圣誕樹彩燈的啟示

On Sunday my family and I will unwrap our Christmas presents under a glossy Nordmann fir tree that was brought to the door of our London home last week. It is festooned with decorations and a string of lights.

周日，我和家人將在一棵閃閃發(fā)亮的諾德曼(Nordmann)冷杉下打開我們的圣誕禮物。這棵樹上周被送到我們的倫敦居所門口。樹上掛著許多裝飾品和一串彩燈。

There is nothing unusual in that: the same or similar no doubt goes for many readers. But our Christmas tree and its decorations are symbols of more than the festive season. They also epitomise the way in which technological innovation occurs steadily and stealthily as companies compete globally.

這沒有什么不尋常的：許多讀者無疑也有相同或類似的圣誕樹。但是，我們的圣誕樹和上面的裝飾品不僅僅是節(jié)日的象征，還體現(xiàn)了技術(shù)創(chuàng)新是如何隨著公司的全球競爭而穩(wěn)步和悄悄地發(fā)生的。

This thought occurred to me the other day as I was admiring our tree and realised that its appearance would have been impossible not long ago. It is covered with light-emitting diodes instead of incandescent bulbs and they glow in a warm white that is cosier than the harsh blue-white of older LEDs.

我在幾天前產(chǎn)生這個想法。當時我在欣賞那棵圣誕樹時意識到，即使在不那么久之前，它的外觀也不可能是這個樣子的。這顆樹上覆蓋著發(fā)光二極管、而不是白熾燈泡，而且它們發(fā)出溫暖的白色光芒，比老式LED刺眼的藍白光舒適多了。

The lights are better in other ways, too. They were cheaper — £23 for a 30m string of 300 lights — and more reliable than the Christmas tree lights of my youth, which were wired in series so a whole line would go dark if a bulb burst or loosened. They are also energy efficient: LED bulbs do not get hot and can be safely touched.

從其他方面看，這些燈也更好。它們更便宜——30米長、300個燈構(gòu)成的燈串僅售23英鎊——而且比我年輕時的圣誕樹彩燈更可靠。那時的燈是串聯(lián)的，如果一個燈泡燒壞或者接觸不好，一整串燈都會變黑。它們也很節(jié)能：LED燈泡不會變燙，可以安全地觸摸。

It encouraged me to find out more about our Christmas lights, and this is what I discovered.

這鼓勵我了解關(guān)于我們的圣誕樹彩燈的更多情況，以下是我的發(fā)現(xiàn)。

We bought them on Amazon, influenced by the price and the number of stars in the customer reviews. They came from a small UK company called Ansio, a Finnish word for “merit” or “worth”, which its founders chose because it sounded good, started with A, and was not taken.

我們從亞馬遜(Amazon)購買了圣誕樹彩燈，影響我購買的因素是價格和客戶評論中的星級。它們來自一家名叫“Ansio”的英國小公司，Ansio是芬蘭語，意思是“優(yōu)點”或“價值”。公司創(chuàng)始人選擇這個詞，是因為它聽起來不錯，以A開頭，而且沒被用過。

Ansio was founded in London in 2014 by three Indian-born immigrant entrepreneurs — two from Chennai and one from Hyderabad — to import and sell household products direct to consumers. They started with electric fans and have diversified into lighting, particularly decorative LEDs.

2014年，三名印度出生的移民企業(yè)家——其中兩人來自金奈(Chennai)，一人來自海得拉巴(Hyderabad)——在倫敦創(chuàng)立了Ansio，進口并直接向消費??者出售家居產(chǎn)品。他們從電風扇做起，然后拓展進入燈具領(lǐng)域，特別是裝飾用LED。

The partners chose the manufacturers for their lights by visiting the Canton fair, the largest trade fair in China, which is held twice a year in Guangzhou. It is a vast emporium for foreign buyers seeking to strike deals with Chinese suppliers in many industries.

這幾個合伙人通過訪問中國最大的貿(mào)易展覽會——廣交會(Canton fair)選定制造商。廣交會每年在廣州舉辦兩次。它是外國買家與許多行業(yè)的中國供應(yīng)商談生意的盛會。

Having selected three (since reduced to two) LED manufacturers in Ningbo, an industrial city near Shanghai, they visited the factories to ensure the quality of the products. There was plenty of choice: Ningbo is full of LED makers and China competes with Japanese and South Korean companies so fiercely that prices have fallen.

在上海附近的工業(yè)城市寧波選定三家(后來減為兩家)LED制造商之后，他們訪問了工廠，以確保產(chǎn)品的質(zhì)量。他們有很多選擇：寧波有大量的LED制造商，同時隨著中國企業(yè)與日韓同行激烈競爭，價格已經(jīng)下降。

Our Christmas tree lights were shipped from Ningbo across the world and through customs to a British warehouse, then delivered to us by an Amazon courier. Many of Ansio’s customer service and back-office tasks are carried out over the internet by remote workers in India. Although tiny, the company has a global supply chain.

我們的圣誕樹彩燈從寧波發(fā)運，長途運輸后通關(guān)進入一家英國倉庫，然后由一名亞馬遜送貨員送到我們家。Ansio的許多客戶服務(wù)和后臺任務(wù)是由印度境內(nèi)的工作人員通過互聯(lián)網(wǎng)遠程完成的。該公司雖然很小，卻擁有一條全球供應(yīng)鏈。

Globalisation is only half the story of the lights; the other is technology. US Christmas trees followed the German tradition of being lit with candles until Edward Johnson, a vice-president of the Edison Electric Light Company, fixed electric lights to the tree in his New York house in 1882 to show off the invention to passers-by. By 1903, its successor General Electric was selling “festoons” of 24 tree lamps for $12.

全球化只是圣誕樹彩燈故事的一部分，另一部分是技術(shù)。美國圣誕樹之前沿襲德國傳統(tǒng)，用蠟燭裝飾，直至1882年愛迪生電燈公司(Edison Electric Light Company)副總裁愛德華•約翰遜(Edward Johnson)在其紐約家中用電燈裝飾圣誕樹，向路人炫耀這項發(fā)明。后來愛迪生電燈公司和另一家公司合并為通用電氣(General Electric)。到1903年，通用電氣以12美元的價格銷售包含24個樹燈的“彩飾”。

The visible LED was invented by Nick Holonyak, a GE research scientist, in 1962 but it glowed red and early LEDs were confined to devices such as clocks and calculators. It became possible to light offices and homes with them a decade ago when companies such as Philips started making blue LEDs treated with phosphor to glow white.

發(fā)光LED由通用電氣研究科學家尼克•霍洛尼亞克(Nick Holonyak)在1962年發(fā)明，但它只能發(fā)出紅光，因此早期的LED只用于時鐘和計算器等設(shè)備。10年前，飛利浦(Philips)等公司開始制造藍光LED，然后加上熒光粉使其發(fā)出白光，從而能夠為辦公室和家里提供照明。

The technology has improved rapidly. Today’s diodes emit four times as much light in lumens per watt of power as they did eight years ago and the cost per lumen has fallen one hundred fold, according to Philips. As technology has advanced, economies of scale have grown. China’s push into LEDs has caused a leap in global capacity: there is a reason my lights were cheap.

LED技術(shù)已迅速改善。菲利普表示，如今的二極管發(fā)出的每瓦流明是8年前的4倍，同時每流明成本下降了100倍。隨著技術(shù)的發(fā)展，規(guī)模經(jīng)濟顯現(xiàn)。中國大力發(fā)展LED導(dǎo)致全球產(chǎn)能飆升：我們家的圣誕樹彩燈如此便宜是有原因的。

New technology tends to be expensive but prices often fall to a fraction of their original level once second, third, fourth and later generations appear and it gradually becomes a commodity. To buy 300 of the tree lamps sold by GE in 1903 would have cost $3,320 at today’s prices; a display such as ours would have been a great luxury.

新技術(shù)往往非常昂貴，但一旦第二代、第三代、第四代乃至更新的產(chǎn)品出現(xiàn)，它就逐漸成為一種大宗商品，價格往往下降至最初價格的一個零頭。如果在1903年購買300個通用電氣銷售的那種樹燈，按當今價格計算將需要3320美元;像我們這樣裝飾就太奢侈了。

The quality of LED lights has also improved. Not only are our lights safer than crudely wired incandescents but modern LEDs are capable of glowing in a range of colours and of changing during the day. As I press a button on the plug, made in Changzhou in the eastern province of Jiangsu, our lights display seven patterns, in turn flashing, glowing and twinkling. We chose white but could have picked other shades.

LED燈的質(zhì)量也有所改善。我們的燈不僅比接線簡陋的白熾燈更安全，而且現(xiàn)代LED燈能夠發(fā)出多種色光，還能在一天中不斷變換。當我按下插座上的按鈕時——插座是中國江蘇省常州市生產(chǎn)的——我們的燈顯示出7種模式，依次閃爍、發(fā)光、忽明忽暗。我們選擇了白色，但本來也可選擇其他色調(diào)。

If there is a parable in our Christmas lights — sold by a British-Indian company through a US e-commerce platform, made in China and given a Finnish name — it is this. Globalisation and technological innovation have grown unpopular this year, blamed for the loss of some jobs and fracturing of communities in developed economies, but they also bring material benefits.

如果說我們的圣誕樹彩燈有什么寓意的話——中國制造，芬蘭名稱，由英印合資公司通過美國電子商務(wù)平臺銷售——那就是這個。全球化和技術(shù)創(chuàng)新在今年不再受歡迎，它們被指導(dǎo)致發(fā)達經(jīng)濟體喪失一些就業(yè)機會和社會分裂，但它們也帶來了實實在在的益處。

Many things we buy easily are not only cheaper but much better than they used to be. If we allow it, they will carry on improving. Merry Christmas.

我們很容易就能買到的許多東西不僅更便宜，而且比過去好得多。如果我們允許的話，它們將繼續(xù)改善。圣誕快樂!