When Larry and I founded Google in 1998, many elements came together to make our work possible. Like other companies at the time, we benefited from the increasing power and low cost of computation and from the unprecedented shift of information to the Internet. We shared a profound belief in the power of technology to make life better for people everywhere and imagined what life could be like 10, 15, 20 years down the road. Nevertheless, now that we are here, I am amazed at the progress and opportunities. For example, I could not have imagined we would be making a computer that fits in a contact lens, with the potential to make life better for millions of people with diabetes.
当 Larry 和我在 1998 年创立谷歌时，许多因素汇聚在一起使我们的工作成为可能。像当时其他公司一样，我们受益于计算能力不断增强和成本降低，以及信息向互联网前所未有的转移。我们共同坚信科技能改善全球人们的生活，并设想过 10、15、20 年后生活会是什么样子。然而，现在我们已走到这一步，我对所取得的进展和机遇感到惊讶。例如，我从未想象过我们会制造出一台可以嵌入隐形眼镜中的计算机，具备改善数百万糖尿病患者生活的潜力。
Yet, this is something we are working on today. Our glucose-sensing contact lens is being developed in partnership with Novartis. A tiny chip, using power measured in nanowatts, is embedded into the lens in order to monitor glucose levels continuously. This technology, and others like it being developed today, was made possible through continued improvements in electronics and the ever-accelerating pace of technological progress. As computers get smaller, cheaper, and more powerful, their potential gets larger and the world is transformed.
然而，这正是我们今天正在努力实现的目标。我们的血糖监测隐形眼镜正与诺华合作开发。一个微小的芯片，其功耗以纳瓦计量，被嵌入隐形眼镜中以实现连续监测血糖水平。这项技术以及其他类似技术得益于电子技术的不断进步和技术进步速度的不断加快。随着计算机变得更小、更便宜、更强大，其潜力也不断增大，世界因此而改变。
Larry and I were lucky to participate in one such period of transformation nearly two decades ago: search engines made a leap from modest-sized ones that would search over limited, separate corpuses, to those we know today that attempt to search all the world’s knowledge. Just as advancements in miniaturization and power consumption have made the contact lens possible, it was similar progress in computing power and cost that allowed us to create comprehensive search, and make it accessible to anyone with an internet connection. It was the right time for search to become a universally available tool for bringing all the world’s information to your home, to your school, to your pocket.
Larry 和我有幸参与了近二十年前的那场变革：搜索引擎从只能在有限、分散的语料库中进行搜索的小型系统，跃升为如今试图搜索全世界知识的庞大系统。正如微型化和低功耗的进步使隐形眼镜成为可能，计算能力和成本的类似进步使我们能够创造出全面的搜索功能，并让任何拥有互联网连接的人都能使用。那正是搜索成为一项普及工具，将全球信息带到你的家中、学校乃至口袋中的最佳时机。
These advances also made it possible to provide enterprise class email, featuring vast storage and search capabilities, to anyone in the world - for free; that’s why we created Gmail. And, if you fast-forward to today, we recently harnessed continued improvements in storage cost and machine learning to create Google Photos, which lets everyone in the world safely keep, and search through, a lifetime of photos and videos.
这些进步还使得向全球任何人免费提供具备海量存储和搜索功能的企业级电子邮件成为可能——这就是我们创建 Gmail 的原因。而且，如果你快进到今天，我们最近利用存储成本的持续下降和机器学习的不断进步，推出了 Google Photos，让全球每个人都能安全地保存并搜索一生中的照片和视频。
The increasing power of computation extends well beyond the Internet. One example close to my heart is our self-driving car project. The goal is to make cars capable of driving themselves entirely without human intervention. We hope to make roadways far safer and transportation far more affordable and accessible to those who can’t drive.
计算能力的提升远远超出了互联网的范畴。我十分看重的一个例子是我们的自动驾驶汽车项目，其目标是使汽车能够在完全无需人类干预的情况下自主行驶。我们希望让道路更安全，并使交通对那些不会驾驶的人群更加经济实惠且易于获得。
To do this, we can now rely on immense processing power and advanced sensors that would not have been possible only a few years ago. And while it will still take time before we see self-driving cars everywhere on our streets, over a million auto fatalities per year worldwide make this a risk worth taking. As I write, our cars have just crossed 1 million miles of autonomous driving, and our fully self-driving vehicle prototype is about to begin testing in our hometown.
为此，我们现在可以依靠巨大的处理能力和先进的传感器，而这些在几年前还无法实现。虽然在我们的街道上普及自动驾驶汽车还需要时间，但全球每年超过一百万起的车祸死亡事件证明这一风险值得一试。就在我写这段话时，我们的汽车刚刚完成了超过一百万英里的自动驾驶，而我们的全自动驾驶汽车原型也即将在我们的家乡开始测试。
This project and others like it are very challenging, and the outcomes are far from certain. But, just like when we started nearly two decades ago, it is possible to create the technology that allows people to lead healthier, happier lives. And, along with our incredibly passionate employees, I am humbled and excited to try.
这一项目以及其他类似项目都充满挑战，结果远未确定。但正如近二十年前我们所做的一样，创造出让人们过上更健康、更快乐生活的技术是完全可能的。而我与那些充满激情的员工一起，感到既谦卑又兴奋，愿意一试。