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English Listening Language Lab Online

Interactive Listening Activities

Exercise on Preposition from VLC

1 He refused to comment to the problem.

2What is the reason that Hong Kong's air pollution?

3Can we meet to discuss with the policy changes?

4Graduates should be consider on their career goals.

5They were asked to participate to the interviews.

6Obviously that you need to adapt changing circumstances.

7Applicants who filled with the questionnaire were then chosen randomly.

8This figure could reflect to their dissatisfaction of the lack of training.

9What are the main differences of the US English and the English spoken in the UK?

10Some authorities are now claiming that chocolate may be good to you in moderate quantities.

11The USA made a formal complaint on that country's environmental policy.

12Pay attention to that company's press releases. They may be looking for new employees soon.

13The cleaners demanded for a pay rise because of the recent rise in prices.

14People can use credit cards to pay for goods on the web.

15If on line learning can be developed, it seems to me that education will be more effective than past.

16Education on the internet can save a lot of resources.

17From my point of view, I do not think the government should censor the Internet.

18All Hong Kong people were concerned in the recent economic crisis.

19In some universities more than 2000 students are enrolled in the same course.

19They want to get a job at the earliest possible opportunity.

20This implies that the present situation in Hong Kong does not allow graduates to get their first preference jobs easily.

21Because the economic downturn, students tended to apply for more jobs than last year.

22Concerning the job seeking skills, the findings presented in Table 5 show that one-third of the subjects felt they needed more help in their interview techniques.

2324% of the subjects claimed that they needed help on English speaking skills.

24This figure could reflect their dissatisfaction of the lack of training.

Game, set and match for Nintendo

The video game console maker closes in on Sony in market value as the Wii outsells PlayStation 3 consoles.
June 20 2007: 7:14 AM EDT


TOKYO (Reuters) -- Nintendo Co. Ltd. shot past Panasonic maker Matsushita in market value on Wednesday and closed in on Sony Corp. as investors watched it unseat Sony as unrivalled king of the game industry.

Nintendo's (Charts) Wii has been outselling Sony's (Charts) PlayStation 3 game console 3-1 in Japan and more than 2-1 in the United States so far this year, according to game magazine publisher Enterbrain and research firm NPD.

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Demand for its DS handheld game players also far outstripped that for Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP).

Nintendo shares closed up 1.4 percent at 44,500 yen, increasing its market capitalization to 6.30 trillion yen ($51 billion).

That compares with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd.'s (Charts) 6.23 trillion yen and 6.64 trillion yen for Sony - the world's largest and second-largest consumer electronics makers, each having sales more than eight times as big as Nintendo's.

"Nintendo is a market leader in everything it does now, which is basically the handheld as well as console gaming market. We haven't seen Nintendo being a market leader in both products for over a decade," said KBC Securities analyst Hiroshi Kamide.

Shares in Nintendo, known for such game characters as Mario, Donkey Kong and Pokemon, have been on an uptrend over the past two years, driven initially by strong sales of its DS handheld players, and recently by growing popularity of the Wii console.

Wii outsells PlayStation 3 by 5 to 1 in Japan
Nintendo launched the Wii in November. The device features a motion-sensitive controller that allows users to direct on-screen play by swinging it like a tennis racket or wielding it like a sword, opening a new avenue of game playing.

Sony also started selling its PlayStation 3 late last year, but it has seen slow demand so far due to its high price tag and limited availability of attractive software titles.

"One thing about Nintendo is that it has killer products and they represent a big portion of its overall business, offering investors a very clear reason to buy," said Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management.

"I think Nintendo is bound to overtake Sony [in market capitalization]."

Shares in Sony have gained 72 percent during the past two years, outperforming the benchmark Nikkei average's 59 percent rise. But the performance is outshone by Nintendo shares, which jumped nearly four-fold over the same period. Matsushita shares have put on 52 percent.

Wii will rock you

GameStop profit doubles, stock sinks

Microsoft agrees to change Vista

In response to Google complaint, software giant will make it easier for Windows users to run desktop search programs.
June 20 2007: 4:07 AM EDT


CHICAGO (Reuters) -- Microsoft Corp. has agreed to modify its Windows Vista operating system in response to a complaint that its computer search function put Google Inc. and other potential rivals at a disadvantage, the Justice Department and Microsoft said on Tuesday.

Under an agreement with the department and 17 state attorneys general and the District of Columbia, Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500) will build into Vista an option to let users select a default desktop search program on personal computers running Windows.

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The function, known as "Instant Search," allows Windows users to enter a search query and get a list of results from their hard drive that contain the search term.

The agreement was made public as part of a joint report that the Justice Department and Microsoft filed late on Tuesday with the court overseeing Microsoft's compliance with a 2002 antitrust consent decree.

As part of the deal, a Microsoft official said the company also had pledged to place links inside the Internet Explorer window and the "Start" navigation menu to make it easier for people to access that default desktop search service.

The changes will be introduced in a service pack, or updated version of Windows Vista software. Microsoft said it anticipates a test version of the Vista Service Pack 1 to be ready by the year-end.

Under the agreement, Microsoft also promised to provide additional technical information to third-party developers, such as Google (Charts, Fortune 500), in order to optimize the performance of their desktop search service on Vista.

"These remedies are a step in the right direction, but they should be improved further to give consumers greater access to alternate desktop search providers," David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, said in a statement.

The changes stem from a complaint Google filed with the Justice Department in December, in which it argued that a feature built into Vista that allows users to search a computer's hard drive did not leave room for competition from other desktop search applications.

Google said the feature violated the consent decree that monitors Microsoft's conduct as part of its settlement with the government.

"We are pleased that as a result of Google's request that the consent decree be enforced, the Department of Justice and state Attorneys General have required Microsoft to make changes to Vista," Drummond said.

The agreement is expected to be presented to the judge monitoring the consent decree, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, at a June 26 court hearing.

The Microsoft consent decree, which settled the government's landmark antitrust case against the company, is scheduled to expire in November. However, some provisions have been extended to November 2009.

Microsoft has called Google's complaint "baseless" and said it was in compliance with the antitrust settlement.

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