7.Disposable Contact Lenses
7.一次性隐形眼镜
Contact lenses have been around for decades, and they've changed quite a bit since the early days of hard plastic lenses. The 1970s saw the rise of soft lenses made from hydrogel. It's no secret why soft lenses quickly became popular: They were more air permeable than the older lenses and more comfortable to boot. Since then, both hard and soft contact lenses have seen improved permeability, and can be worn for longer periods of time.
隐形眼镜的存在已经有几十年了。从早期的硬塑料镜片开始，新型的隐形眼镜已经改善了很多。二十世纪七十年代，由水凝胶制成的软性隐形眼镜开始崛起。软性隐形眼镜随之变得风靡全球。它们比旧的镜片更具透气性，且更方便佩戴。从那以后，硬性和软性隐形眼镜的透气性都有所提高，而且可以长时间地持续佩戴。
In 1987, contact lenses became an even more convenient substitute for wearing glasses. That's the year disposable contact lenses hit the consumer market. Disposable lenses are soft contact lenses meant to be worn for a short period of time. Before disposable lenses, owning contacts was a bit like owning glasses. You wore the same pair every day and had to clean and care for them regularly. That meant losing a lens was a costly mistake.
1987年，隐形眼镜代替眼镜，成为更方便的替代品。那一年，年抛隐形眼镜抢占了消费者市场。一次性隐形眼镜是软性隐形眼镜，这意味着此类隐形眼镜只能短时间佩戴。在一次性隐形眼镜出现之前，拥有隐形眼镜和拥有眼镜就是一码子事，因为你每天戴同一副镜片，也很难保证可以定期去清洗和护理，就无形中增加了丢失镜片所要承受的损失。
With disposable lenses, that problem vanished. Since 1987, these contacts have become the go-to solution for in-eye vision correction. They're available in daily, weekly, and monthly forms.
有了一次性隐形眼镜，这样的问题就完全不存在了。1987年起，这些隐形眼镜成为内眼矫正视力的首选解决方案。隐形眼镜还多了日抛、周抛、月抛等多种选择。
6.航天飞机
After the lunar missions in the late '60s and early '70s, the people at NASA dedicated themselves to developing a new type of vehicle that could venture into space and return home safely. The culmination of their research and development was the Space Shuttle. The engineers and mechanics designed it to be more than just a transportation vehicle -- the Space Shuttle would become an orbiting scientific laboratory capable of hosting numerous experiments designed to increase our understanding of the universe. The Space Shuttles also played an important role in deploying and maintaining equipment in space, including satellites and the International Space Station.
在60年代末期70年代早期的月球任务完成之后，美国国家航空和宇宙航行局（NASA）就致力于开发一种新的交通工具，使得飞行器能够进入太空也能安全回国着陆。他们研发的最高成就就是航天飞机。工程师和机修工想要把航天飞机设计成可绕轨道运行的科学实验室，且能够承载大量帮助人们加深对宇宙理解的实验项目，而不仅仅只是一个交通运输工具。航天飞机在配置和维修包括卫星和国际空间站等在内的太空设备上也发挥着很大作用。
The first Space Shuttle launch was the Columbia on April 12, 1981. The mission lasted a little more than two days. The Columbia returned home safely and gave NASA valuable information about the design of the shuttle. A few tiles had broken off during the launch sequence, which informed NASA that engineers would need to make adjustments to head off future problems with other launches.
航天飞机的首次发射是1981 年4月12日的“哥伦比亚”号。这个任务持续了两天多。“哥伦比亚”号的安全着陆，给美国国航局带来了在航天飞机制造方面的诸多宝贵信息。在启动序列期间，有几个瓦片掉落，这让美国国航局意识到，工程师必须得做一些调整来应对以后发射中可能会出现的问题。
Since Columbia's launch, there've been more than 130 Space Shuttle missions, and the program has inspired hundreds of children to study science and dream of space exploration.
自“哥伦比亚”号发射以来，已经完美执行了130多起航天飞机发射任务，与此同时，这一项目也激励了无数梦想着太空探险的孩子学习科学的热情。
5.IBM and Macintosh Personal Computers
5.美国国际商用机器公司（IBM）和苹果个人电脑
A computing revolution began in the 1970s. Early computers were massive machines -- some so large that they'd take up an entire floor of a building. Yet these machines had less processing power than a typical smartphone might boast today. As the era of miniaturization approached, computers shrunk. And hobbyists began to explore a world previously reserved for academic, government and research institutions. The personal computer became reality.
19世纪70年代，世界范围内开始了一场电脑革命。早期的电脑都是十分庞大的机器——有些大到足足占据了一整层楼。并且，这些机器加工处理的能力比现如今的智能机还要低。随着微型化时代的到来，电脑的形态也开始缩小了。那些电脑爱好者开始探讨先前政府部门以及科研机构等遗留下来的学术问题。自此，个人电脑日渐在大众中普及。
IBM's 5150 Personal Computer launched in 1981. It contained an Intel 8088 processor and ran on version 1.0 of the PC-DOS operating system. The computer supported the Microsoft BASIC programming language. For much of the 1980s, IBM was synonymous with personal computers. You might say you own an IBM the same way you'd talk about owning a Windows PC nowadays. In fact, the old IBM PC is an ancestor to the Windows-based computers used by millions of people today.
1981年，IBM-5150号个人电脑首次亮相。它配备英特尔8088处理器，并延续了第一版的个人计算机磁盘操作系统 ——（PC—DOS）操作系统。这台电脑支持微软的基本编程语言。19世纪80年代的很长一段时间里，IBM就是个人电脑的代名词。可能你有一台“IBM”就相当于你现在说你有一台微软电脑。实际上，以前的IBM个人电脑就是现在无数人所使用的微软系统电脑的鼻祖。
In 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh computer. It was the first personal computer to feature a graphics-based user interface. Other computers required users to type in commands to launch applications. The Macintosh used icons to represent programs and a strange device called a mouse. Though neither the mouse nor the graphic user interface were new ideas, they hadn't been part of the mass consumer market until the Macintosh hit store shelves.
1984年，苹果推出了Macintosh电脑。它是首台设有基于图形用户界面的个人电脑。而其他计算机则需要用户输入命令以启动应用程序。苹果电脑利用图标来表示程序并配有一个称之为“鼠标”的陌生装置。尽管鼠标和图形用户界面都不是什么新想法，但直到苹果个人电脑出现在商店的货架上之后，才真正的占领了大众消费市场。
4.激光唱片
Music collectors in the early 1980s had limited choices. Audiophiles claimed that the only sound worth hearing was stored on vinyl albums. But these records take up a lot of space and can be damaged easily. Cassettes and 8-track tapes took up less space, but the magnetic storage format degraded over time. Companies like Sony and Philips swooped in to create an alternative: the compact disc.
上世纪80年代的音乐收藏者们在音乐上的选择很受限。发烧友称，唯一值得细细品味的音乐都储存在黑胶唱片里。但是这些记录介质占用太多存储内存，很容易损坏。而盒带和八轨磁带则不会占用太多存储内存，可其磁记忆体的格式却会随着时间流逝逐渐劣化。于是，索尼和飞利浦等这样的公司便趁虚而入，创造出另一款替代品——激光唱片。
In the early to mid 1980s, engineers wrote a series of books that set out the standards for the compact-disc format. There were five books in the series, each a different color. The first book, which was red, established the basic standards for audio recording on compact disc. Later books expanded the standards, adding data storage capabilities to the CD and giving birth to the CD-ROM and CD-RW formats.
上世纪80年代早期，工程师们编著了一系列丛书，详细规范了激光唱片的格式标准。 该系列丛书共有五本，分别以五种不同颜色来区分。第一本书是红色的，它阐述了激光唱片音频录制的基本标准。后续的几本书均在第一本的基础上扩充了格式标准，在CD上附加数据储存的能力，新创造包含CD-ROM和CD-RW格式的光盘。
Not only did this revolutionize the music industry, practically killing off the cassette and vinyl markets, but also the budding computer industry. Early floppy disks had limited storage capacity and could lose data if exposed to magnets. Compact discs stored information in an optical format and could hold far more data than typical magnetic disks. The first compact disc players were expensive, but by the 1990s the format dominated both the music and computer storage markets.
激光唱片不仅仅是音乐产业的一场革命，更是消灭了盒式磁带和黑胶唱片的市场。早期的软盘存储能力有限，置于磁场中十分容易丢失数据。而激光唱片以一种视觉上可见的格式保存数据，且其可存储量远超传统的磁体光盘。世界上首台激光唱片播放机非常昂贵，直到上世纪九十年代，这种唱片格式才开始在音乐和计算机存储器市场占据主要地位。
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