【推荐2】You don't need to get in a time-traveling machine to see how technology will reshape our lives, such as the way we shop．Several new technologies that are to change your buying habits already exist．Let's see what's waiting for your future shopping．

Try it on, virtually（虚拟的）. Want to shop online for a new pair of eyeglasses? You don't need to guess which pair looks best on you. Go and see the eBay Fashion iPhone app to try a pair of eyewear you're checking out on a picture of your face．But what if you want to buy something bigger? Thanks to Microsoft Kinect's motion tracking camera, you can cover clothes on your screen body. You can even choose the background of your virtual fitting room to enrich your shopping experience．

Get a perfect, custom fit．Everyone's body is shaped differently. To get a perfect fit, you sometimes have to get your clothes changed．But by using 3D scanning(扫描) technology, all the clothes you buy will fit your body perfectly．Some companies scan your body using High-tech to get the most exact sizes, so they can make special clothes just for you．

Experience high-tech shopping carts and checkout counters．High-tech shopping carts could, in time, be a common sight in malls and supermarkets．Microsoft Kinect-enabled carts are under test at present．The cart can follow you along the aisles (通道）, controlled only by your movement and your voice．In China, a supermarket chain(连锁超市) introduced tablet-equipped carts that guide shoppers around the stores' aisles．

In the United States, several supermarkets use a device(装置) called Scan It that gives buyers the freedom to scan goods on their own while they shop．While it's great not having to line up at a checkout counter, we wouldn't mind it if the store used Toshiba's new Object Recognition Scanner．The machine identifies(辨认) a product as soon as it's placed in front of a camera just by its shape and color, even if it has no bar code(条形码)．

【推荐3】Imagine that you are in a remote village somewhere with no medical clinic.     1    Once the doctors get to you, they examine you and take blood samples, but they won't be able to help you until they take the samples back to the hospital to find out what is wrong.    2     Thanks to engineer Andy Ozcan, many people may never be in this situation. He has invented an app that turns your mobile phone into a diagnostic(诊断的)tool.

Ozcan's invention is important because it is very accurate and easy to use. In many remote places, even if doctors have microscopes and other instruments to help them make diagnoses, there may still be other problems. Many doctors, for example, don’t have enough training to correctly interpret what they see.    3    With Ozcan's mobile phone app, health workers can take a special photo of a blood sample and send it to a central computer at a hospital. The computer will then automatically interpret the photo and send a diagnosis back in a few minutes.

    4    His technology only requires a mobile phone and an Internet connection. As more than four billion people already have cell phones, the cost of establishing the diagnostic system is fairly low.

By inventing a medical tool that uses existing technology---mobile phones---Ozcan has developed a medical tool that is both practical and economical. Therefore, it can be effectively almost anywhere.    5    

Freedom of the press is one of the most valued rights protected under the United States Constitution. American colleges and universities have a long history of producing journalists for the country’s news media.     1     .

These student reporters write about many subjects, from school sports to local events. But a new report suggests that some newspapers publishing stories critical of their colleges are under attack .

Who or what is threatening these publications? The report claims school administrator are to blame. The report is called “Threats to the Independence of Student Media.” Released in December, their report lists actions that college and university administrators have taken because of critical stories in student newspapers.     2     .

The paper’s student editors then took a university administrator to court. They claimed the vote was retaliation (报复) for a 2014 story critical of the student government election process. Finally, the student government agreed to give the newspaper its full funding.

The report also lists actions taken against advisors to student-operated newspapers. In the US, almost every student newspaper has an individual with journalism experience guiding the reporters. Cheryl Reed was one example.

Northern Michigan University (NMU) asked Reed to serve as its student media advisor for the school’s newspaper The North Wind.

    3    . In fall 2014, school officials decided to close a popular, independent coffee shop on campus. The school then replaced it with a Starbucks owned by a former NMU student. The newspaper began to investigate the issue and requested copies of emails between administrators discussing the activities of The North Wind. As NMU is a public university, these emails were public record. However, the school tried to charge the newspaper for the use of the information.

At this point, the publication board that governs the newspaper became involved . The boards members voted against paying for the emails.     4     The attention that followed led to the school releasing the documents free of charge. But the problems did not end there. The newspaper published several stories critical of NMU. Then, in April 2015, the newspaper board voted to remove Reed as the advisor.

Chris Evans is with the College Media Association. He says universities need journalists to criticize them. But, he notes, schools must let students learn the correct skills to become the best possible journalists.

【推荐2】The way people purchase clothes has fundamentally changed in response to the “fast fashion", the result of mass -market retailers (零售商) increasing the production of inexpensive fashion lines to meet the demands of quickly changing trends. It is not uncommon for retailers to introduce new products multiple times in a single week to stay on trend. This may seem like a good thing at first glance, but it is causing more problems than it is solving.

Workers in factories in underdeveloped areas face mistreatment, including poor working conditions, low wages and forced overtime. So before making a deal, ask retailers questions such as where products are made and how many people work there. Watch for warming signs and use your judgment if something doesn't feel right.

Another reason to rethink about the trend has something to do with the impact on our rivers, lakes and oceans. Chemical pollutants are released into waterways every time those clothes are washed. What can be done is as simple as buying from brands known for their preference for using organic materials, because they are trying not to add to the pollution.

Besides, people don't keep clothes as long as they used to, and the rate of production to keep up has resulted in tons of waste. It's easy to see at manufacturing (生产) sites the massive wastes. Even holding giant sales or rewarding customers for bringing in second-hand clothes is not enough.

Only with enough customers saying “No” to fast fashion can we work toward a better future.

The Podcast (播客) Boom

Do you prefer to watch TV or listen to the radio? There was a time when some people thought moving pictures would spell the end of tuning in to the radio for entertainment and information. But radio survived and boomed.     1    

Perhaps the growth in podcasting is not surprising-it offers a digital audio file that can be downloaded and stored for listening at any time. It can also be streamed from the internet and played on a computer or MP3 player. And it’s not just broadcasters, like the BBC, who are producing podcasts: now commercial broadcasters, individuals and companies with no connection to broadcasting are making them. In fact, anyone with something to say, and a few pounds to spend on the equipment, can get involved.

The digital audio files are cheap to produce and, thanks to the internet, easy to distribute.     2     Journalist Ben Hammersley told the BBC that “two changes transformed the market-one cultural and one technical.” A technical breakthrough came in 2012 when Apple produced the iPhone podcast app, which proved a popular library system for listeners. This was followed by a dramatic improvement in inexpensive recording production and editing equipment. Finally, the development of 4G mobile phone connections and widespread wi-fi meant listeners could browse, download or stream shows whenever they wanted.

    3     It was a piece of investigative journalism hosted by Sarah Koenig, telling a non-fiction story over multiple episodes (集). To date, the first and second seasons of the show have had more than 340 million downloads. Advertisers soon realized the money-making potential of this and other successful podcasts. And where the audience goes, the money follows. From 2017 to 2018 advertising spending on podcasts in the UK went from $10.6m(£8.5m) to $19.7m, an 85% increase, according to Ovum.

    4     In fact, as Ben Hammersley explains, podcasting has brought people into broadcasting who would normally never have seen the inside of a recording studio. “There are of course professional podcasters, but there are many more people who create quality content and do it for nothing,” he says. “And that is changing not just the way we listen to audio but the way the broadcasting industry works.”

【推荐1】The year 2019 saw the end of the hit sitcom The Big Bang Theory. Now, another popular comedy, Modern Family, follows in their footsteps. After 11 seasons the final episode aired on April 8, bringing an end to a sitcom “widely recognized as one of the funniest and most decorated sitcoms of this century”, according to EOnline.

Hitting our screens in 2009, the show claimed 22 Emmys in total, an American award that recognizes excellence in television. At its peak the show attracted over 9 million viewers for its relatable family dynamic, loveable characters and mockumentary (伪纪录片) style. In this format, characters can convey their own thoughts and feelings directly to the audience via a short sit-down interview.

Over the course of the series, fans have witnessed the Pritchett-Dunphy-Tucker clan (家族), an extended Los Angeles family, overcome the trials and tribulations of any modern family, including death, adoption and mental health.

The big family’s highs and lows have made it so relatable that we see them as part of our own family and care about their stories. From fights between siblings (兄弟姐妹) to parental disagreement about children’s education, the show, despite being a comedy, deals with serious modern issues that are familiar to the audience.

Despite its success, showrunners  admitted that the sitcom had been running on fumes (后劲不足的) during the last few seasons. The final episode went as expected, with the growing branches of each family going their separate ways following one giant on-screen embrace involving every cast member.

As the camera cut to each departing family member, Jay Pritchett, the patriarch (大家长) of the family, expressed an important theme of the show. “Life is full of change. I learned a long time ago you can fight it, or you can try to make the best of it. And that’s a whole lot easier if you’ve got people helping you face whatever life throws at you,” he said emotionally.

Just as the final episode concluded, fans were treated to one last heartfelt moment. As each family switched off their porch (门廊) light, Claire asks Phil (a couple in the show) what they’ll do now that their kids have grown up and moved on. Phil said, “Leave the porch light on – they come back,” a subtle (巧妙的) hint that the show might someday return.

【推荐2】Researchers at the University of Cambridge carried out a year-long study with Design and Technology (D&T) year 9 pupils at two London schools. Pupils at one school spent the year following school lessons while the other group’s D&T lessons used a set of engineering design thinking tools. Creativity of both groups of pupils was assessed at the start and end of the school year using an authoritative mental test.

Results showed a significant increase in creativity among pupils at the intervention (干预) school where thinking tools were used. At the start of the year, the creativity scores of pupils at the control school were 11% higher than those at the intervention school, according to data, from the mental test. By the end, however, creativity scores of pupils in the intervention group were 78% higher than those in the control group.

The research is part of a program called Designing Our Tomorrow and challenges pupils to find ways of dealing with real-world problems by thinking about the thoughts and feelings of others. The particular challenge used in the study required pupils at the intervention school to design an asthma-treatment (哮喘治疗) pack for children. Pupils were given various “tools”. They were shown data on the number of asthma-related deaths of children in the UK, and a video about a child having an attack. They also explored the problem and tested their design ideas by role-playing—for example—patients, family members, and medical staff.

Nicholl, Senior Lecturer in Design and Technology Education, said, “When I taught D&T, I didn’t see children as potential engineers. who would one day contribute to the economy—they were just people who needed to be ready to go into the world at 18. Although teaching empathy (同理心) has been part of the D&T National Curriculum for over two decades, this study suggests it is still a missing link in the creative process, and vital if we want education to encourage designers and engineers of tomorrow.”

【推荐1】

The idea of using radio or wireless to broadcast to audiences was formed in 1916 by a president of the American Marconi Company, David Sarnoff. His superiors were doubtful about his idea to “make radio a household cause, so that by purchase of a ‘radio music box’, the audience could enjoy lectures, music performance, etc.”

Four years later the American engineer Frank Conrad, an employee at W E Corp, attracted considerable attention when a local newspaper reported on the growing audience listening on crystal radio sets to his evening and weekend amateur broadcasts. A local music store had provided records to play on the Victoria, and Conrad and his family served as disc jockeys(唱片音乐播音员). Westinghouse vice president Harry Davis asked Conrad to build a more powerful transmitter(发射台)in time to announce the outcome of the next US presidential election. Conrad completed his assignment, and on November 2, 1920, station KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, broadcast the announcement that Warren G. Harding had been elected president. About 1000 people heard this first news broadcast.

Radio communicated news much faster than did newspapers, and because crystal sets were easy to build and inexpensive, radio expanded rapidly in the following years. To stimulate the sale of radio sets, equipment manufactures provided transmitting facilities. Singers, comedians, and entire orchestras volunteered their services for publicity. The eventual financial basis of the new industry, however, was still unclear. One group in New York City tried to seek contributions from listeners while others urged that private foundations support radio stations as a public service. In August 1922 the first commercial radio advertisement was broadcast on WEAF (now WNBC) in New York City. In 1926, when about 5 million homes had radios, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), in cooperation with the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, established the first commercial radio network. In the 1920s radio was established as a new mass medium had a practicable industry, and it became a national forum(论坛)for news and popular culture.

【推荐2】On some Swedish trains, passengers carry their e-tickets in their hands—literally. About 3,000 Swedes have chosen to insert grain-of-rice-sized microchips beneath the skin between their thumbs and index fingers. The chips, which cost around $150, can hold personal details, credit-card numbers and medical records. They rely on Radio Frequency ID (RFID), a technology already used in payment cards, tickets and passports.

By one estimate there are 10,000 cyborgs with chip implants around the world. Sweden, home to several microchip companies, has the largest share. Fifty employees of Three Square Market, a Wisconsin-based firm, volunteered to receive chip implants that can be used to pay at vending machines and log in to computers.

Jowan Österlund, the founder of BioHax, a Swedish firm, claims chips are more secure than mobile phones because they are hard to hack. But skeptics still have concerns. RFID chips do not have GPS, but they leave a digital trail when they interact with doors, printers or turnstiles. In 2004 the Mexican attorney-general and his staff had chips inserted in their arms that tracked who had accessed sensitive information.

So why take the risk? Convenience is one draw. The infrastructure for microchip use exists wherever contactless IDs or payments are accepted. Sweden is well suited, as the world’s second most cashless country (after Canada). But the chips have little use unless companies play along. Few shops recognise chip implants yet. Even those organisations that do have had teething troubles. When Swedish rail officials began scanning passengers’ microchips, they saw LinkedIn profiles rather than evidence of ticket purchases. For now the chips are used largely as digital business cards, substitutes for keys or to store emergency documents such as wills.

So exhibitionism is another explanation. Chip enthusiasts include followers of a “trans-humanist” ideology that seeks to make full use of human bodies with technology. Elon Musk, an American entrepreneur, has invested in tech that merges machines with human brains. Some Christians, meanwhile, fear that microchips are “marks of the beast” foretold in the Bible. Hardly, says Mr Österlund. After all, “people once thought the Beatles were the Antichrist.”

【推荐3】Alibaba co-founder and chairman Jack Ma on Monday announced in an open letter that he would step down, with the company CEO Daniel Zhang taking over as the chairman of the board. Zhang, is known as a key architect of Alibaba’s “Singles Day”, the Nov. 11 event that has become the world’s largest online shopping event. In the letter entitled “Happy Teachers’ Day,” Ma said he would retire as the chairman of the board on Sept. 10, 2019. Ma said he would work closely with Zhang to ensure a smooth transition and stay on the Alibaba board of directors until the annual shareholders meeting in two years. After he steps down, he will continue to be part of the “Alibaba Partnership”, which has the ability to nominate the majority of directors on the company’s board. He also wants to return to education and charity, which gives him excitement and blessings.

“There’s only Bill Gates who has done the same. No other tech founder in the world has just resigned like that at the top,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, which publishes an annual influential list of China’s richest people. Hoogewerf added that in China, Ma was a figure like no other, with friends ranging from movie stars to billionaires, though he often outshone them all. “He’s the big one, he’s the one that brings them together.”

The company was founded at a time when the industry was still dominated by state-owned firms and entrepreneurship was seen as a risky career path. Alibaba, previously recognized as an on-line shopping company, also has investments in sports content, microchips and facial recognition technology and has been positioning itself as a serious player in cloud computing. Mr. Ma said in the letter, “The one thing I can promise everyone is this: Alibaba was never about Jack Ma, but Jack Ma will forever belong to Alibaba.”