雑誌Wiredの20周年で選ばれた日本関連

雑誌Wiredが20周年を迎えたそうで（まだ20周年かという感じですが）、最新号が記念号になるようです。ただ、ウエブサイトでも20周年の内容は観ることができます。たくさんのトピックを取り上げている分だけ一つ一つがコンパクトなので、英語学習者にも挑戦しやすいのではないかと思います。

日本関連で選ばれていたのは任天堂とソニーでした。Sony was Apple.と過去形で書かれているのが悲しいものがありますね。

Nintendo Has Seen More Ups and Downs Than Mario Himself
By Chris KohlerEmail AuthorApril 16, 2013 | 6:30 am | Categories:Wired
Over the past 20 years, the one constant in the videogame industry has been Nintendo. Formerly a maker of toys and playing cards, the Kyoto company entered the game business in the late ’70s and has been a fixture ever since. But its status in the industry has seen more ups and downs than Mario himself—dipping and peaking wildly as the company’s profile went from technological marvel to outdated junk and back again. A look, then, at the company’s relevance over time.

*********

SONY
Michael V. Copeland
In retrospect, Michael Bolton was the first sign that something was wrong with Sony. When the mullet-headed soft rocker’s album The One Thing dropped on Sony’s Columbia label in 1993, sales fell far below Bolton’s previous (inexplicably popular) efforts. It was the beginning of a long decline for Bolton—and Sony.

It’s hard to believe now, but for most of the ’80s, Sony led the world in innovation and design. Sony was Apple. Then the company set about systematically torpedoing its future—missing, misinterpreting, or just bollocksing up one tech trend after another.

Remember the phenomenon that was Napster and the spread of the MP3? Sony doesn’t. The company did come out with a digital music player in 1999. The problem: It didn’t play MP3s. The device worked only with proprietary Sony DRM called ATRAC.　(後略)

任天堂とソニーが選ばれるのは想定内ですが、その中で意外だったのは絵文字がEmojiとして堂々とエントリーされていたことです。絵文字は欧米の携帯電話にも搭載されているようですね。英語にはemoticonという言葉がありますが、あのようなイラスト的な感じはないのでemojiという言葉が取り入れられたのかもしれませんね。

From 1862 to 2013: Tracking the Rise of the Humble Emoji
By Christina BonningtonApril 16, 2013 | 6:30 am | Categories:Wired
Creative, colorful, and sometimes perplexing, emoji add energy to SMS messages. These little illustrated characters popped up in the ’90s in Japan, where they enable cell phone users to write more efficiently than with complicated Japanese characters. Since making its way into mainstream Western culture, emoji fever has exploded. And if you send one to your mom, she’ll think it’s magic.

図解のようなものあり、1990s (^_^) Emoji start appearing on Japanese cell phones.と説明してあります。

今年の2月の出来事としても興味深いものがありました、Call me Ishmaelで始まるあの文学作品を絵文字に翻訳したものが米国の議会図書館に受領されたというのです。Call me Ishmaelを取り上げたばかりですが、まさかこういう形で再び取り上げるとは（苦笑）

Benenson’s Emoji Dick becomes first emoji novel accepted into the Library of Congress.



Emoji Translation of Moby-Dick Accepted Into Library of Congress
By Rebecca NelsonFeb. 20, 2013
Herman Melville didn’t see this one coming.

The Library of Congress welcomed its first ever emoji book into its collection. Yes, Emoji Dick tells Melville’s epic of obsessive whale hunting, Moby-Dick, exclusively in those Japanese emoticons that brighten up your little sister’s text messages.

Much like Captain Ahab, data engineer Fred Benenson embarked on an ambitious journey with his re-imagining of the 200,000-word epic. He hired Amazon Mechanical Turks to translate the book, and took to Kickstarter to raise the cash. In 2009, 83 backers helped the project surpass its $3,500 goal.

didn’t see this one coming.の表現は「こんなことが起きるなんて思ってもみなかった」というときに使えるので、覚えておくと便利かもしれません。

この絵文字文学のユニークなところはAmazon Mechanical Turksというクラウドソーシングを使って一人3行を絵文字に書き換えてもらう依頼をしたことです。クラウドソーシングの威力を確かめるために長い作品を選んだのかもしれませんね。



今のところemojiはWebsterやCollinsなどの大型辞典にも掲載されておらず、Urban dictionaryぐらいですが、このまま使う人が増え続ければ辞書にも載るかもしれませんね。

emoji
Apparently a synonym for emoticon, emoji includes the prefix emo- from emotion and emoticon and the suffix -ji, which may come from ganji or kanji, which are the name for japanese and chinese picture words (like heiroglyphs).
four distinct emoji include:

:-)

(_*_)

(.Y.)

also, search "emoji."

:-D