Seeking a Simple Respite

生活太複雜 讓我喘口氣

By Anita Patil

Have we peaked at troves of data and complex technology? At too fast and furious? It seems as if we’re taking a collective deep breath, stepping back and reassessing our complicated lives.
在我們的生活中，累積的資料與複雜科技是否已經多到不能再多？是否步調太快且過於嘈雜狂亂？我們似乎正在做一次集體的深呼吸，退後一步，並重新評估我們複雜的生活。

“We all have this desire to simplify our lives, but we don’t know how to do it,” Marian Salzman of Euro RSCG Worldwide Public Relations, North America, told The Times. “We envy the time we had just three TV channels to choose from. And we envy the man in the gray flannel suit who knew when work started and ended.”
歐洲RSCG全球公關公司北美辦事處主管佘茲曼告訴紐約時報：「我們都想簡化生活，但不知怎麼做。我們非常懷念過去那種電視只有三台可選的時光。我們也羡慕那些身著灰色法蘭絨西服，知道工作何時開始、何時結束的人。」

“Simply,” “simple” and “simplicity,” along with “easy,” “honest” and “clear” are the latest marketing buzzwords, reported The Times. Ads for Glacéau Smartwater say “Simplicity is delicious.” McDonald’s commercials describe “the simple joy of a wholesome breakfast.” And Coca-Cola is selling 13 chilled beverages with names beginning with Simply, all billed as “Honestly simple.”
據「紐時」報導，「簡單」、「坦率」與「明確」，加上「輕鬆」、「誠實」與「清楚」，已成為最流行的行銷術語。酷樂仕神奇水的廣告詞便如是說，「單純就是美味」。麥當勞的廣告也標榜，「一份活力早餐的單純喜悅」。可口可樂正在銷售13種名字都以「單純」開頭的冰涼飲料，廣告上都打出「坦率單純」的字樣。

The Simply brand is “an easy option for consumers when their lives are so busy and complicated,” Allison Higbie, a group director of marketing for the juices and drinks, told The Times.
可口可樂集團果汁與飲料行銷負責人席格比告訴「紐時」，「單純」這品牌「對那些生活十分忙碌且複雜的消費者來說，是一種能讓他們放鬆的選擇」。

The iPhone’s Siri was conceived to help ease the burden of those busy and complicated lives. The voice-activated digital assistant can set up appointments, send e-mails and texts while you’re driving, gently wake you up in the morning and occasionally make sarcastic jokes. But as The Times’s Nick Bilton wrote, “She frequently misunderstands what I’m saying. Sometimes she is just unavailable. Often, she responds with the same, repetitive statement.”
iPhone手機的Siri就是要為生活忙碌且複雜的人減輕負擔。這位聲控的數位助理能夠在你開車時幫你排定約會、發電郵和簡訊，清晨溫柔地叫你起床，還會不時給你來個冷笑話。不過正如「紐時」記者畢爾敦所寫的，「她（Siri）常會誤解我的話，有時候根本沒反應。而且常會同一套答覆翻來覆去的說。」

Gene Munster, a securities analyst at Piper Jaffray, subjected Siri to over 1,600 voice tests and found that she understood requests 89 percent of the time, but was able to answer a question accurately only 68 percent of the time, reported The Times.
「紐時」報導，Piper Jaffray公司的證券分析師蒙斯特曾對Siri做過1千6百多次語音測試，發現Siri能夠聽懂89%的要求，但正確答覆問題的比率只有68%。

Several people told Mr. Bilton that they reverted to the iPhone’s simple voice dictation service, which is more reliable because it doesn’t use Siri’s artificial intelligence software. Perhaps it’s easier to rely on your own self.
有幾個人對畢爾敦說，他們已恢復使用iPhone原有的簡短語音指令服務，覺得這比較靠得住，因為它並未運用Siri的人工智慧軟體。或許靠自己更簡單。

A bit of human intervention may sometimes outweigh the advantages of complicated innovations. That’s what some on Wall Street were considering in the wake of a number of recent trading malfunctions that exposed the risks of rapid and automated trades that leave no time to think.
少許人為的介入，有時反而比複雜創新所產生的好處更來得大。這也是華爾街最近多次發生交易失靈，因交易速度太快且自動化讓人來不及思考，以致交易商承受重大風險之後，部分華爾街人士開始思考的問題。

Specialists at the New York Stock Exchange or the market makers in Nasdaq have largely been replaced by high-frequency traders using computers that can buy and sell thousands of shares in nanoseconds.
紐約證券交易所的專家與那斯達克的市場主力們，現在大多已經被那些運用電腦、能夠在一眨眼間就進出數以千計股票的短線交易商所取代。

One of Wall Street’s most important trading firms, Knight Capital, recently lost $440 million in 45 minutes after installing faulty software designed to keep up with an evolving market.
華爾街最重要交易商之一奈特資本集團一心跟上市場腳步，最近卻因錯用軟體而在45分鐘內大虧4億4千萬美元。

“We are all understanding – meaning we, market participants, and most importantly the regulators – are understanding that speed is not always better,” Duncan Niederauer, the chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange, told The Times.
紐約證交所執行長尼德洛爾對「紐時」說：「我們這些市場參與者，尤其金融監理人員全都了解，快未必更好。」

Perhaps they should follow the advice of Kristin van Ogtrop, managing editor of Real Simple magazine. “Simplicity is the new luxury,” she told The Times. “In a world where everyone’s busy and there’s a lot of uncertainty, you can’t put a price on that.”
或許他們應該遵循「純真」雜誌執行編輯克莉斯汀．范歐翠普的建議。她對「紐時」說：「簡單已成為一種新奢華。在一個人人都很忙又充滿不確定的世界裡，簡單反而是無價之寶。」

原文參照：?

2012-09-04聯合報/G5版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS 任中原譯 原文參見紐時週報三版上