研究生科技英语阅读课文翻译对照(27)

如果你可以通过及时消息更快地得到答案，为什么还要等待电子邮件回复呢？由于Facebook的出现，有些问题不必问就已经知道答案了。如果一位朋友更新了Facebook上的公开状态，告诉全世界她已经下班了，你就无需再问她了。与目前处于测试阶段的谷歌Wave等服务相比，拖着“附件”的电子邮件看起来要枯燥得多。通过谷歌Wave，用户可以把照片从桌面拖放到Wave中，与别人分享照片，并输入评论。
Little wonder that while email continues to grow, other types of communication services are growing far faster. In August 2009, 276.9 million people used email across the U.S., several European countries, Australia and Brazil, according to Nielsen Co., up 21% from 229.2 million in August 2008. But the number of users on social-networking and other community sites jumped 31% to 301.5 million people.
难怪在电子邮件继续增长之际，其他类型的通信服务却在以更高的速度增长。据尼尔森(Nielsen Co.)的数据，2009年8月，美国、欧洲的几个国家、澳大利亚和巴西有2.769亿电子邮件用户，较2008年8月的2.292亿增长了21%。而社交网站和其他社群网站的用户数量飙升了31%，至3.015亿。
So, how will these new tools change the way we communicate? Let"s start with the most obvious: They make our interactions that much faster.
那么，这些新的工具将如何改变我们通信的方式？让我们先看看最一目了然的方面：它们使我们的交流互动更快了。
Years ago, we were frustrated if it took a few days for a letter to arrive. A couple of years ago, we"d complain about a half-hour delay in getting an email. Today, we gripe about it taking an extra few seconds for a text message to go through. In a few months, we may be complaining that our cellphones aren"t automatically able to send messages to friends within a certain distance, letting them know we"re nearby. (A number of services already do this.)