【推荐1】Is there a Chinese soccer team at the Qatar 2022 World Cup? No. But one can’t miss Chinese elements(元素) in and around the stadiums in this desert state. One can take a nap in a “mobile hotel” built by Chinese engineers, drink water from ponds dug by Chinese engineers, charge one’s mobile phone with electricity produced at the photovoltaic(光电的) power stations built by Chinese companies, and take a bus made in China to move between hotels and stadiums.

Did we forget something? Yes, even some stadiums are built by Chinese companies, while the souvenirs(纪念品) one can buy there, too, are made in China.

That’s how China has taken part in this World Cup and earlier events, and may do so in the upcoming ones too: by providing products and services to the athletes and audiences alike, thus impressing the world with its technology and products.

While “Made in China” has left its stamp on earlier soccer World Cups and other sports events, what makes the Qatar World Cup unique is the kind of technology China is providing. For example, the Stadium 974, built by Chinese companies, is the first movable and redeployable(可重构体系的) “green stadium”. It can recycle rainwater for future use and turn the garbage collected from the stadium into fertilizer(肥料). Besides, China has built an 800 MW photovoltaic station that continually turns the rich sunshine in the Middle East into electricity for the stadium.

Another reason that has made it possible for Chinese firms to perform well in the World Cup is that China has achieved good economic growth despite a global economic slowdown. While the whole world suffers because of the COVID-19 pandemic and other reasons, Chinese companies have largely continued to function normally.

【推荐2】An artificial intelligence can decode (解码) words and sentences from brain activity with surprising accuracy. Using only a few seconds of brain activity data, the AI guesses what a person has heard. It lists the correct answer in its top 10 possibilities, researchers found in a primary study.

Developed at the parent company of Facebook, Meta, the AI could eventually be used to help thousands of people around the world who are unable to communicate through speech, typing or gestures.

Most existing technologies to help such patients communicate require risky brain surgeries to put in electrodes (电极). This new approach “could provide a possible path to help patients with communication problems, avoiding the use of surgeries,” says neuroscientist Jean-Rémi King, a Meta AI researcher.

King and his colleagues trained a computational tool, also known as a language model, to detect words and sentences on 56, 000 hours of speech recordings from 53 languages. The team applied an AI with this language model to databases from four institutions that included brain activity from 169 volunteers. In these databases, participants listened to various stories and sentences, while the people’s brains were scanned by magnetoencephalography (MEG) (脑磁图).

Then with the help of a computational method that helps account for physical differences among actual brains, the team tried to decode what participants had heard using just three seconds of brain activity data from each person. The team instructed the AI to match up the speech sounds from the story recordings with patterns of brain activity that the AI computed as corresponding to what people were hearing. It then made predictions about what the person might have been hearing during that short time, given more than 1, 000 possibilities. Using MEG, the correct answer was in the AI’s top 10 guesses, the researchers found.

“The new study is decoding of speech recognition, not production,” King agrees, “Though speech production is the final goal, for now, we’re quite a long way away.”

【推荐3】Mobile phone technology is advancing rapidly, but what can people expect to be using in 2018?

What will their mobile be able to do and what will look like? Nokia has collaborated with Industrial Design students from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London to come up with some ideas.

The Winner

Daniel Meyer

The device (装置) was inspired both by the appearing of video calling and the traditional practice of carrying pictures of family and friends with you. The handset is designed to sit as a picture frame (镜框) wherever the user is, serving the double purposes of communications device and a comforting familiar focus at home or when away.

Regenerate

Nicola Reed

It aims to get people to be more green. It collects infuriation on how much electricity and gas you use how you get about, the type of products you buy, and how you deal with waste. It works on a reward system and you can earn free calls and texts by being environmentally friendly, like walking to work instead of driving.

Hello

Sung-Joo Kim

People constantly upgrade mobiles and throw away their old ones. In the future new mobiles will have to exist alongside older modals that have become redundant (过剩的) in their primary role. This project proposes a change for them, using secondary functions like the camera. This model allows old phones to become part of a CCTV network.

Get Your Friend

Ik-Soo Shin

The aim was a user friendly product that gave an emotional relationship, like a friend. A new generation of mobiles with artificial intelligence will be able to express a user’s feelings, such as anger. The phone will also automatically recognize the voice of the user, allowing communication between them and their mobiles.

【推荐1】There are many international organizations which work to save and protect endangered animals and natural environment. If you would like more information about any of the organizations listed below, you can write to the addresses given.

Friend of the Earth (FOE) campaigns on a range of problems including rainforests, the countryside, water and air pollution and energy. Friends of the Earth International Secretariat P.O. Box 19199 1000 G.D. Amsterdam The Netherlands	Greenpeace uses peaceful but direct action to protect the environment. It campaigns to protect rainforests and sea animals, stop global warming and end pollution of air, land and seas. It also opposes nuclear power. Greenpeace International Keizergracht 176 1016 D W Amsterdam The Netherlands
BirdLife International is an organization which works to save endangered birds all over the world. BirdLife International Wellbrook Court Girton Road Cambirdge CB30NA England	WWF—World Wide Fund For Nature is the World’s largest private international organization for the conservation of nature and endangered species. Information Officer WWF International Avenve du Mont-Blanc 1196Gland Switzerland