NEWS worthy Clips (2/3)

Update your vocabulary with news clips from around the world 

NEWS worthy Clips

Next big thing: TV converter boxes

Although not as exciting as Apple’s iPhones, some new electronic gadgetry is expected to sell millions of units this year. These would be the digital converter boxes that will enable analog TV sets to receive and display digital TV signals. In the United States, conventional analog television will (one phrase) on February 17, 2009, making digital signals the only broadcast TV available.

Most people get their TV (one phrase), and they won’t notice a thing related to the conversion because that will be handled by their service providers. But for the millions of households that still get their television over the air; this will be a significant event. It also will have some impact on households that have some TV sets that get over-the-air signals as well as other sets connected to cable or satellite systems.

Unlike the buzz that built for months before the iPhone was , there is little anticipation of the approaching digital TV switcheroo. This worries the National Association of Broadcasters.

The NAB estimates 60 percent of TV viewers with analog sets do not have the foggiest notion that, unless they have a converter box, their TVs won’t work after the 2009 switch, and among the 40 percent who have of the change, most are misinformed to some extent.

“We don’t want anyone to wake up one morning and be without television,” said Shermaze Ingram, a NAB spokesperson.

Buying and connecting a converter box is a minor inconvenience that should result in a better picture, better sound and more channels, Ingram said. Another bonus: Once analog broadcasting ends, the prime radio spectrum it now uses will be auctioned off. That is expected to add new wireless services, such as more high-speed Internet connections. Public safety communications also should improve.

Vocabulary Focus

gadgetry (n) ---small devices or machinery with a particular purpose

switcheroo (n) ---a change from one thing to another (slang)

spectrum (n) ---a range of waves, such as light waves or radio waves

Specialized terms

analog (adj) ---模拟系统的；模拟信号的relating to a system that changes sound and video into electrical wave signals