear losing substantial sales tax revenues to on-line purchases that are not currently taxed. The states complain that a lack of taxes will hamper the ability of state and local governments to deliver essential services, such as fire protection. The Internet Tax Freedom Act, a law passed in 1998, prohibited states from taxing on-line sales and on-line access for three years. Late in the year, however, a congressional panel began studying potential Internet taxes in light of projections by firms such as Forrester Research, which predicted that e-commerce would total billions of dollars.

The arrival of e-commerce also created problems with unorthodox selling efforts. On-line sales of prescription drugs raised concerns about medical ethics when it became clear that some on-line pharmacies were shipping drugs across state lines without the proper authority and that some doctors were writing prescriptions for people on the Net whom they had never examined or even met.

Other types of on-line fraud are also troublesome. While on-line auction sites are public, the resulting transactions are between buyer and seller, and some sellers proved to be swindlers who took money without providing the purchased goods. In addition, some auctioned merchandise was shown to be stolen property. Authorities recommend that consumers minimize fraud by using credit cards for Internet transactions rather than check, money order, or cash. Credit-card purchases in particular can be disputed if fraud is suspected.

E-commerce also raises privacy issues. European and U.S. trade negotiators become enmeshed in a dispute over data-privacy issues, with the European Union advocating stronger privacy protections than its U.S. counterpart. In addition to protecting consumer privacy, Europeans are concerned about whether consumers will have access to data companies collected on them as a result of Net transactions.

Exercise 4. Study the supplementary list of words below.

Supplementary list of words and phrases

bid	пропонувати ціну на торгах
billing	виставляння рахунку
brokerage	брокерські операції
consumer electronics	побутова електроніка
counterpart	колега
interest	процент, процентний прибуток
intermediary	посередник
money order	грошовий поштовий переказ
mortgage	застава (що стосується нерухомого майна); іпотека
panel	група фахівців-учасників публічної дискусії
payback	віддача, повернення
pilot project	дослідний план/проект/програма
prescription drugs	прописані ліки
purchase	покупка; закупка, купівля
revenue	дохід, надходження
sales tax	податок з обороту
shipping	відвантаження
stock	акція (на біржі)
stock exchange	фондова біржа
swindler	шахрай
unorthodox	неправомірний, не загальноприйнятий
utilities	комунальні послуги

Exercise 5. Are the sentences true or false? If they are false, correct them.

1. Internet retailers stopped selling books on-line.

2. E-commerce is very profitable because investors receive big paybacks.

3. New on-line catalogs allow users to rotate products on the screen.

4. On-line brokerages are popular because investors can buy stock at lower prices.

5. Nonbanking firms often act as billing intermediaries to maintain control over transactions.

6. Governments aren’t allowed to collect taxes from on-line sales.

7. To minimize fraud customers should use check, money order, or cash for Internet transactions.

Exercise 6. Fill in the gaps with the words from the box. Translate the sentences into Ukrainian:

competition, fraud, on-line, negotiations, catalog, prohibit, prices, auction, stock exchange, transactions, shipping

1. Experts project that …… advertising will increase sharply in the next few years.

2. Traditional companies seek to meet the ……. from on-line marketers.

3. E-commerce companies raised …….. in several ways: they reduced discounts and raised ………. charges.

4. Most ………. are conducted with a view to reaching a compromise agreement.

5. The commission said on-line stock ……… was one of the greatest challenges facing www-based companies.

6. Amazon.com shut down an ……….. on its site in which stock in software company was being sold.

7. Share prices fell rapidly on the London ……. today.

8. The prices are as shown in our ………….

9. Once a week we receive a printout of all ………...

10. On-line auctions ……….. sales of firearms, alcohol, and tobacco.

Exercise 7. Complete as much of the table as possible. Find the words in the text. Make your own sentences with some of the words.

Verb	Noun person	Adjective	Abstract noun
Retail
Negotiate
Compete
Attract
Invest
Trade
Ship
Analyse

Exercise 8. Translate into English.

Аукціони у режимі on-line продовжують зростати, включаючи регіональні аукціони та аукціони у великих містах, які пропонують більш привабливі угоди з продажу таких товарів, як машини та меблі. Ці товари можуть бути замінені після того, як аукціон закінчився. Домінуючим Web-аукціоном є e Bay, який пропонує більш ніж три мільйони товарів на продаж у будь-який час. Інші електронні аукціони намагаються не відставати, в результаті чого сотні різних Web-сайтів кажуть, що вони могли б об‘єднати списки товарів на продаж. Це означає, що учасник аукціону з одного сайту може пропонувати ціну на аукціоні, що знаходиться на іншому Web-сайті. Однак завантаженість аукціонів іноді стає причиною того, що Web-сайти виходять з ладу на декілька годин.

Оператори онлайнових аукціонів намагаються визначити, які товари можна виставити на продаж. Аукціон e Bay, наприклад, забороняє продаж вогнепальної зброї, алкогольних напоїв та тютюнових виробів.

Одна з нових компаній, що займається електронною комерцією, Amazon.com, заснувала аукціон на своєму сайті, на якому продавалось програмне забезпечення. Закриття цього сайту співпало із зростанням скарг з приводу шахрайства на сайтах. Федеральна комісія з цінних паперів та операції з обміну (Securities and Exchange) проголосила, що електронне шахрайство є однією із значних проблем.

Більшість компаній, що займаються комерцією на електронних фондових ринках, поки що отримують невеликі прибутки або не отримують жодних.