The iPod Generation
Today it is common to see people who walk about with colored wires hanging from their ears wherever they go. They move about in their personal bubbles, sometimes unaware of what’s happening around them.
For me, walking around in my own personal bubble is perfect.
Suppose you’re at work and about to make an incredible breakthrough, but a colleague suddenly turns up. His sudden appearance would break your concentration and cause mistakes.
Pretty soon, not only will we have pretty colored wires hanging from our ears, but also our brains will be directly plugged into some new high-tech instruments. We’ll be in a virtual world, communicating with everyone else, or choosing not to, as we like.
In the end, there is a thin line between using technology as a tool for making life better and being a slave to it! It’s so strange — suddenly, I don’t feel like wearing my earphones anymore.
| A．Our instruments are changing quickly. |
| B．I don’t have to deal with the noise from the environment. |
| C．In the home situation, teenagers love these wires. |
| D．I also have wires hanging from my ears. |
| E．After all, I am listening to my favourite music and would rather not be disturbed. |
| F．Listening to music through earphones is the perfect way to ignore such interruptions (中断). |
| G．They walk around in their own spaces, with their personal “digital noise reduction systems”. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Baidu, a Chinese search engine and artificial intelligence firm, announced its latest electric autonomous driving vehicle, Apollo RT6, on Thursday. The new vehicle is a fully electric vehicle with a steering wheel (方向盘) that can be removed when not required. It will cost ¥250,000 per unit.
“The steering-wheel-free design allows more space for extra seating or other additions and the massive cost reduction will enable us to put tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles into operation across China,” Robin Li, co-founder and CEO of Baidu, said at the firm's Baidu World Conference Thursday. “We are moving towards a future where taking a robotaxi will be half the cost of taking a taxi today.”
Baidu already runs Apollo Go and Apollo Moon, taxi services using self-driving robotaxis with safety staff seated in the driver or passenger seat. They have been in operation in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, although the service is limited to specific areas. The new vehicle will soon join those robotaxis.
The RT6 has reached the industry's Level 4 out of five possible levels of technology. That means its systems can operate without a driver but must be pre-loaded with a detailed map, thus limiting the areas where the vehicles can operate. Lower levels of self-driving technology have been available for decades. For example, many Level-3 vehicles allow hands-free highway driving. Other kinds of self-driving robot vehicles are already widely used in factories warehouses and other tightly controlled settings.
Compared to previous generations where the technology was mainly used on conventional vehicles, the Apollo RT6 was designed specifically with fully autonomous driving in mind.
Baidu is best known for its search engine and online advertising services, but in recent years it has invested heavily in autonomous driving and artificial intelligence technology, including automated personal assistants and AI chips.
1. What can we know about Apollo RT6?| A．It is free to run in any area. | B．It has to operate with a driver. |
| C．It will be cheaper to operate. | D．It can work without a detailed map. |
| A．Level 2 | B．Level 3 | C．Level 4 | D．Level 5 |
| A．A personal assistant. | B．A company. |
| C．A search engine. | D．A fully autonomous car. |
| A．An Introduction to Baidu's Latest Vehicle: Apollo RT6 |
| B．Baidu's Future Plan for Its Electric Vehicle: Apollo RT6 |
| C．Limitations of the Level-4 Self-driving Electric Vehicles |
| D．The Great Market Potential for Fully Autonomous Vehicles |
【推荐2】Electric vehicles are close to the “turning point” of rapid mass adoption thanks to the decreasing cost of batteries, experts say.
Global sales of electric vehicles rose 43% in 2020, but even faster growth is expected when continuing falls in battery prices result in the price of electric cars under the same petrol and diesel (柴油) models, which may happen between 2023 and 2025. According to a study by Prof Tim Lonton, at the University of Exeter, the tuning point has already been passed in Norway, where tax breaks (税收减免) mean electric cars are cheaper and the market share of battery-powered cars increased to 54% in 2020 in Norway, compared with less than 5% in most European nations.
The falls in battery prices in the last decade have been dramatic and faster than predicted thanks to a massive production and cuts in costs, such as reducing the amount of expensive cobalt (钻) required. BloombergNEF’s analysis predicts lithium-ion (锂离子) battery cots will fall so sharply that electric cars can match the price of petrol and diesel cars by 2023. McKin-sey’s Global Energy Perspective 2021, published on 15 January, forecasts that “electric vehicles are likely to become the most economic choice in the next five years worldwide”.
Electric cars, vital in efforts to fight climate crisis, are quieter and start to go faster, so people do not want to return to a petrol or diesel vehicle once they have one. A survey of 2,000 electric car owners found 91% said they did not want to go back.
“The survey shows the strong and lasting impact of switching to a clean car. The evidence in favor of electric vehicles grows more convincing even in a year as destructive as 2020,” said Melanie Shufflebotham, at Zap-Map, which maps charging points.
1. What leads to the growing sales of electric vehicles?| A．The rise in petrol prices. | B．The desire for a lower tax. |
| C．The drop in battery costs. | D．The need for a cleaner life. |
| A．Policies in Norway support electric vehicles. |
| B．Economy in Norway outgrows other nations. |
| C．The market share of electric vehicles will decline. |
| D．The tax breaks in Europe will continue to increase. |
| A．By increasing the demand for cobalt. |
| B．By boosting the sales of electric cars. |
| C．By reducing the production of batteries. |
| D．By cutting the costs of lithium-ion batteries. |
| A．People do not tend to use a petrol vehicle. |
| B．Electric vehicles have a strong impact on our daily life. |
| C．The prices of battery are decreasing because of electric vehicles. |
| D．The prospect of electric vehicles will be improving because of the falls in the battery prices. |
【推荐3】Accompanied by the background sounds of Chinese traditional instruments, Yuanxi — China Daily’s digital employee — introduced the 9,000-year-old stone carvings (岩画) from the Helan Mountains in Northwest China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region on Oct 14.
The meeting between the virtual human and Chinese traditional culture is quite interesting,” an internet user commented on Sina Weibo.
With the rise of the metaverse (元宇宙), virtual humans have become a growing phenomenon in China. According to a research report by QbitAI, it is estimated that the overall market size of China’s virtual humans will reach 270 billion yuan by 2030.
Though they are not real, these virtual beings share similar identities with us and serve in different fields of our daily lives, including education, broadcasting, and business. For example, in June 2021, Hua Zhibing, a virtual human who can write poetry, was officially registered as a student at Tsinghua University. Throughout the 2022 Winter Olympics, China’s first AI sign language presenter served hearing-impaired (有听力障碍的) audiences 24/7.
Due to their perfect image and interesting setups, some virtual humans even get a large number of fans and become idols in real life. Luo Tianyi is one of them. As a virtual singer, Luo has over 5 million followers on Sina Weibo. When she held a concert in Shanghai in 2018, more than 10,000 fans waved glow sticks and cheered for her. Gao Yu, a fan of Luo, told Economic Information Daily that “just like chasing human idols, Luo’s fans also hold birthday parties for her and buy the products she promotes.”
While the future of virtual humans seems promising, problems also lurk (隐藏着) underneath. As the novelty wears off, some followers are getting tired of virtual humans’ never-changing expressions. “No matter how lifelike these virtual influencers look, they’re still not real people. It’s a little scary,” Gigi You, 23, from Guangdong, told Insider. Studies also showed that their “perfect” face and “perfect” life which humans are unable to achieve can also trigger (引发) anxiety and depression in individuals.
Generally speaking, virtual humans are often seen as the gateway to the metaverse and have demonstrated financial potential, but there’s still a lot of room for development, reported Xinhua.
1. What can we learn about Yuanxi?| A．She is the first digital employee in China. |
| B．She played Chinese traditional instruments. |
| C．She covered stories about stone carvings. |
| D．She was designed to promote Chinese traditional culture. |
| A．To show the popularity of virtual humans. |
| B．To illustrate the similarities of virtual humans. |
| C．To describe the characteristics of virtual humans. |
| D．To explain the importance of virtual humans in our lives. |
| A．They lose appeal quickly. | B．They are too good to be true. |
| C．They can make people anxious. | D．They are never as real as humans. |
