During Apple's MP3 player development, Steve Jobs spoke of Apple's strategy: the Mac as a hub to other gadgets. Vinnie Chieco, a freelance copywriter Apple hired to help name the gadget before its debut in 2001, fixed on that idea, according to Wired. He brainstormed hubs of all kinds, eventually coming to the concept of a spaceship. You could leave it, but you'd have to return to refuel. The stark plastic front of the prototype inspired the final connection: pod, a la 2001. Add an "i" and the connection to the iMac was complete.
在蘋果MP3播放器研發過程中,斯蒂夫·喬布斯講到了蘋果的戰略:把蘋果電腦Mac作為其他產品的中心。據《連線》雜志說,蘋果在2001年雇傭自由廣告文案撰稿人溫尼·奇科(Vinnie Chieco)在產品上線前為產品取名。奇科想到了各種產品的中心,最終想到了飛船的概念。你可以離開飛船,但是你必須要再回去進行燃料補給。于是就根據《2001太空漫游》中一句臺詞“Open the pod bay door, Hal”,中的pod加上了iMac的i,組成了ipod。
作者: phoenixmy 時間: 2009-7-12 18:46
黑莓:甜蜜上癮
Canada's Research in Motion called on Lexicon Branding to help name its new wireless e-mail device in 2001. The consultancy pushed RIM founders away from the word "e-mail," which research shows can raise blood pressure. Instead, they looked for a name that would evoke joy and somehow give feelings of peace. After someone made the connection that the small buttons on the device resembled a bunch of seeds, Lexicon's team explored names like strawberry, melon and various vegetables before settling on blackberry--a word both pleasing and which evoked the black color of the device.
2001年,加拿大RIM公司聘請品牌推廣公司Lexicon Branding幫助其為新開發的無線電郵設備起名。該公司力勸RIM創始人遠離“電郵” 這一詞語,因為研究發現該詞使人血壓升高。該公司希望尋找一個能引發歡愉,并帶來平靜感受的詞語,后來有人發現該產品的QWERTY鍵盤形似植物的種子,于是Lexicon團隊考慮了不少類似名稱,如草莓、甜瓜及其他多種蔬果,最終定名為“黑莓”,并且也符合產品的黑色外觀。作者: phoenixmy 時間: 2009-7-12 18:46
火狐:兩次傾心
Choosing a name that evokes a product's essence and is available can be quite complicated, as the Mozilla folks found out. The early version of Mozilla's browser was called Firebird, but due to another open-source project with the same name, the Mozilla elders renamed their browser Firefox, which is another name for red panda. Why? "It's easy to remember. It sounds good. It's unique. We like it," they said. Best of all? Nobody else was using it.
Mozilla瀏覽器早期版本的名稱叫火鳥(Firebird),但另外一個開源軟件項目也用了同樣名字,因此,Mozilla的老員工將其重命名為火狐(Firefox),其實Firefox是小熊貓的別名,但現在都約定俗成稱之為火狐。 Mozilla在解釋這一名稱時說,“它容易記住,聽起來也不錯,并且它是獨一無二的。”作者: phoenixmy 時間: 2009-7-12 18:47
Twitter: 連接140個字母的數字鳥
When cofounder Biz Stone saw the application that Jack Dorsey created in 2006 he was reminded of the way birds communicate: "Short bursts of information...Everyone is chirping, having a good time." In response, Stone came up with "twttr," and the group eventually added some vowels. It's hard to think of a more evocative name in the tech world than twitter, but what began as what Stone described as "trivial" bursts of communication developed into a powerful means of networking, breaking news, and forum for the 44th US president's campaign.
2006年,聯合創始人比茲·斯通(Biz Stone)看到杰克·多西(Jack Dorsey)開發的這一應用程序是,讓他想起了一群小鳥歡鬧的情景:“大家都嘰嘰喳喳,簡短而快樂。”于是斯通想到了鳥鳴的擬聲詞"twttr" ,后來又在該詞中加了幾個元音,形成了"Twitter"。作者: phoenixmy 時間: 2009-7-12 18:47
Windows 7:數字7的魔力
While Microsoft's next OS is kind of a "Ho-hum" name, one has only to look at what happened with the most recent Windows release to understand why Microsoft might have gone back to a tried-and-true naming philosophy: Vista? Ouch. Windows 95 and XP? Those have done much better. Microsoft's Mike Nash announced the name this way: "Simply put, this is the seventh release of Windows, so therefore 'Windows 7' just makes sense." We're betting that Microsoft execs are hoping that number 7 will deliver on its promise of luck--they could sure use a win after Vista.
與中國人推崇數字8一樣,西方人認為7是有魔力的數字,它能帶來好運,而微軟在Vista后正好推出的是第七版Windows操作系統因此,微軟Windows產品管理事業部全球副總裁(Mike Nash)把它命名為Windows 7。作者: phoenixmy 時間: 2009-7-12 18:47
ThinkPad: 簡約制勝
The venerable line of PC notebooks rolled onto the scene in 1992. While the concept was spot on, there was turmoil at IBM as to what to call it. IBM's pen-computing group wanted to keep it simple; they liked ThinkPad. But IBM's corporate naming committee didn't--it didn't have a number, and every IBM product had to have a number, and how would ThinkPad translate into other languages? Due to the chutzpah of the IBMer who unveiled it, ThinkPad won out, and it was a huge hit for IBM, which eventually sold it to Lenovo in 2005.
當1992年IBM筆記本電腦首次登臺亮相時,IBM內部就如何起名引發了爭論,IBM的手寫計算部門希望起名簡單,他們喜歡ThinkPad這個名字,但IBM企業命名委員會不以為然,因為每款IBM的產品都帶有數字,而ThinkPad沒有,并且該詞很難翻譯成其它語言,不過最后還是ThinkPad勝出,它成為IBM熱銷產品,2005年賣給了聯想。作者: phoenixmy 時間: 2009-7-12 18:48
Android: 神神秘秘
You'd think the story behind the naming of the Open Handset Alliance's new open-source platform for mobile devices, which includes the brand-new G1 loaded with Google's goodies, would be cool. But, uh, not so much. Back in 2005, Google quietly acquired a mysterious startup named Android Inc., which had been operating under "a cloak of secrecy" on "making software for mobile phones," reported Businessweek. The result of all Google's secrecy and Internet hype was the debut of T-Mobile's G1 on October 22, 2008.
你可能覺得Android這個名字背后一定有一個很酷的故事。不過咱們回頭看看,不用太遠,就在2005年,據《商業周刊》報道,Google悄沒聲地收購了一家神秘的創業公司Android,該公司一直在秘密開發手機軟件。2008年10月22日,隨著T-Mobile的 G1手機發布,一切真相大白。作者: phoenixmy 時間: 2009-7-12 18:48
Wikipedia: 名如其音
According to Wikipedia, the name Wikipedia is a portmanteau of wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites) and encyclopedia (you remember, those large books that, as kids, we ruthlessly plagiarized for school book reports). FYI: a portmanteau is a fancy way of saying that we're going to take two words, jam them together and (hopefully) create a new concept that people will love. So far, so good. In an illustration of the axiom "the more things change the more they stay the same": Today, kids and adults now ruthlessly plagiarize Wikipedia instead of encyclopedias.
據維基百科介紹,Wikipedia是一個合成詞,即由wiki(一種提供共同創作環境的網站,也就是說,每個人都可以任意修改網站上的頁面數據。wiki-wiki 是夏威夷語里快(quick)的意思。)和百科全書(encyclopedia)兩詞拼接而成。作者: phoenixmy 時間: 2009-7-12 18:49
Mac OS X and "The Big Cats": 貓一樣的風格
Apple's popular Mac operating system X actually denotes the Roman numeral 10, since it is the OS's tenth release, following Mac OS 9. To the ire of Apple fanboys, many people do refer to it as letter 'X.' More interesting have been the "big cat" code names assigned to each succeeding X release that have stuck with Apple's marketing: Cheetah (10.0), Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger and current kitty Leopard. Snow Leopard has been assigned for the 10.6 release, with rumors that Lynx and Cougar are in the works.
蘋果操作系統Mac OS X的意義很簡單,X是羅馬數字10,代表蘋果的第10代操作系統。不過,Mac OS X每一代版本的代號更加有趣,全部都是大型貓科動物的名字:Cheetah印度豹,Puma美洲獅,Jaguar美洲虎,Panther豹,Tiger 虎,Leopard美洲豹,Snow Leopard雪豹。據說此后還會有Lynx山貓和cougar美洲獅。作者: phoenixmy 時間: 2009-7-12 18:49
Red Hat Linux:內涵豐富的名字
Cofounder Bob Young has given multidimensional origins of the red fedora name:
1. It was named after red, which in Western history is "the symbol of liberation and challenge of authority."
2. Cofounder Marc Ewing wore his grandfather's red Cornell lacrosse hat in college and became known for this tech expertise--those with problems went to see the guy in the red hat.
3. Ewing named his software projects Red Hat 1, Red Hat 2 and so on. "So, when he started his Linux project, he just named it Red Hat Linux," Young said. All righty then!
聯合創始人鮑勃·楊(Bob Young)對該名稱的來由進行了詳解:
取名為紅(red),因為在西方歷史上紅代表著解放和挑戰權威;
聯合創始人馬克·埃文(Marc Ewing)在大學時總戴著他祖父的一頂紅色科奈爾牌曲棍球帽,他以軟件技術見長,當別人有技術難題時,都會去找戴紅帽子的家伙;
埃文把他的軟件項目按Red Hat 1、Red Hat 2依次命名,當開始Linux項目時,理所當然就是Red Hat Linux。作者: 宇宙飛船 時間: 2009-7-12 23:37
中英文對照,很好的學習材料,置頂三個月。作者: wbsh 時間: 2010-10-5 08:04 作者: shinhwaforever 時間: 2010-10-21 09:45
樓主有心了,真的是很好的學習材料啊.3Q