【推荐1】Amazon recently announced its latest launch, a robot called Astro. Small in size, but with impressive technology, Astro is seemingly similar to Amazon’s popular virtual assistant. With all the same capabilities as Alexa, many critics are asking why there’s a need for Astro.

Answering this question, Amazon’s Vice-President of Products, Charlie Tritschler, highlights some unique features of Astro that make it a different kind of robot. Astro can move on its own and follow people, offering consumers a far broader range of options. Besides, it can monitor home security. Astro uses Artificial Intelligence to learn more about household members by interacting with users. Users can also register themselves and others into its recognition system. When they leave home, they can make an away mode, which means “Sentry (哨兵) Mode”, or “Patrol Mode” start working. If someone who is not recognized enters the house, Astro will follow and record them. Astro’s mobility seems to be the key feature in its technological enhancement, but what appeals to people most is its “unique persona”. Its big, circular, blinking “eyes” displayed on its screen-like head making it look rather cute are a big reason for this.

Years of research show that humans often experience positive emotional connections with robots. According to MIT’s technology review of Astro, it may not fall far from this observation. People have come to love robotic pets, though they are fully aware that the pets are lifeless. Robots at home can play a useful role in helping elderly patients fight loneliness or young children face social anxiety.

Amazon is offering people interested in Astro the chance to sign up for Day 1 Editions, a program giving invitations to Astro as soon as it goes on the market later this year. Tritschler is encouraging people to personalize the robot when it becomes available, and he is confident that users will come up with more ideas and features they will want to see in the robot in the near future to make it even better.

【推荐2】The Printing Press

What do you think is the most important invention in the last 1,000 years? It is the lightbulb or the Internet? Many people say that it is the printing press, a machine that allows us to print copies or books and documents. But why is the printing press so important?

Before the printing press, books were copied by hand. Ancient Roman book publisher sometimes sold as many as 5,000 copies of a book that had been copied by slaves. But copying a book took so much time and was so expensive that often only a few copies of each book were made. As a result, usually only a small percentage of the population learned to read and owned books.

In 1450, a goldsmith named Johannes Gutenberg in Germany invented the modern printing press. The impact of his machine is sometimes compared to the invention of the Internet. Although ancient Chinese people invented paper in 105 AD and used woodblock printing before 200 AD, Gutenberg’s printing press was easy to use with languages that had alphabetic scripts. After 1450, thousands of copies of a popular book or newspaper could be made quickly and cheaply. Books and newspapers with ideas and images from all over the world went into the market for the wide public.

Knowledge is power. Reading has brought about amazing changes in science, technology and politics. We have learned how to create wealth and even travel to far-away worlds. The computer, cellphone, and Internet have grown, because billions of powerful readers were created by the printing press.

From 1450 on, more and more people have become readers. These billions of readers are powerful, and they help the world to make progress at a fast speed.

【推荐1】Scientists estimate that more than 95 percent of Earth’s oceans have never been observed, which means we have seen less of our planet’s ocean than we have the far side of the moon or the surface of Mars. The high cost of powering an underwater camera for a long time, by tying it to a research boat or sending a ship to recharge its batteries, is a steep challenge preventing widespread undersea exploration.

MIT researchers have taken a major step to overcome this problem by developing a battery-free, wireless underwater camera that is about 100,000 times more than other undersea cameras. The device takes color photos, even in dark underwater environments, and transmits image data wirelessly through the water.

The autonomous camera is powered by sound. It transforms mechanical energy from sound waves traveling through water into electrical energy that powers its imaging and communications equipment. After capturing and encoding (编码) image data, the camera also uses sound waves to transmit data to a receiver that reconstructs the image.

Because it doesn’t need a power source, the camera could run for weeks on end before retrieval, enabling scientists to search remote parts of the ocean for new species. It could also be used to capture images of ocean pollution or monitor the health and growth of fish raised in aquaculture farms.

“One of the most exciting applications of this camera for me personally is in the context of climate monitoring. We are building climate models, but we are missing data from over 95 percent of the ocean. This technology could help us build more accurate climate models and better understand how climate change impacts the underwater world,” says Fadel Adib, associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

【推荐3】Previous studies have shown that children with attention difficulties solve cognitive(认知的)tasks better when they are listening to white noise. However, this is the first time that such a link has been proved between visual(视觉的) white noise and cognitive abilities such as memory and reading.

The study was conducted on around 80 students. The children who took part were selected following a word recognition test and were divided into three groups: good readers, children with some reading difficulties, and children with major reading difficulties. They were asked to read 12 words while being exposed to four different levels of visual white noise, from zero to high.

The results showed that the group with major reading difficulties performed significantly better when exposed to visual white noise. They read more words correctly and also recalled more words. The white noise had no effect or negative effects on the good readers and those with only small reading problems.

The children in the study were exposed to different levels of white noise, with the result showing that the amount of noise is the key to reading and memory. “You can compare it with being shortsighted and needing glasses. When we exposed the children to a medium level of white noise, their reading improved. However, their reading skills were affected when there was no noise or a high level of noise,” said Göran Söderlund, Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Gothenburg.

“These results show that children with reading difficulties can be helped with a simple intervention(干预). By altering screens in school or at home, we hope to be able to resolve their problems,” added Göran ,

Göran wants to further study the effects of white noise. He hopes that new studies can answer the question of whether practicing with white noise for a prolonged period can lead to lasting improvements. “It’s important to continue with new studies to establish whether this simple measure, which everyone can do on the laptop, will actually provide continuous help for these children.