IELTS Matching Information 16

Compared with the complex manufacturing process, laying the surface is quite simple. It emerges from the factory rolled, like a carpet, onto a drum 1.5 metres in diameter. On site, it is unrolled and stuck onto its foundation with bitumen. Even the white lines are applied in the factory.

• a generalisation about the patterns of use of vehicles on major roads

•  a description of the form in which Kuijpers' road surface is taken to its destination

• a summary of the different things affecting levels of noise on roads

The rougher the surface, the more likely it is that a tyre will vibrate and create noise. Road builders usually eliminate bumps on freshly laid asphalt with heavy rollers, but Kuijpers has developed a method of road building that he thinks can create the ultimate quiet road. His secret is a special mould 3 metres wide and 50 metres long. Hot asphalt, mixed with small stones, is spread into the mould by a railmounted machine which flattens the asphalt mix with a roller. When it sets, the 10-millimetre-thick sheet has a surface smoother than anything that can be achieved by conventional methods.

• various economic reasons for reducing road noise

• something that has to be considered when evaluating Kuijpers' proposal

• an explanation of how Kuijpers makes a smooth road surface

Kuijpers believes he can cut noise by five decibels compared to the quietest of today's roads. He has already tested a l00-metre-long section of his road on a motorway near Apeldoorn, and Dutch construction company Heijmans is discussing the location of the next roll-out road with the country's government. The success of Kuijpers' design will depend on how much it eventually costs. But for those affected by traffic noise there is hope of quieter times ahead.

• various economic reasons for reducing road noise

• a description of the form in which Kuijpers' road surface is taken to its destination

•  something that has to be considered when evaluating Kuijpers' proposal

According to the World Health Organization, exposure to noise from road traffic over long periods can lead to stress-related health problems. And where traffic noise exceeds a certain threshold, road builders have to spend money erecting sound barriers and installing double glazing in blighted homes. Houses become harder to sell where environmental noise is high, and people are not as efficient or productive at work.

• various economic reasons for reducing road noise

• an explanation of how Kuijpers makes a smooth road surface

• a description of the form in which Kuijpers' road surface is taken to its destination

Kuijpers can even control the sounds that his resonators absorb, simply by altering their dimensions. This could prove especially useful since different vehicles produce noise at different frequencies. Car tyres peak at around 1000 hertz, for example, but trucks generate lower-frequency noise at around 600 hertz. By varying the size of the Kuijpers resonators, it is possible to control which frequencies the concrete absorbs. On large highways, trucks tend to use the inside lane, so resonators here could be tuned to absorb sounds at around 600 hertz while those in other lanes could deal with higher frequency noise from cars.

• a generalisation about the patterns of use of vehicles on major roads

• something that has to be considered when evaluating Kuijpers' proposal

• various economic reasons for reducing road noise

Already, researchers in the Netherlands - one of the most densely populated countries in the world - are working to develop techniques for silencing the roads. In the next five years the Dutch government aims to have reduced noise levels from the country's road surfaces by six decibels overall. Dutch mechanical engineer Ard Kuijpers has come up with one of the most promising, and radical, ideas. He set out to tackle the three most important factors: surface texture, hardness and ability to absorb sound.

•  an explanation of how Kuijpers makes a smooth road surface

• various economic reasons for reducing road noise

• a summary of the different things affecting levels of noise on roads

New technologies always contain within them both threats and opportunities. They have the potential both to make the companies in the business a great deal richer, and to sweep them away. Old companies always fear new technology. Hollywood was hostile to television, television terrified by the VCR. Go back far enough, points out Hal Varian, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, and you find publishers complaining that 'circulating libraries' would cannibalise their sales. Yet whenever a new technology has come in, it has made more money for existing entertainment companies. The proliferation of the means of distribution results, gratifyingly, in the proliferation of dollars, pounds, pesetas and the rest to pay for it.

• the fact that some companies were the victims of strict government policy

• the contrasting effects that new technology can have on existing business

• the fact that the digital revolution could undermine the giant entertainment companies

Those 500 channels eventually arrived but via the Internet and the PC rather than through television. The digital revolution was starting to affect the entertainment business in unexpected ways. Eventually it will change every aspect of it, from the way cartoons are made to the way films are screened to the way people buy music. That much is clear. What nobody is sure of is how it will affect the economics of the business.

• the fact that a total transformation is going to take place in the future in the delivery of all forms of entertainment

• the fact that some companies have learnt from the mistakes of others

• the fact that the digital revolution could undermine the giant entertainment companies

Since moving pictures were invented a century ago, a new way of distributing entertainment to consumers has emerged about once every generation. Each such innovation has changed the industry irreversibly; each has been accompanied by a period of fear mixed with exhilaration. The arrival of digital technology, which translates music, pictures and text into the zeros and ones of computer language, marks one of those periods.

• the fact that some companies were the victims of strict government policy

• the confused feelings that people are known to have experienced in response to technological innovation

• the fact that the digital revolution could undermine the giant entertainment companies

Part of the reason why incumbents got pushed aside was that they did not see what was coming. But they also faced a tighter regulatory environment than the present one. In America, laws preventing television broadcasters from owning programme companies were repealed earlier this decade, allowing the creation of vertically integrated businesses. Greater freedom, combined with a sense of history, prompted the smarter companies in the entertainment business to re-invent themselves. They saw what happened to those of their predecessors who were stuck with one form of distribution.

So, these days, the powers in the entertainment business are no longer movie studios, or television broadcasters, or publishers; all those businesses have become part of bigger businesses still, companies that can both create content and distribute it in a range of different ways.

•  the high cost to the consumer of new ways of distributing entertainment

•  uncertainty regarding the financial impact of wider media access

•  the fact that some companies have learnt from the mistakes of others