【推荐1】I have been using the Internet since I was five years old, when my dad first sat me down in front of a computer and connected me to the World Wide Web.

I’ve always felt like a master of the Internet world. AOL Instant Messaging, MSN, Gmail, Facebook, Myspace—I’ve got them all under control. I thought there was nothing more to it besides checking my email and wasting my time, until I was introduced to e-commerce: business on the Internet.

My friends often said they got cheap textbooks off Amazon.com, or had a good deal on Steve Madden boots that were on sale at SteveMadden.com. Unfortunately for me, I continued my “e-commerce-less” Web-surfing, unaware of all the deals I was missing out on.

That is, of course, until my sister finally sold the idea to me.

“Why are all these packages arriving in the mail for you, Katy?” I asked her one day. Strange envelopes had been put on our doorstep for weeks now, each one always addressed to my sister.

“Oh, it’s the stuff I ordered online!” she answered. I watched in surprise as she opened item after item. There was no way our parents were letting her spend that much money—online or off!

“How much did all of this cost?”

“Oh, only about $15 in all!” She said excitedly. “Everything on eBay is on sale! It’s better than going to the mall.”

I felt as if in my entire life, there had been a store right in my backyard that I had never walked into! That week, I ordered a used Spanish textbook for my summer course online for 10 percent of the publishing price. A few days later, I bought an iPod protector and a book or two via the wonderful eBay.com.

【推荐2】While ChatGPT answered a variety of questions raised by testers successfully, some responses were noticeably off. In fact, Stack Overflow—a website for programmers—didn’t allow users to share information from ChatGPT, saying that it’s “harmful to the site and to users who are asking or looking for correct answers.”

Beyond the issue of spreading incorrect information, the tool could also be used to explain problematic thoughts, and as with all AI tools, spread biases (偏见) based on the pool of data on which it’s trained. Typing something involving a CEO, for example, could arouse a response assuming that the individual is white and male, for example.

“While we’ve made efforts to make the model refuse unsuitable requests, it will sometimes respond to harmful instructions or exhibit biased behavior,” OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, said on its website.“We’re using the Moderation API to warn or stop certain types of unsafe content, but it still has some false negatives and positives for now. We’re eager to collect user feedback (反馈) to aid our ongoing work to improve this system.”

Still, Lian Jye Su, a research director at market research company ABI Research, warns the chatbot is operating “without understanding the context of the language.”

“It is very easy for ChatGPT to give plausible-sounding (听起来合理) but incorrect or senseless answers,” he said.“It guessed when it was supposed to explain and sometimes responded to harmful instructions or exhibited biased behavior. It also lacks regional and country-specific understanding.”

While ChatGPT is free, it does put a limit on the number of questions a user can raise before having to pay. When Elon Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, recently asked Altman on Twitter about the average cost per ChatGPT chat, Altman said:“We will have to monetize (货币化) it somehow at some point; the compute costs are eye-watering.”

【推荐3】Children spend more time messaging each other on phones and websites than talking in Person, a survey has revealed. Text messages and social networking sites have become the common mode of youngsters aged 8 to 14.

A survey of modern childhood found that many youngsters are conscious that they are spending too much time on their computers and enjoy themselves the most when playing outside. But the lure of electronic products proves too strong for a quarter, while a fifth say their parents don’t like them playing outside because they are worried about strangers and injuries.

The “iGeneration report” suggested that youngsters are increasingly health-conscious and skeptical (特怀疑态度的) of commercialization, including gender-based labelling on toys and pop videos released by singers. More than half of those questioned care about eating healthily and one in 10 lectures their own parents about the food they are eating or buying, 42 percent of those questioned own a smart phone, with 36 percent admitting spending more time communicating with friends via instant messaging, such as texts or networking websites, than talking in person. Only one child in 100 said that being happy, having a loving family and being clever were taken as the most crucial (决定性的) elements in their lives.

Cary Cooper, the professor of organizational psychology and health at Lancaster University, said social media were contributing to youngsters becoming more independent. They had a sense of individuality due to exposure to a range of media.

The survey follows major state backed research which found that youngsters are turning their back on drink, drugs and smoking. It found a dramatic drop in the number of secondary school students trying and regularly using drugs, alcohol and tobacco. Some analysts said that thanks to the rise of social media, millions of teenagers are spending their time at home in their rooms rather than out on the streets.

【推荐2】The Speaker was the title of an eight-part television series. It was produced by the BBC in the UK. The aim of the series was to find Britain’s best young speaker.

Young people between the ages of 14 and 18 from across the country were invited to take part in The Speaker. Applicants included tough-talking teens, jokers, and shy, sensitive types. The one thing they had in common was a desire(渴望) to talk publicly and enthusiastically about what was important to them.

Each applicant was asked to prepare and film a one-minute speech on any subject-from pop music to politics, from hooligans(小流氓) to homework. From all the entries received, 160 speakers were chosen by three judges. These speakers were invited to the next stage of regional auditions(海选), where they had to deliver their one-minute speech again, but this time in front of the judging panel(评审团) and an audience. Of the 160 speakers, only 20 were selected by the judges to go through to the next stage. They then had to give another speech on a subject they were given only seconds before making the speech. Some competitors also had to speak about a picture, again without any preparation.

The final eight were then coached by celebrity mentors(指导老师) and given new challenges to help improve their speaking skills. Their speeches were judged by the judges and their mentor. By the last part in the series, which was shown at the end of April 2009, only three competitors remained. They were taken on a research trip to Malawi, where they found out first hand the effects of children’s rights, ahead of their final speech. Duncan Harrison, a 14-year-old schoolboy from Bristol was chosen as the winner by the judges and mentors.

When asked what makes a good speaker, the actor, director and teacher, Jeremy Stockwell, who was one of the judges on the series, said, “An effective speaker must know and trust who they are, what they have to say, and why they have to say u. Whether you’re playing Hamlet, delivering a political message or presenting a school meeting, you must have a story to tell, a message to pass on and a clear sense of purpose.”

【推荐3】Pandas are famously picky eaters. They only consume bamboo — a poor quality diet low in fat. But the creatures appear to have evolved to get the most out of what they do eat, according to a new study.

Their gut (肠道)bacteria change in late spring and early summer when bamboo is at its most nutritious——while protein-rich green shoots are coming out. The bacteria make the panda gain more weight and store more fat, which researchers said may compensate for a lack of nutrients later in the year, when bamboo plants have only fibrous leaves to chew.

“We’ve known these pandas have a different set of gut microbiota during the shoot-eating season for a long time, and it’s very obvious that they are chubbier during this time of the year,”said lead study author Guangping Huang, a researcher for the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

To investigate how the gut bacteria could affect a panda’s digestion, the team first collected the wastes of eight wild giant pandas in China’s Qinling Mountains during both leaf-eating season and shoot-eating season and then examined how the waste samples differed. They found a bacterium called Clostridium butyricum was more abundant in the pandas^’ guts during the season when they enjoy the fresh bamboo shoots.

To understand whether this bacterium helps the pandas gain and store weight, the researchers put the panda wastes they collected into lab mice. Then they fed the mice for three weeks with a bamboo-based diet that simulated (模仿)what pandas eat. Researchers found the mice which were transplanted with panda wastes collected during shoot-eating season gained significantly more weight than the ones which were not, despite consuming same amount of food.

“The gut bacteria were the only variable (变量)in this research,” Wei explained. However, Felix Sommer at Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Germany, noted the number of pandas studied was small and that the experiment had only been performed once. Sommer also stressed the researchers had found a link, not a causal relationship between the bacteria and weight gain.