AirTag, a small Bluetooth-and-GPS-enabled device, was released by Apple in April 2021. This small device aimed at making our lives easier was originally designed to end the trouble of losing keys, wallets or other little objects. However, it may become the “perfect” tracking tool if in the wrong hands. My ex-husband was an early adopter of the AirTag. He and I had a falling out, leading to a divorce battle. In order to win custody battle, he used the little device to track me.
As a tech giant, the Apple company brought great convenience to the users, including me. I had never given a thought to tracking via AirTag until it happened to me. So I started scanning stories about AirTag. I was surprised to find that I was not alone. There were so many people tracked by these seemingly innocent electronic tags in their daily life. AirTag which was originally launched for a better life should have such a dark side in the wrong hands.
People have found that the digital device has the potential for abuse. What matters is how to avoid its danger. Apple has released updates to the AirTag’s functionality very quickly since they hit the market. Meanwhile, Apple has also improved its customer service to deal with the bugs of this kind. If you find an unwanted AirTag following you, don’t panic. Just disable it. You can follow the prompts on your Apple device to learn more about disabling the device. Once you’ve completed the above step, the tag’s original owner can’t keep track of you any more.
Almost every digital technology creates security issues. Nobody can go and live in a cave to remain unaffected. While enjoying its convenience, you need to be aware of the risks it poses, and know how to deal with them. Prevention is more effective in security issues than fixes. After all, a stitch in time saves nine.
1. What is the original function of AirTag?| A．To track one’s location secretly. | B．To help find one’s easily lost items. |
| C．To locate one’s phone accurately. | D．To ensure the safety of one’s phone. |
| A．Her ex-husband tracked her via AirTag. |
| B．Many people suffered from security problem. |
| C．AirTag was a newly released electronic device. |
| D．She intended to know about its great convenience. |
| A．Have it updated. | B．Make it unable to work. |
| C．Pay no attention to it. | D．Contact its original owner. |
| A．People should keep pace with the times. |
| B．People should use technology in a proper way. |
| C．People should handle potential digital risks actively. |
| D．People should bear the responsibility to fix the bugs bravely. |
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【推荐1】Scientists have built a bacterium that contains the minimal（最小的）genetic ingredients needed for free living. This bacterium's entire set of genetic blueprints, its genome（基因组）, consists of only 473 genes, including 149 whose precise biological function is unknown. The newly-created bacterium contains a minimalist version of the genome of Mycoplasma mycoides （丝状支原体）.Mycoplasmas have already had some of the smallest known genomes.
In 2010, researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute in La Jolla, Calif, created the entire genome of M. mycoides and popped it into a cell of a different species, Mycoplasma capricolum （山羊支原体）, creating what some people called the first synthetic（合成的）organism. The new work strips the M.mycoides genome down to its essential elements before transplanting it to the M. capricolum shell, producing a minimal bacterium called syn3.0. Researchers hope syn3.0's genome will teach them more about the basics of biology. Such minimal genome bacteria also may be helpful to build custom-made microbes（微生物）for producing drugs or chemicals.
J. Craig Venter, founder of the nonprofit institute, and a team of researchers there led by Clyde Hutchison III and Daniel Gibson initially set out to design an organism based on a core set of about 300 genes that researchers guessed a microbe would need to survive on its own. But when the researchers tried to bring their computer creations to life, "every one of our designs failed, "Venter said. About 32 percent of the genetic ingredients ultimately needed to cook up even a simple organism were left out of the initial recipe because the researchers didn't know what the genes did and didn't understand their importance. Once those genes were mixed back, the bacteria sprung to life.
"I think we're showing how complex life is in even the simplest of organisms, "Venter said. "These findings are very humbling "because they show that researchers still don't fully understand even the minimal requirements for life. Other researchers have attempted to make minimal genomes by stripping away one gene at a time. But the Venter group built their lean microbe from the ground up. Drew Endy, a synthetic biologist at Stanford University, is among several scientists applauding the approach. "Only when you try to build something do you find out what's truly required. Too often in biology we end up with only data or a just-so story ."Endy said in an e-mail.
At first, the genome didn't work. Some genes that appeared to be nonessential for life are really requirements, the researchers discovered. Those genes tended to have redundant functions with another gene. Researchers could remove one of those genes, but not both at the same time, just as knocking out one engine on a twin-engine jet will keep the plane airborne, but disabling both engines will lead to a crash, says Gibson.
1. According to the passage, syn3.0 ________.| A．is the basics of biology |
| B．was taken from the M. mycoides |
| C．has been used to produce drugs and chemicals |
| D．was the result of the first synthetic organism |
| A．there was something wrong with the computer program |
| B．they excluded many genes essential to the organism |
| C．they overestimated the function of each gene involved |
| D．there were changes in the DNA code during the experiment |
| A．Supportive. | B．Uninterested. | C．Cautious. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．Controversial. | B．Unexpected. | C．Unnecessary. | D．Contradictory. |
【推荐2】The rechargeable lithium-ion (锂离子) battery market is worth more than $50 billion. Lithium-ion batteries, whose demand continues to go up day by day, are used in a wide range of electronic devices. They are made of four main components, and cathode (阴极) is one of them. The cathode’s active material type is what determines the capacity of a battery.
A recent study, led by Wang Yan, a material scientist of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, finds that lithium-ion batteries made with recycled cathodes work better than those with new cathodes.
“ The battery industry is expected to soar in the next decade. This high demand has led companies to go to extremes, like increasing deep-sea mining, to gain access to the minerals used in lithium-ion batteries, ” Wang said. “ Mining minerals will have environmental impacts. Recycling spent lithium-ion batteries offers a way out. ”
But until now, the prospect of using recycled materials in lithium-ion batteries has some manufacturers (制造商) worrying that it could impact performance. Thus, lithium-ion batteries are still not widely recycled. Aware of decreasing resources and environmental impact. Wang and other researchers set out to find a way to make recycling lithium-ion batteries economically practical. Through experiments, they could recover more than 90% of the key metals from spent batteries. These recovered metals became the basis of the new recycled battery’s cathode’s active material.
In tests between Wang’s team’s recycled batteries and brand-new batteries of the same composition, the recycled batteries outperform (胜过) the new ones in their ability to maintain capacity. It took 11,600 charge cycles for recycled cathode batteries to lose 30 percent of their original capacity. That was about 50 percent better than the 7,600 observed cycles for new cathode batteries, the team reported. Those thousands of extra cycles could translate into years of better battery performance, even after repeated use and recharging.
1. What can we learn about lithium-ion batteries from the first paragraph?| A．They are high in price. | B．They are in great demand. |
| C．They are limited in use. | D．They are simple in composition. |
| A．decrease rapidly | B．develop smoothly | C．rise quickly | D．appear |
| A．Ineffective battery performance. | B．Decreasing mineral resources. |
| C．Serious environmental problems. | D．Difficult recycling techniques. |
| A．The battery industry is going to develop dramatically. |
| B．Recycling batteries reduces impact on the environment. |
| C．Scientists can recover key materials from spent batteries. |
| D．Recycled batteries outperform new ones in charging circles. |
【推荐3】Think of the empty cities in zombie(僵尸)movies. The streets, the shops and the schools still there just like they would be on a normal day, except there are no people to be seen. It is the emptiness that scares you.
Now a real-life "ghost city" is being built in the US. But fortunately, it has nothing to do with zombies - it is going to be a place to test the technology of the future
Called CITE - the Center for Innovation(创新), Testing and Evaluation(测评) - the city is the idea of technology company Pegasus Global Holdings. Covering an area of 15 square miles (39 square kilometers), it is the size of a small US city and sits in the middle of the New Mexico desert.
But why do we need an empty city that nobody will call home?
The reason is that we can't afford to test the latest technologies in the cities that we live in - they might not be ready and could cause problems and danger in our everyday lives.
"It will be a true laboratory without the problems and safety issues that come with people living there. Here you can break things and run into things, and get used to how they work, before taking them out into the market, Pegasus managing director Robert Brumley told technology magazine Wired.
In fact, without worrying about hurting people, anybody with a new idea can ask to test it in this city. Just think about the possibilities- driverless cars can move freely on the streets, homes with robots can be designed and energy sources like nuclear power can also be put to the test.
As good as the idea may seem, however, there are still doubts about CITE. "One of the most difficult things to do when developing these new technologies is to have them safely move around people, who can suddenly jump out in front of something," Reese Jones, a founder of Singularity University, US, told Fortune magazine.
Jones is worried that, even if a technology works perfectly well in CITE, introducing it to a real city will still be a whole different story because there will be people living in the city.
But no matter what, perhaps we should wait until CITE is finished in 2018. Maybe it will turn out to work just fine.
1. The empty city is being built_____.| A．so people can experience the technology of the future |
| B．to try driverless cars and robots in |
| C．to test new technology in |
| D．as a place full of the latest technology |
| A．It is located beside the New Mexico desert. |
| B．It was started by Singularity University. |
| C．Things in the city can easily be broken down and built again. |
| D．Anyone can ask to try out their new designs there. |
| A．CITE offers great possibilities for future technology |
| B．new technologies will work perfectly well with the help of CITE |
| C．settings in CITE should be real in order to create the best results |
| D．testing results in CITE may not prove to work in a real city |
| A．To explain why CITE could be very helpful. |
| B．To show that CITE has a bright future. |
| C．To explain CITE and problems it may have. |
| D．To offer a good solution that will help to develop future technologies. |
【推荐1】A decade ago, Cass Sunstein, an American legal scholar, co-authored a book, Nudge, with the economist Richard Thaler. In it, they argued that nudges can shape the behaviour of populations. The idea proved so persuasive that it influenced White House policy, and Sunstein and Thaler rose to fame.
Now Sunstein has published another book, Republic, which describes how social media shapes politics and journalism. So far, it has not received as much attention as Nudge. This is a pity: the ideas in Republic are arguably more important—and more pressing.
These days, many voters seem extremely angry with both journalists and social media. In this column last week, for example, I wrote about the tribalisation (部落化) of the media. This has caused more online reader comments than almost anything else I have written—and most of them are angry.
Amid all the emotion, what is obviously lacking are proposals for a way forward. Readers and viewers say they want the media to be “less biased” and to “focus on the facts” but the problem of how to finance and organize serious non-partisan (无党派偏向的) journalism for the mass market remains largely unsolved. The trouble is that partisan social media is free—and readers seem to be hungry for this. So how can we support real news when most voters keep flocking (蜂拥而至) to entertaining stories that are (at best) partisan and (at worst) deliberately fake?
This is where Republic comes in. Sunstein believes that one of the biggest problems in media today is the phenomenon of “informational” and “reputational cascades”: if a story or idea gets launched on Facebook or Twitter in a format that is easy to Like or Share, it can snowball rapidly and influence public opinion. This probably makes social media suffer from both polarisation and manipulation (操纵)—and damage established journalism gradually.
Sunstein suggests some strategies to fight back. The least realistic idea is that governments or charity groups should create so-called “deliberative domains”: spaces online or in the physical world where opposing political viewpoints can be debated. He also advocates campaigns to promote media literacy (能力) among the public.
Another proposal is for governments to require media companies to promote non-partisan coverage. The government could also force partisan websites to include links to articles with conflicting points of view: Breitbart, for example, might carry a link to a piece by Huffington Post, and vice versa. Or social media companies could perhaps create ways that enable readers to come across unexpected ideas to which they would not otherwise be exposed.
A more severe move would be to force social media sites to meet certain legal standards, similar to those raised for print journalism.
1. What can be inferred from Paragraph 1?| A．The book, Nudge, was well received immediately it came out. |
| B．They doubted whether the minor changes could affect the way people behave. |
| C．Cass Sunstein got praised thanks to his devotion to the book written by him on his own. |
| D．The specific ideas in the book, Nudge, made a difference to the policy of the government. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Objective. |
| C．Critical. | D．Optimistic. |
| A．The audience have lost interest in what the media present. |
| B．The media tend to favor some parties. |
| C．They have no money to keep working. |
| D．The online media will replace the traditional journalism in the future. |
| A．Create so-called “deliberative domains”. |
| B．Provide links for the audience to see more similar viewpoints. |
| C．Create a platform where all people can share their ideas about their daily life. |
| D．Force all partisan websites to provide links to Huffingtom Post. |
【推荐2】According to a 2018 report, people aged between 16 and 24 make up 15 per cent of the population but only 10 per cent of museum-goers. Similarly, people of colour aged over 35 go half as much as you would expect from their population size.
We have reached the point of recognizing a disconnect between art and audiences but haven’t yet determined how to bridge the gap. Two answers to tackling this challenge lie in telling a greater diversity of art histories and communicating these stories in more modern and accessible ways.
If you have ever tried to power through reading a museums complex wall text, you know art discussions can be full of special terms. In 2018, I started a podcast called Art Matters for the charity Art UK with the aim of discussing art from a pop-culture angle with topics that would engage younger and more diverse audiences. It offers an accessible pathway to art history with conversations on topics such as film, psychology and even Beyoncé, with few special terms. The series has been a useful way of connecting art to current events. Art history is about storytelling; art content shines when there is an effort to bring audiences along for the discussion.
More traditional institutions are paying attention. This summer, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles issued a social-media challenge for people to recreate paintings using items they had at home. Users displayed incredible creativity ---- toilet rolls featured frequently ---- and the museum was flooded with submissions. This reaction proves that there is a hidden desire for audiences to engage with art topics if the format is appealing.
Many people are intimidated (威胁) by art and feel that there’s a base level of understanding required to join the conversation. The Getty initiative embraced the visuality of art and served as a reminder that there are many pathways to engaging with it.
Another interesting byproduct of the Getty challenge was the attention given to a diversity of artworks. British opera singer Peter Brathwaite, for example, made scores of stunning recreations highlighting centuries of black portraiture, including a collaboration with London’s National Portrait Gallery. His efforts counter the perception that there are not many historical portraits of black figures. It is imperative (势在必行的) that we do a better job of showcasing the many complex and diverse stories that are represented in art. In doing so, we preserve more histories and welcome wider diversity of people.
Social media have offered a platform for people who have not traditionally had a seat at the table. Anyone can recognize a gap in the field and address it. Accounts have amassed tens of thousands of followers by dedicating their feeds to female artists, artists of of colour and more. Their followings are proof positive that there is a hunger to hear these art histories, and these themes work brilliantly for museum programming.
But there is only so much that can be done without Britain’s museums and galleries changing meaningfully from within. We need to see a better balance of these stories represented in permanent collections. We also need a much wider diversity of people and interests represented on boards and executive teams.
Ensuring that art ---- and writing and talking about art ---- resonates throughout the population depends on the rising generation of storytellers, inside institutions and out, getting the funding and support they need to paint a brighter picture for the sector.
1. Which of the following is NOT an example of the answers to tackling the challenge?| A．Engaging audiences in discussions in the podcast Art Matters |
| B．Holding pop-culture discussions with the charity Art UK |
| C．Encouraging people to recreate paintings with household items |
| D．Portraying historical black figures through art recreations |
| A．connecting art history to popular topics |
| B．having only a few special terms |
| C．being accessible to the poor and needy |
| D．engaging more diverse audiences |
| A．lack the ability to understand and talk about art history |
| B．prefer to view artworks and hear art stories on social media |
| C．long to engage with art topics and diverse art history stories |
| D．hope more people of colour are represented on museum boards |
| A．Art for Change | B．Don’t Fear Art |
| C．Art on Social Media | D．Art for All |
【推荐3】Researchers at the University of Washington created a new web app, Self-Talk with Superhero Zip, aimed to help children develop skills like self-awareness and emotional management.
At first, some parents were wary: In a world of Siri and Alexa, they are skeptical that the makers of such technologies are putting children’s welfare first.
In Self-Talk with Superhero Zip, a chatbot guided pairs of siblings through lessons. The UW team found that, after speaking with the app for a week, most children could explain the concept of supportive self-talk and apply it in their daily lives. And kids who’d engaged in negative self-talk before the study were able to turn that habit positive.
The UW team published its findings in June at the 2023 Interaction Design and Children conference. The app is still a prototype (雏形) and is not yet publicly available. Previous studies have shown children can learn various tasks and abilities from chatbots. Yet little research explores how chatbots can help kids effectively acquire socioemotional skills.
“There is room to design child-centric experiences with a chatbot that provide fun and educational practice opportunities,” said senior author Alexis Hiniker, an associate professor in the UW Information School. “Over the last few decades, television programs like ‘Sesame Street,’ ‘Mister Rogers,’ and ‘Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood’ have shown that it is possible for TV to help kids cultivate socioemotional skills. We asked: Can we make a space where kids can practice these skills in an interactive app? We wanted to create something useful and fun— a ‘Sesame Street’ experience for a smart speaker.”
The length of these effects isn’t clear, researchers note. The study spanned just one week and the tendency for survey participants to respond in ways that make them look good could lead kids to speak positively about the app’s effects.
“Our goal is to make the app accessible to a wider audience in the future,” said lead author Chris (Yue) Fu, a UW doctoral student in the iSchool. “We’re exploring the integration of large language models — the systems that power tech like ChatGPT — into our prototype and we plan to work with content creators to adapt existing socioemotional learning materials into our system. The hope is that these will facilitate more prolonged and effective interventions.”
1. What can we learn about Self-Talk?| A．It encouraged kids to engage in positive talking. |
| B．It could help kids explain complicated concepts. |
| C．It could be already downloaded from UW’s website. |
| D．It was welcomed by parents like Siri and Alexa. |
| A．The primary function. | B．The promising prospect. |
| C．The new-found popularity. | D．The historical background. |
| A．Larger amounts of kinds of languages. | B．More characters with different background. |
| C．New technology adopted like ChatGPT. | D．Longer studies in more natural settings. |
| A．Adapt socioemotional material and reform the education system. |
| B．Explore powerful technology and improve its effectiveness. |
| C．Promote socioemotional learning and provide ongoing support. |
| D．Combine large language models and lengthen its service time. |
