揽瓜阁俱乐部第三期 Day7 2020.07.26
【社会科学-商业】 Tencent has used stealth to become a gaming superpower （1005字 精读 必做篇）
Tencent, the world’s biggest gaming company, gives away most of its video games for nothing. Lest anyone think that the Chinese tech giant, which has a market value of $580bn, has a heart of gold, think again. It makes most of its gaming sales by encouraging players to buy virtual clothing, weapons, explosives and the like. These are usually cheap but prices increase depending on their cosmetic appeal or effectiveness in blasting an opponent to smithereens. For reasons known only to gamers, they willingly pay. During the lockdown in China, gaming revenues soared.
In the real world, that same scattershot purchasing model is one that Tencent has used to build, stealthily, a bridgehead in the global gaming industry. This year it has taken stakes in two Japanese games developers. Last year it took control of Supercell, a Finnish creator in which it had already invested about $8.6bn. It owns 100% of Riot Games, American publisher of “League of Legends”, and in the past decade has amassed stakes in more than a dozen other of the world’s hottest game developers, including Epic, owner of the smash hit “Fortnite”. According to Technode, which reports on Chinese tech firms, in that time it has made more than 100 other investments in fintech and artificial intelligence, particularly in America. It has stakes in household names such as Tesla, Uber, Snapchat and Spotify, and opens its chequebook for digital pioneers in India and the rest of Asia. Yet unlike other Chinese-owned, globe-spanning firms such as Huawei and TikTok, it rarely faces the sort of public backlash that has grown common as a result of America’s tensions with China. Its unique approach to international gaming helps explain why.
Until recently, Tencent’s gaming acquisitions overseas looked more like disparate bets than part of a strategic master-plan, which helped keep them under the radar. That is because Tencent’s main focus has always been China, where WeChat, its chat service-turned-superapp of 1.2bn users, drives traffic for gaming, streaming services such as music and video, digital payments and business services, as well as generating copious advertising. Gaming has long been Tencent’s biggest cash generator. Though its share of revenues is falling as Tencent diversifies into the business market and fintech, its high profitability remains crucial for keeping the wheels of the digital leviathan running. The company controls more than half of China’s $33bn gaming market, and has helped pioneer gaming on smartphones, where China leads the world. For foreign gaming companies that receive its cash, one of the main attractions has been to go into partnership with Tencent to bring their games into China.
Notwithstanding the first-quarter surge, gaming growth in the Middle Kingdom is no longer setting the blistering pace of a few years ago and, as so often in China, the state has intruded. In 2018-19 the gaming industry was kneecapped by President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on online addiction, blood, butchery, boobs and bums (there are rules for how much skin a female avatar can show). Faced with domestic headwinds, David Dai of Bernstein, an equity-research firm, says Tencent will quintuple gaming revenue from overseas from a pittance last year to about $3.5bn in 2021. It will do that by building on partnerships with foreign firms in which it holds stakes to make mobile games for the global market. Last year one of its studios developed a mobile version of “Call of Duty”, Activision Blizzard’s pc and console blockbuster. It was the biggest launch of a mobile game ever. This year, it is working with Riot to launch a smartphone version of “League of Legends”, the most popular desktop game in history. Ultimately, as a Tencent insider puts it, the dream is to “go it alone”; ie, to produce a Tencent game somewhere in the world that is a global hit.
If that happens, Tencent’s higher profile will generate a bigger risk of geopolitical flak, even if gaming is hardly a strategic threat to anyone. Yet the way it operates its sprawling empire may provide it with cover. Tencent stands apart from many Chinese firms by the freedom it gives the companies it invests in to act with autonomy, to compete fiercely against each other (and Tencent itself), and by promising to keep most of their data out of its clutches. This is particularly true in gaming, says Steven Messner, a specialist on Chinese gaming at PC Gamer, an industry publication. “It is not in the business of telling companies what to do.”
Some investors would like it to be more proactive in knitting its disparate strands together, to cash in more effectively on people’s data and boost its advertising revenues. Some grumble on Reddit, a fire-hose of gamer chat (in which Tencent also owns a stake), about the risks its acquisitions pose. But so far its global gaming investments have been spared the scrutiny from American authorities which other big Chinese firms have faced. If they focus at all on Tencent, it is on WeChat, because of allegations it is used to support surveillance and censorship in China. Yet WeChat is not used with gaming in the rest of the world. One reason for the China hawks’ relaxed attitude may be because of Tencent’s strategically ambiguous and hands-off approach to its gaming assets.
In fact, Tencent could be a force for good if it promotes mobile gaming globally. More than two-thirds of Chinese gamers play on their smartphones, compared with just over a third of American ones; the latter have five years of catching up to do. Tencent also hopes to develop cloud-gaming, in which 5g smartphones and faster connectivity enable players to stream games as easily as films, and increase use of augmented and virtual reality in mobile gaming. The trouble is that its partner in both endeavours in China is Huawei, which will raise hackles in America. Expect to hear more about Tencent’s global gaming prowess in the future. Tencent, of course, will hope that this attention is not because it, too, gets caught up in Sino-American bangs and explosions.
Source: The Economist
【社会科学-医疗】 How fast can a vaccine be made? （724字 5分33秒 听力 必做篇）
先做听力再核对原文哦~
听力视频下载链接及提取码： 链接：https://pan.baidu.com/s/1Ah2ncqcsPY9MHfhnNwOQAg
提取码：xxcf
When a new pathogen emerges, our bodies and healthcare systems are left vulnerable. In times like these, there’s an urgent need for a vaccine to create widespread immunity with minimal loss of life. So how quickly can we develop vaccines when we need them most?
Vaccine development can generally be split into three phases. In exploratory research, scientists experiment with different approaches to find safe and replicable vaccine designs. Once these are vetted in the lab, they enter clinical testing, where vaccines are evaluated for safety, efficacy, and side effects across a variety of populations. Finally, there’s manufacturing, where vaccines are produced and distributed for public use.
Under regular circumstances, this process takes an average of 15 to 20 years. But during a pandemic, researchers employ numerous strategies to move through each stage as quickly as possible.
Exploratory research is perhaps the most flexible. The goal of this stage is to find a safe way to introduce our immune system to the virus or bacteria. This gives our body the information it needs to create antibodies capable of fighting a real infection. There are many ways to safely trigger this immune response, but generally, the most effective designs are also the slowest to produce.
Traditional attenuated vaccines create long lasting resilience. But they rely on weakened viral strains that must be cultivated in non-human tissue over long periods of time. Inactivated vaccines take a much faster approach, directly applying heat, acid, or radiation to weaken the pathogen. Sub-unit vaccines, that inject harmless fragments of viral proteins, can also be created quickly. But these faster techniques produce less robust resilience.
These are just three of many vaccine designs, each with their own pros and cons. No single approach is guaranteed to work, and all of them require time-consuming research. So the best way to speed things up is for many labs to work on different models simultaneously. This race-to-the-finish strategy produced the first testable Zika vaccine in 7 months, and the first testable COVID-19 vaccine in just 42 days. Being testable doesn’t mean these vaccines will be successful. But models that are deemed safe and easily replicable can move into clinical testing while other labs continue exploring alternatives.
Whether a testable vaccine is produced in four months or four years, the next stage is often the longest and most unpredictable stage of development. Clinical testing consists of three phases, each containing multiple trials. Phase I trials focus on the intensity of the triggered immune response, and try to establish that the vaccine is safe and effective. Phase II trials focus on determining the right dosage and delivery schedule across a wider population. And Phase III trials determine safety across the vaccine’s primary use population, while also identifying rare side effects and negative reactions.
Given the number of variables and the focus on long-term safety, it’s incredibly difficult to speed up clinical testing. In extreme circumstances, researchers run multiple trials within one phase at the same time. But they still need to meet strict safety criteria before moving on. Occasionally, labs can expedite this process by leveraging previously approved treatments. In 2009, researchers adapted the seasonal flu vaccine to treat H1N1— producing a widely available vaccine in just six months. However, this technique only works when dealing with familiar pathogens that have well-established vaccine designs.
After a successful Phase III trial, a national regulatory authority reviews the results and approves safe vaccines for manufacturing. Every vaccine has a unique blend of biological and chemical components that require a specialized pipeline to produce. To start production as soon as the vaccine is approved, manufacturing plans must be designed in parallel to research and testing. This requires constant coordination between labs and manufacturers, as well as the resources to adapt to sudden changes in vaccine design— even if that means scrapping months of work.
Over time, advances in exploratory research and manufacturing should make this process faster. Preliminary studies suggest that future researchers may be able to swap genetic material from different viruses into the same vaccine design. These DNA and mRNA based vaccines could dramatically expedite all three stages of vaccine production. But until such breakthroughs arrive, our best strategy is for labs around the world to cooperate and work in parallel on different approaches. By sharing knowledge and resources, scientists can divide and conquer any pathogen.
Source: TED
【笔记格式要求】
精读笔记格式要求： 1.总结文章中心大意 2.总结分论点或每段段落大意 3.摘抄印象深刻或者觉得优美的句子 4.总结文章中的生词 5.记录阅读时间、总结时间、总时间
精听笔记格式要求： 1.逐句听写整篇文章 2.对照原文修改听写稿，标记出错原因 3.总结文章中心大意 4.总结精听过程中的生词 5.记录听写时间、总结时间、总时间
泛听笔记格式要求： 1.听整篇文章，总结文章中心大意 2.对照原文，总结泛听过程中的重点生词 3.记录泛听次数、总时间
这里也给大家三点学习小建议哦~ 精读：如遇到读不懂的复杂句，建议找出句子主干，分析句子成分，也可以尝试翻译句子来帮助理解~ 精听：建议每句不要反复纠结听，如果听 5 遍都没听出来，那就跳过，等完成后再回听总结原因，时间宝贵，不要过于执着哦~ 泛听：每次听全文，边听边记录，不要逐句听或中间暂停，如果听 5 遍都没听懂，那就对照原文总结大意和原因，时间宝贵，不要过于执着哦~
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发表于 2020-7-25 22:26:39
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