国际前沿新闻：PPT创始人Dennis Austin于76岁逝世
9月1日，PowerPoint的联合创始人Dennis Austin于76岁逝世，PPT对于我们平时的影响很大，不论在学习，办公，汇报的时候都为我们提供了便利。美国的科技新闻及媒体网络发文悼念Dennis Austin，让我们来看看从知名外国新闻报道中，我们能学到什么语言知识。
Dennis Austin, who co-created PowerPoint, passed away at his home in Los Altos, California, on September 1st, reports The Washington Post. His son, Michael Austin, said he’d had lung cancer that had metastasized to his brain, according to the Post. He was 76 years old.
PowerPoint的联合创始人Dennis Austin于76岁时因肺癌转移到脑部在加利福尼亚州洛杉矶市的家中去世。这一消息由《华盛顿邮报》报道。根据《华盛顿邮报》的报道，他的儿子迈克尔·奥斯汀表示他患有肺癌，并已经转移到了大脑。奥斯汀享年76岁。
lung cancer 肺癌
metastasize / mɪˈtæstəˌsaɪz / vi. 转移；迁徙
Metastasize这个词对于我们来说其实不常见，因为这是医学领域的常用词，一般用来搭配癌细胞转移，我们可以看一下词典里对这个词的解释：Metastasis, or metastatic disease, is the spread of a cancer or disease from one organ or part to another not directly connected with it. 所以说有些词可能中文翻译过来就是简单的转移，但是一定要在正确的语境中使用。比如，我们来一个具体的例句：
A major reason why many cancers are so dangerous is that they metastasize.
癌症的危险因素主要在于癌细胞转移。
回到原文：
Austin studied engineering at several universities, including MIT and UC Santa Barbara, before going to work as a software developer, eventually joining the software company Forethought and co-developing PowerPoint. The company released the software in 1987, and Microsoft bought the company just a few months later. Austin served as PowerPoint’s primary developer from 1985 to 1996 when he retired.
在成为软件开发人员之前，奥斯汀在包括麻省理工学院和加利福尼亚大学圣塔芭芭拉分校在内的多所大学攻读工程学。最终，他加入了软件公司Forethought，并与其他开发人员共同开发了PowerPoint。该公司于1987年发布了这款软件，不久之后，微软收购了该公司。奥斯汀于1985年至1996年担任PowerPoint的主要开发人员，之后退休。
Release 发布
primary developer 原始开创者
The Washington Post notes that Robert Gaskins, PowerPoint’s other co-creator, wrote in his book Sweating Bullets: Notes about Inventing PowerPoint that Austin “came up with at least half of the major design ideas” and added that if he hadn’t been designing the software, “no one would ever have heard of it.”
《华盛顿邮报》指出，PowerPoint的另一位共同创始人罗伯特·加斯金斯在他的著作《Sweating Bullets: Notes about Inventing PowerPoint》中写道，奥斯汀“至少想出了一半以上的主要设计理念”，并补充说，如果没有他设计这款软件，"没人会听说过它"。
Despite its 36-year history as the most ubiquitous software for presentations, PowerPoint has its detractors; Jeff Bezos once said that “we outlawed PowerPoint presentations at Amazon,” calling the move “probably the smartest thing we ever did.” Steve Jobs was quoted in Walter Isaacson’s Jobs biography as saying, “People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.”
尽管PowerPoint作为最常见的演示文稿制作软件已有36年的历史，但也有人对它持批评态度。亚马逊的杰夫·贝佐斯曾表示，“我们在亚马逊禁止使用PowerPoint演示文稿”，称这一举措“可能是我们所做的最明智的决定”。史蒂夫·乔布斯在沃尔特·艾萨克森的乔布斯传记中曾说：“知道自己在说什么的人不需要PowerPoint。”
Ubiquitous / juːˈbɪkwɪtəs / adj. 普遍存在的
Outlaw v. 使非法，禁止
The Atlantic in August published a story about “The Great PowerPoint Panic of 2003,” saying that 20 years ago, people thought it would “corrode our minds, degrade communication, and waste our time.” Still, PowerPoint has had its fans, too, including The Talking Heads lead singer David Byrne, though he loved it not for its intended purpose but for its potential as an artistic tool.
今年8月，《大西洋月刊》发表了一篇关于“2003年的大PowerPoint恐慌”的文章，称20年前，人们认为它“会侵蚀我们的思维，降低沟通效率，浪费我们的时间”。尽管如此，PowerPoint也有其支持者，包括Talking Heads乐队的主唱大卫·伯恩，尽管他喜欢它并不是因为它的预期用途，而是因为它作为一种艺术工具的潜力。
corrode our minds 侵蚀我们的思维
Corrode这个词强烈建议大家积累，这个词对于我们写作文大有裨益，只要讲到什么东西有危害，破坏了...,降低了...., 阻碍了....，这时候，我们就可以用到这个表达。和corrode可以互换的亮点词还有很多，比如：
Erode
Deteriorate
Decay
Rust
Wear away
Disintegrate
Crumble
Decompose
Wear down
The software remains a key part of Microsoft’s suite of office tools to this day. Recently, the company has begun adding AI tooling to PowerPoint using Copilot, a sort of modern-day Clippy AI assistant for Microsoft 365. It can be prompted to create presentations or to generate images and adjust the tone or format of text within a presentation.
这款软件仍然是Microsoft办公套件的重要组成部分。最近，微软开始在PowerPoint中添加人工智能工具，使用Copilot，这是一种类似于现代版Clippy的Microsoft 365助手。它可以被启动来创建演示文稿，生成图像，并调整演示文稿中文本的语气或格式。
Suite n. 套房，套间；（程序）组 (注意区别这个词和suit)
知识点总结：
lung cancer 肺癌
metastasize / mɪˈtæstəˌsaɪz / vi. 转移；迁徙
Release 发布
primary developer 原始开创者
Ubiquitous / juːˈbɪkwɪtəs / adj. 普遍存在的
Outlaw v. 使非法，禁止
Corrode
Erode
Deteriorate
Decay
Rust
Wear away
Disintegrate
Crumble
Decompose
Wear down
Suite n. 套房，套间；（程序）组
