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The BBC iPlayer enables viewers to watch their favourite shows on their computers
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One of the founding fathers of the internet has predicted the end of traditional television.
Vint Cerf, who helped to build the internet while working as a researcher in America, said that television was approaching its "iPod moment"
In the same way that people now download their favourite music onto their iPod, he said that viewers would soon be downloading most of favourite programmes onto their computers.
"85 per cent of all video we watch is pre-recorded, so you can set your system to download it all the time," said Mr Cerf, who is now the vice-president of the Google, the world's largest search engine.
"You're still going to need live television for certain things - like news, sporting events and emergencies - but increasingly it is going to be almost like the iPod, where you download content to look at later."
Although television on demand has not yet become a mainstream activity in the UK, the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have all invested vast sums of money in technology which enables viewers to watch their favourite shows on their computers.
But some critics, including some internet service providers, have warned that the internet will collapse under the strain of millions of people downloading programmes at the same time.
Over the next four years, it is thought that the number of videos watched over the internet will quadruple, with people moving from short clips to hour-long programmes.
Broadband companies claim that the service will cause "traffic jams", which will cost millions of pounds to sort out .
But Mr Cerf dismissed the warnings as "scare tactics", saying that critics had predicted 20 years ago that the net would collapse when people all around the world started to use it en masse.
"In the intervening 30 years it's increased a million times... We're far from exhausting the capacity," he said. "It's an understandable worry when they see huge amounts of information being moved around online."
Setting out his vision for the future of the internet, he said he wanted it to reach as many people as possible.
"I want more internet," he said. "I want every one of the six billion people on the planet to be able to connect to the internet."
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一位“互聯網之父”日前預言：傳統的電視時代將結束。
溫特?瑟夫曾是美國一名研究人員，曾參與過互聯網的創建。他說，電視正走向iPod時代。
他說，與現在人們將喜歡的音樂下載到iPod里一樣，電視觀眾們很快就能將他們喜歡的大多數電視節目下載到電腦中去了。
現任全球最大的搜索引擎公司Google副總裁的瑟夫先生說：“我們觀看的85%的視頻都是預先錄制的，所以可以隨時下載?！?/font>
“盡管人們仍需要新聞、體育比賽和緊急事件等的現場直播，但‘iPod模式’將日益興起，人們可以把節目下載到里面供以后觀看。”
盡管電視在線點播在英國仍未成為一種主流模式，但BBC、ITV和Channel 4已投入大量資金研發能讓觀眾在電腦上看他們喜愛的電視節目的技術。
但包括一些互聯網服務提供商在內的一些批評人士警告說，如果幾百萬人在同一時間下載節目，互聯網會因無法承受壓力而崩潰。
據預測，在未來四年中，互聯網上的視頻數量將翻兩番，人們所能觀看的視頻也將從現在的短片“升級”為長達一小時的節目。
寬帶公司稱，這一服務會導致“網絡交通堵塞”，而“疏通”成本則會達到幾百萬英鎊。
瑟夫對這一“恐嚇戰術”的說法進行了反駁，他說，批評人士20年前預測，如果全世界的人同時上網，互聯網會崩潰。
他說：“在過去三十年中，互聯網的容量增加了一百萬倍，我們遠沒用盡這些容量?？吹酱罅康男畔⒂问幱诨ヂ摼W而產生這樣的擔憂是可以理解的?！?/font>
瑟夫先生對互聯網的未來進行了展望，他說他希望更多的人能用上互聯網。
他說：“我希望互聯網越來越發達。希望地球上60億人都能用上互聯網。”
（英語點津姍姍編輯）
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