【推荐1】After bikes and umbrellas are made sharable across China, some companies started eyeing the fitness market, so shared gym rooms have hit the streets in Beijing.

Unlike regular gyms that provide large, open spaces for many members to share at the same time, the newly built shared gym rooms are small, stand-alone rooms for a person to use, often set up near living communities.

Every four-square-meter room is equipped with a treadmill (跑步机), an air cleaner, a mirror, a television and an air conditioner, and users can let down the curtains for privacy. When exercising, users can listen to music, watch movies and check emails by connecting to the Internet by the screen fixed on the treadmill. There’s no shower or washbasin.

Similar to using a shared bike, users can locate a shared gym room by smartphone application, book a room in advance and then need to scan (扫描) a QR code for use. A refundable deposit (保证金) of 99 yuan is required, and users are charged 0.2 yuan per minute.

The shared gym rooms are created by Misspao, a Beijing-based technology company founded in July. Within two weeks since it was founded, the company has already got two rounds of funding valued over 100 million yuan, Yicai Global reports. The idea of the shared fitness experience is not entirely nascent. Last December, the Shanghai-based technology company VRUN set up shared treadmills in office and apartment buildings.

The sharing economy is still becoming popular in China. According to Yicai Global, confident investors are pouring millions into sharing start-ups. In March, the State Information Center published a report which predicts that the total value of China’s sharing economy will see a yearly growth of 40% in the coming years, and it is expected to contribute around 10% to the country’s GDP by 2020.

【推荐2】Imagine wearing high-tech body armor (盔甲) that makes you super strong and tireless. Such technology, more specifically called an exoskeleton, sounds like the preserve of the Iron Man series of superhero movies. Yet the equipment is increasingly being worn in real life around the world. And one manufacturer — California’s SuitX — expects it to go mainstream. “There is no doubt in my mind that these devices will eventually be sold at hardware stores,” says SuitX’s founder Homayoon Kazerooni.

In simple terms, an exoskeleton is an external device that supports, covers and protects its user, giving greater levels of strength and endurance. Sometimes also referred to as “wearable robots”, they can be battery-powered and computer-operated, incorporating motors and hydraulics. Or they can be more simple, passive designs that use springs and dampeners.

“Integrating humans and machines into one system opens up a new realm of opportunity,” says Adrian Spragg, an expert on the technology at management consultancy Accenture. “Many of the early applications have been focused on military and medical applications, but in the last several years there’s been an explosion of use in a range of cases.” This expansion, which has come together with rapid advances in the technology, has seen exoskeletons increasingly used by manufacturing workers. Versions for consumers are also now being developed to help people more easily do everything from DIY, to walking, climbing stairs, and other daily activities. One report says sales are now due to rocket as a result. Global exoskeleton revenues (收入) are expected to explode from $392 million in 2020 to $6.8 billion in 2030, according to a study by ABI Research.

SuitX’s “suits” are now being tested by car manufacturers General Motors and Fiat. Prof Kazerooni, who is also the director of the University of California’s Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory, says that the primary benefit of the firm’s exoskeletons is to prevent muscle fatigue (疲劳).

“In general I see this development as very positive for occupational health and safety,” Prof Sandra Wachter says. “Machines are supposed to help us with dull, dangerous and dirty jobs. Problems, however, arise if robotics also double as workplace monitors. Are these suits tracking your movements, how fast you move, and how often you take breaks? Does a system compare this data with those of other workers to score or rank them? What happens if you move slower than others, or take breaks more often?”

【推荐3】Working robots are typically big, simple and strong. They are large preprogrammed units working in dangerous jobs. But the idea of putting “cobots” which work in harmony with humans into use has become a reality and has changed robotic products worldwide.

Cobots include robots made of tough materials that provide support for the disabled and software-based assistants for home of online services. With their operating software updated from the Internet, these helpers will become an extension of mobile devices.

Most industrial robots are not designed to deal with unpredictable human jobs. However, by reducing robots down to desktop size and planting them with AI, the next generation of cobots will learn from us and cooperate with us better. Lightweight cobots can work in less space and share themselves with people rather than being caged off. Decreasing costs for robotic systems make them more suitable for small businesses, and their easy set-up makes them simple to deploy. Typical industrial uses for cobots include packing and machine tending. More detailed uses include cleaning dirty samples, picking plants, making tea and coffee and so on.

Still, experts thought that introducing robots would lead to job losses. Some people said that 20 million industrial jobs would be lost worldwide by 2030. Actually, it was not the case. What big companies such as Germany’s Mercedes-Benz discovered was that robots alone were not intelligent enough to keep pace with the demand for special products, which still depends on a large number of skilled staff to control and push the whole progress.

“Unplanned changes to production and safer interaction with humans will then require a step change in robot improvements. It has become necessary to use the new generation of cobots in people’s daily life, and cooperation should be considered as an applicable strategy. When we make people and machines cooperate, we can produce many more products on one production line,” said Markus Schaefer, head of production planning.

【推荐2】With the approaching of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, more and more people want to know more about it. If you are just one of them, you can obtain more information with a click.

Having won the bid for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games on July 31, 2015, Beijing is set to become the first city in the world to have hosted both the summer and winter editions of the Olympic Games.

With a vision of “Joyful Rendezvous upon Pure Ice and Snow”, Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games will build on the legacies of the landmark Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and expects to encourage millions of people across China to embrace winter sports.

The 109 events in seven Olympic winter sports will be held in the three competition zones of central Beijing, Yanqing and Zhangjiakou.

Three Competition Zones

Beijing will host all the ice events (curling, ice hockey and skating) and four snow events, making full use of the legacy venues of Beijing 2008 in the spirit of Olympic Agenda 2020.

Yanqing, a suburban district of Beijing (80km to the northwest) and home to the famous Badaling and Juyongguan stretches of the Great Wall, is to host the alpine skiing and sliding events.

Zhangjiakou, further to the northwest in the neighboring Hebei province, will host all the other snow events in its Chongli district, a popular skiing destination.

Seven new events

The addition of seven new events—women’s monobob, freestyle skiing big air (men’s and women’s) and mixed team events in short track speed skating team relay, ski jumping. Freestyle skiing aerials and snowboard cross-to Beijing 2022’s sports programme will bring about the most gender-balanced Winter Olympic Games to date, with more female athletes (45.44 percent) and women’s events than at any previous Games.

Spring Festival (Chinese New Year)

2022 Olympic Winter Games will take place in February 2022, coinciding with the Chinese New Year, the most important holiday in China. Or rather, it will fall on 4th, February and will end on 20th,February. Local residents are looking forward to welcoming athletes from around the globe to enjoy the Chinese New Year festivities, the majestic landscape and the rich cultures of central Beijing Yanqing and Zhangjiakou, as they charm the world with the beauty of winter sports.

【推荐3】The Pyeong Chang 2018 Winter Olympics ran from 9 to 25 February.As the next host city of the Winter Olympics,Beijing presented a show for the handover ceremony.Beijing’s eight-minute show at the closing ceremony of Pyeong Chang 2018demonstrateda confident and modern China and extended China's warm welcome to the whole world in a high-tech way,said Zhang Yimou,chief director of the show.

“Modern China is not the same as it used to be ten years ago.We have held the Olympics and told the world our history of five thousand years.This time at Pyeong Chang 2018,we prefer to present to the world the new achievements of contemporary China rather than repeat the story long before,"said Zhang.

“The show has combined high technology and traditional performance together.In order to highlight winter sports,we have adopted the gestures of skating and skiing.Our performers are not the traditional dancers or singers,but they can manage both winter sports and performances,"added Zhang.

One of the biggest challenges both performers and high-tech equipment needed to overcome was the extreme temperature.The closing ceremony of PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics was held in the PyeongChang Olympic Stadium,which is an outdoor stadium,and the temperature was freezing cold during the Games.