Do you want a pet but don't have much time to look after it? Then, Aibo might be a good choice for you. Aibo is a robot dog made by the company Sony.
It is like a real dog in many ways. It can understand different words*, such as "sit", "stay", and "come". It can also stand up, shake your hand and play a ball. Aibo can move its ears, open its mouth and even close and open its eyes. There are sensors* on Aibo's head and body. When you play with it, it will enjoy your touch like a real pet.
Being able to "learn" makes Aibo more popular with people. The robot can remember what it sees, hears and does every day. This helps it build a database* to "grow". For example, it can learn what actions* make you happy and will try them the next time. It also has two cameras to help it find family members and "map" your home. After you keep it for a long time, Aibo can even have its personality*.
You can also get an app "My Aibo" on your phone and use it to check pictures Aibo takes with its cameras or get more tricks for your Aibo dog in its Aibo Store. You'll always have new things to try. Make riends with Aibo and you can enjoy your life with the cute and lovely robot dog.
Japan has many robots now and you can see lots of them in the country. You can find worker robots, robots that clean your home, and even robots you can play with.
My friend Tasuku has got a restaurant in a big city. It is near a supermarket. He gets nine robots for the restaurant. Each robot costs (价值) 34,000 yen. The restaurant is not big, but very popular. Now more and more people come here for dinner.
The robots have different jobs in the restaurant. Three robots cook different kinds of food; one washes the dishes (盘子); one cleans the floor and the others give food to the customers.
Although robots do most of the jobs in the restaurant, Tasuku is still very busy. He must do many things to keep the robots working well. Luckily, Tasuku is good at studying robots and he knows robots very well. I think in the future, there will be a lot of robot-themed restaurants (机器人主题餐厅) around the world.
My daughter Maria is a girl of nine years old. She is in Grade Four.
Every evening we get into homework battles. Three afternoons a week, she has activities (net-ball, singing) after school and by the time we get home, homework is the last thing she feels like doing. The other two days, she gets home early and we argue (争论) about whether she should do her homework right away after school, or if she should have some time to rest and play first.
When Maria at last sits down to do her homework, she seems to want me there to help all the time. I do want to help her, but I'm sure that she is going to need to be able to do it by herself. And in fact, most of the time, I have to do other things.
It seems that children these days have much more homework than we did, and some of it is really beyond (超越) their abilities (能力). As you can see, I'm really worried about homework and I really don't know what I should do. Any ideas?
Daisy is a teacher who works in a primary school. She often plays games with her students so they like her class a lot.
One day, Daisy decided to have her class play a potato game. She told each student to carry a bag with a few potatoes in it to school. Each student would "name" their potatoes after people they did not like, so the number of potatoes would be different depending on*their own situations.
The next day, all of the students brought their potatoes to school. Some children had just one or two potatoes, while others had as many as five or six. The children were taking about names of their potatoes happily when Daisy came into the classroom. She then told the children that they would have to carry their potatoes with them for one week wherever they went, even when they went to the restroom. The children laughed and thought the game was really interesting.
A few days passed by. Some of the students started to complain, as their potatoes began to rot and had a strong and bad smell. The students who carried more potatoes also complained about how heavy their bags were.
One week later, the kids were so happy to hear their teacher say that the game was over. Daisy asked, "How did you feel about carrying around your potatoes for a week?"
The students complained once again. Daisy simply smiled and said, "This is what it's like to carry hate* in your heart. You have to carry it with you wherever you go. If you can't bear* carrying rotten potatoes for one week, can you imagine having hate in your heart for your lifetime?"
Annie Sullivan had a hard life. She grew up alone and very poor. Annie had trouble with her eyes, too. She could not see well.
One day after Annie grew up, a family called her. They needed help with their daughter. Their little daughter's name was Helen Keller. Helen needed a teacher.
Helen could not see. She could not hear, either. She felt scared and lonely(孤独的). Annie wanted to help Helen. She wanted to be able to talk to her.
Annie tried to teach Helen a sign language, a way to make words with hands. But Helen did not know what Annie tried to teach her.
One day near the outside water pump, Annie had an idea. She put one of Helen's hands in the water. Then Annie let Helen feel W-A-T-E-R on her other hand again and again and again.
At last, Helen knew. She learned that what she was feeling had a name. Helen was on her way to a lifetime of learning.
Jean is a bright young girl from a rich and famous family. She goes to a good university and has almost everything that money can buy. But all her family are so busy that they can hardly find time to be with her. In fact, Jean feels quite Lonely. So Jean spends a lot of her time on Facebook. She likes to be anonymous, using the name Linda on Facebook. She doesn't want people to know anything about her famous family and her rich life.
Last year Jean made a very special friend on Facebook. His name was David and he lived in San Francisco. David was full of stories and jokes. He and Jean had the same interests in rock music and modern dance. So it always took them many hours to talk happily about the latest rock music and their favorite singers and sometimes they even forgot the time. Of course, they wanted to know more about each other. David sent a picture of himself: He was a tall, good-looking young man with a big, happy smile. As time went by, they became good friends and often sent cards and small things to each other.
When Jean's father told her that he was going on a business trip to San Francisco, she asked him to let her go with him, so that she could give David a surprise for his birthday. She would take him the latest CD of their favorite rock singer. But when Jean knocked on David's door in San Francisco she found that the special friend she had chatted with on Facebook for so long was a twelve-year-old boy named Jim.
Can dolphins (海豚) talk? Maybe they can not talk with words, but they can talk with sounds. They show their feelings with sounds. Dolphins travel in a group. We call a group of fish a "school". They do not study, but they travel together. Dolphins are mammals (哺乳动物), not fish, but they swim together like fish in a school. Dolphins talk to the other dolphins in the school. They give information to the others. They talk when they are happy, sad or afraid. They say "welcome" when a dolphin comes back to the school. They talk when they play.
They make some sounds above water. They make many more sounds under water. People cannot hear these sounds because they are very, very high. Scientists make tapes of the sounds and study them. Sometimes people catch dolphins for a large aquarium (水族宫). People can watch dolphins in a show. Dolphins do not like to be away from their school in an aquarium. They are sad and lonely. There are many stories about dolphins. They help people. Sometimes they save somebody's life. Dolphins' meat is good, but people do not like to kill them. They say that dolphins bring good luck. Many people believe this.
Today there are robots working in factories. Some can help to build cars, and they do easy jobs over and over again. Few people will do such jobs in the future because they are boring, but robots will never get bored.
Scientists are now trying to make robots look like people. Some robots in Japan can walk and dance. However, some scientists believe that it will be difficult to make them really think like people. For example, scientist James White thinks that robots will never be able to wake up and know where they are. But many scientists don't think so. They think that robots will even be able to talk in 25 to 50 years.
Some scientists believe that there will be more robots in the future. These new robots will look very different. Some will look like people, and others might look like animals. In India, for example, scientists made robots that look like snakes. When buildings fall down with people inside, these snake robots can help look for people under the buildings. This was not possible 20 years ago, but computers and rockets also seemed impossible 100 years ago. We never know what will happen in the future!
On a sunny Sunday, ten fully well-dressed people were standing at the airport (机场) waiting for the parachute (降落伞) training. Suddenly, with the help of a guide dog, a blind (瞎的) man was coming with a parachute on his back.
"Do you also come for the parachute training (训练)?" someone asked.
"Yes!" the blind man answered in a loud voice.
"Ah-" the people cried in surprise.
"I know. Are you wondering how a blind man can parachute?" the blind man said happily, "It's not difficult. I'll parachute like you."
"But how do you know when to jump?" someone asked.
"Although I'm blind, I can hear! When the bell for the training rings, I'll carry my dog to follow you." the blind man replied.
"Then how do you know when to open the parachute?" someone asked again.
"The coach (教练) says, counting to five from the time I jump down, I can open it." replied the blind man.
"But when you are about to fall to the ground (落地), how do you know when to fall to the ground? It is the most dangerous minute."
"It's easy. When my dog is afraid into crying and the rope (绳) in my hands becomes light, I'll be ready for falling to the ground." They looked at each other, with no words.
At the end of the training, the coach told everybody," In this training, Robert gets the highest score (得分) for his best action."
"Who is Robert?" they asked.
"He," the coach replied, pointing at the blind young man.
Mr. and Mrs. Wilson begin their vacation today with their children. And they have to be at the airport (机场) at 11:40 a. m, Yesterday Mr. Wilson said, "It'll take us half an hour to get there in the taxi, so we all have to be ready (准备好的) by eleven o'clock. Nobody should be late.
Now it's ten minutes to eleven. But they are still all running around doing things, except Mrs. Wilson, who is enjoying the sun in the garden.
Her husband and children are very surprised (惊讶的) that she isn't in a hurry. Then the taxi arrives and Mrs. Wilson says to them, "Well, I knew that this was going to happen, so before I went to bed last night I moved all our clocks and watches ahead (提前) twenty minutes. So now we can go to the airport without worrying about (担心) being late."
