According to comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008. According to Alexa, the website’s ranking among all websites increased from 60th to 7th in terms of worldwide traffic, from September 2006 to September 2007, and is currently 5th. Quantcast ranks the website 15th in U.S. in terms of traffic, and Compete. com ranks it 14th in U.S.
The Internet phenomenon, which boasts 80 million users worldwide, exploded in popularity over the past year as a convenient way for Web users to communicate and share personal details with selected groups of friends or acquaintances. But grammatical errors in the automated messages Facebook uses to personalize pronouns when members share information with their friends have proliferated since the site expanded from English-only into 15 new languages in recent months.
And now, Facebook will press members to declare whether they are male or female, seeking to end the grammatical device that leads the site to refer to individual users as "they" or "themself." "We’ve gotten feedback from translators and users in other countries that translations wind up being too confusing when people have not specified a sex on their profiles," Facebook product manager Naomi Gleit said in a company statement.
In English, when users fail to specify what gender they are, Facebook defaults to some form of the gender neutral, plural pronoun "they." That option is unavailable when the plural is always masculine or feminine in other languages. "People who haven’t selected what sex they are frequently get defaulted to the wrong sex," Gleit wrote.
Unless the gender of the user is clear, Facebook does not know which pronoun to use to notify other members add information to the site. This common English problem is multiplied in languages where masculine and feminine distinctions are grammatically ingrained.
The site will now ask users to specify whether they are male or female on their basic member- ship profile. It will prompt existing users to define themselves. Facebook has an opt-out option for members who choose not to specify their gender or do not consider gender to be clear cut. Members can remove mention of gender from messages about their activities. "We’ve received pushback in the past from groups that find the male/female distinction too limiting," Gleit said.
From the passage, we know that Facebook is now faced with the problem that ______.

A:less and less people are paying visits to it B:people are cheating about their real gender on it C:it is difficult to tell whether an user is male or female D:users are using impropriate language there

According to comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008. According to Alexa, the website’s ranking among all websites increased from 60th to 7th in terms of worldwide traffic, from September 2006 to September 2007, and is currently 5th. Quantcast ranks the website 15th in U.S. in terms of traffic, and Compete. com ranks it 14th in U.S.
The Internet phenomenon, which boasts 80 million users worldwide, exploded in popularity over the past year as a convenient way for Web users to communicate and share personal details with selected groups of friends or acquaintances. But grammatical errors in the automated messages Facebook uses to personalize pronouns when members share information with their friends have proliferated since the site expanded from English-only into 15 new languages in recent months.
And now, Facebook will press members to declare whether they are male or female, seeking to end the grammatical device that leads the site to refer to individual users as "they" or "themself." "We’ve gotten feedback from translators and users in other countries that translations wind up being too confusing when people have not specified a sex on their profiles," Facebook product manager Naomi Gleit said in a company statement.
In English, when users fail to specify what gender they are, Facebook defaults to some form of the gender neutral, plural pronoun "they." That option is unavailable when the plural is always masculine or feminine in other languages. "People who haven’t selected what sex they are frequently get defaulted to the wrong sex," Gleit wrote.
Unless the gender of the user is clear, Facebook does not know which pronoun to use to notify other members add information to the site. This common English problem is multiplied in languages where masculine and feminine distinctions are grammatically ingrained.
The site will now ask users to specify whether they are male or female on their basic member- ship profile. It will prompt existing users to define themselves. Facebook has an opt-out option for members who choose not to specify their gender or do not consider gender to be clear cut. Members can remove mention of gender from messages about their activities. "We’ve received pushback in the past from groups that find the male/female distinction too limiting," Gleit said.
Which one of the following is true under the new regulations of Facebook

A:The users are encouraged to include their gender information in their extended profiles. B:Only the new registrations are influenced by this new regulation. C:Users can still choose not to specify their gender. D:Everyone is welcoming this new regulation since it brings ahout clarity and convenience.

According to comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008. According to Alexa, the website’s ranking among all websites increased from 60th to 7th in terms of worldwide traffic, from September 2006 to September 2007, and is currently 5th. Quantcast ranks the website 15th in U.S. in terms of traffic, and Compete. com ranks it 14th in U.S.
The Internet phenomenon, which boasts 80 million users worldwide, exploded in popularity over the past year as a convenient way for Web users to communicate and share personal details with selected groups of friends or acquaintances. But grammatical errors in the automated messages Facebook uses to personalize pronouns when members share information with their friends have proliferated since the site expanded from English-only into 15 new languages in recent months.
And now, Facebook will press members to declare whether they are male or female, seeking to end the grammatical device that leads the site to refer to individual users as "they" or "themself." "We’ve gotten feedback from translators and users in other countries that translations wind up being too confusing when people have not specified a sex on their profiles," Facebook product manager Naomi Gleit said in a company statement.
In English, when users fail to specify what gender they are, Facebook defaults to some form of the gender neutral, plural pronoun "they." That option is unavailable when the plural is always masculine or feminine in other languages. "People who haven’t selected what sex they are frequently get defaulted to the wrong sex," Gleit wrote.
Unless the gender of the user is clear, Facebook does not know which pronoun to use to notify other members add information to the site. This common English problem is multiplied in languages where masculine and feminine distinctions are grammatically ingrained.
The site will now ask users to specify whether they are male or female on their basic member- ship profile. It will prompt existing users to define themselves. Facebook has an opt-out option for members who choose not to specify their gender or do not consider gender to be clear cut. Members can remove mention of gender from messages about their activities. "We’ve received pushback in the past from groups that find the male/female distinction too limiting," Gleit said.

Which one of the following is true under the new regulations of Facebook（）

A:The users are encouraged to include their gender information in their extended profiles. B:Only the new registrations are influenced by this new regulation. C:Users can still choose not to specify their gender. D:Everyone is welcoming this new regulation since it brings ahout clarity and convenience.

Locked in a vault within the North Carolina Department of Revenue is a bit of Kafka: a government-issued stamp that is expected to remain unpurchased, but which users of illegal goods must, by law, affix to substances they are not allowed to possess.
North Carolina is one of about 20 states that tax illegal drugs. The cost varies by state and weight, as does the stamps’ appearance (Nebraska’s, with a skull surmounting a syringe and joint, looks like Grateful Dead tribute art). Penalties for non-payment also vary, from being classed as a misdemeanour in Georgia to 200% of the tax plus $10,000 or five years in prison in Louisiana.
Few, if any, drug users actually buy the stamps. Most of those sold in Kansas, for instance, go to collectors. And according to a Mobile newspaper, the director of investigations for Alabama’s revenue department said the state never expected actually to sell stamps to drug users. Instead, the tax exists to further punish those arrested for possession by making them liable to penalties for tax evasion if their drugs are stampless, as they almost invariably are. And those penalties can be lucrative: over the past decade Kansas has collected $10.3m.
If legislators feel that drug users get off too lightly, they could simply increase the criminal penalties, rather than creating a new class of crime that requires the involvement of another government agency. As it is, these laws are not merely complicated, but have often been found unconstitutional.
In 1994 the US Supreme Court ruled that because Montana’s illegal-drug tax was a second punishment for a single crime it amounted to double jeopardy. Other states’ drug-tax schemes have also been challenged on constitutional grounds. In response some states have abolished or modified their schemes, usually by allowing buyers of the stamps to remain anonymous or by forbidding revenue departments from telling law enforcement when someone buys the stamps.
The concept of taxing illegal drugs punitively dates back to the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. This did not ban the drug completely; it subjected anyone who dealt in it commercially to a nominal tax but a heavy array of regulations and criminal penalties for non-compliance. Bureaucracy lives on.
We may infer from the first paragraph that ______.

A:Kafka is locked in a vault within the North Carolina Department of Revenue B:The government-issued stamp may not be welcome C:Users of illegal goods must purchase stamps everyday D:Users are not allowed to possess the stamps

Microsoft has released its free computer security package to the public.
From 29 September, Windows users will be able to download the software from Microsoft’s Security Essentials website.
The free software gives basic protection against viruses, trojans, rootkits, and spyware. The Essentials software is Microsoft’s second try at making an own-brand security package.
Prior to release a beta version of Security Essentials software, code named Morro, has been available to users in the US, China, Brazil, and Israel.
Microsoft said the software would be available to anyone who wanted to use it and downloading it would not involve registering with the software firm or having a limit on the amount of time it could be used for.
"Consumers have told us that they want the protection of real-time security software, but that they are confused by trials and renewals and concerned about performance and as a result, too many are unprotected" said Amy Barzdukas, general manager for consumer security at Microsoft in a statement.
The only restriction on use is that it has to be installed on a" genuine" Windows PC—One whose copy of its operating system has been verified by Microsoft.
In the free software market Microsoft faces competition from many others including AVG. Alwil Avast, Avira Antivir and Comodo.
The free software runs on Windows XP, Vista and will also be available for Windows 7 when it is released in late October. Updates will be provided automatically to those who install the software.
Prior to working on Security Essentials, Microsoft offered its Windows Live One Care paid security software but this failed to win a significant user base in the highly competitive consumer market. This software was withdrawn in mid. 2009.
What is the restriction on using this Security Essentials software

A:Three-month trials. B:To install on a "genuine" Windows P C:C. Users’ Windows system. D:Users’ computer literacy.

Facebook has agreed to make worldwide changes to its privacy policy as a result of negotiations with Canada’s privacy commissioner.
Last month the social network was found to breach Canadian law by holding on to users’ personal data indefinitely. Facebook has now agreed to make changes to the way it handles this information and be more transparent about what data it collects and why. It will also make it clear that users carl deactivate or delete their account.
As well as updating the privacy policy, Facebook has said it will make changes that will give users more control over the data they provide to third-party developers of applications, such as games and quizzes. There are around 950,000 developers in 180 countries that provide applications for the site.
Specifically, the changes will require applications to state which information they wish to access and obtain consent from the user before it is used or shared.
"Application developers have had virtually unrestricted access to Facebook users’ personal information," said Ms Stoddart.
"The changes Facebook plans to introduce will allow users to control the types of personal information that applications can access." The site will also encourage users to review their privacy settings and make it clear to users that they can delete or deactivate an account, and what the difference is between the two.
Facebook’s Michael Richter said if a user chose to deactivate their account, the site would still store theft information "even if it is for 10 years". "We’re committing to that user." he said. "We want them to know that if they change their mind they can always come back."
The social network has said work on the changes will begin immediately but they would take around 12 months to implement. The regulator first started its investigation as a result of complaints by the Canadian Interact Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at the University of Ottawa. The country is the first to complete a full investigation of Facebook’s privacy practices. Canada has around 12 million Facebook users, more than one in three of the population.
Why did Facebook agree to make the change

A:Just self-system updating. B:Old privacy policy breaches Canadian law. C:Users’ complaint. D:To gain more users.

The traditional model for systems development was that an IT department used （1） which is a process-centered technique, and consulted users only when their input or approval was needed. Compared with traditional methods, many companies find that JAD allows （2） to participate effectively in the requirements modeling process. When properly used, JAD can result in a more accurate statement of system requirements, a beret understanding of common goals, and a stronger commitment to the success of the new system. RAD is a （3） technique that speeds up information systems development and produces a functioning information system. While the end product of JAD is a(an) （4）, the end product of RAD is the new information system. The RAD model consists of tour phases. During the （5）, users interact with systems analysts and develop models and prototypes that represent all system processes, outputs, and inputs.

（2）处填（）。

A:project managers B:system administrators C:software programmers D:key users