【推荐2】A batch of new houses across California is selling unusually fast. In the past two months, 82 have been snapped up, and the waiting list is 1,000 long. That demand should, though, soon be satisfied—for, while it can take weeks to put up a conventional bricks-and-mortar dwelling (砖混住宅), the constructors behind these houses are able to build one in less than 24 hours. They can do it so rapidly because their products are collected from prefabricated (预制的) components printed in a factory.

Three-dimensional printing has been around since the early 1980s, but is now developing fast. It is already employed to make things ranging from orthopaedic (整形外科的) implants to components for aircraft. The details vary according to the products and processes involved, but the underlying principle is the same. A layer of material is laid down and somehow fixed in place. Then another is put on top of it. Then another. By varying the shape and the composition, objects can be crafted that would be difficult or impossible to produce with conventional techniques.

Not only does 3D printing allow greater versatility (用途广泛) and faster construction, it also promises a more environmentally friendly approach. That may make it a useful answer to two challenges now facing the world: a shortage of housing and climate change. More than 20% of Earth’s population lack adequate accommodation. And the construction industry is responsible for 11% of the world’s man-made carbon-dioxide emissions. An important benefit is that there is less need to move lots of heavy stuff. Palari Homes, for instance, estimates that prefabricating its products reduces the number of lorry journeys sufficiently to cut two tonnes off the amount of carbon dioxide released per home. If successful, building by 3D printing is likely to spread beyond housing. Opportunities also exist in warehousing, offices and other commercial buildings.

【推荐3】We’re growing more used to chatting to our computers, phones and smart speakers through voice assistants. Out of these assistants, Siri is the most well-known spoken web. Blind people have been using text-to-speech assistant for decades.     1    

Some think voice could soon take over from clicking as the main way to interact online. They believe online interaction would soon depend mainly on voice.     2    

Building the spoken web—web-to-voice and voice-to-web—is by no means an easy task. For software to answer simple questions about the weather and play music for us is easy.     3     Artificial intelligence isn’t smart enough yet. Even turning your voice into text is one of the hardest problems to solve. There are as many ways to pronounce things as there are people on the planet.

Using voice interaction feels far closer than surfing the net the old-fashioned way.     4     But if something speaks, it must also listen. Our phones are always near us and they are constantly collecting their personal information. This has already raised privacy concerns. People worry assistants will one day be used to deliver advertising directly to us.

    5     In environments when one’s hands are occupied, such as while driving or cooking, the spoken web is helpful. Think about when you are cooking, it is natural to talk. And speech obviously makes sense when you are driving. On the other hand, in a quiet library, using voice commands to ask a question may not be as suitable as typing, as it could disturb others. The effectiveness of using voice depends on the specific surroundings.

【推荐3】"Where there are Chinese speakers, there are his readers." That sentence highlights the huge influence of Louis Cha –Zha Liangyong, better known by his penname Jin Yong, one of the most influential Chinese novelists. Over 300 million copies of his books have been sold in the Chinese-speaking world alone.

Cha died on Tuesday afternoon, at the age of 94 in Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital, surrounded by family members, according to sources close to him. This news recorded 1.27 billion views, slightly less than China's population, on Sina Weibo.

In 1955, Cha published his first wuxia novel The Book and the Sword in the then New Evening Post using the penname Jin Yong. He wrote 15 popular wuxia novels, his last, The Deer and the Cauldron, was published in 1972. His novels have been made into films, TV and radio series, and deeply influenced the cultural development of Chinese-speaking communities around the world.

Cha also co-founded Hong Kong's major Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao in 1959, and served as its editor-in-chief until retiring in 1989. During those 30 years, he wrote more than 7,000 editorials, covering a variety of global and domestic topics.

In May, 1967, when there were violent conflicts between the local police and some striking workers in Hong Kong, Cha wrote editorials all week calling for an end to the violence and for society to unite. In a most important of them, he wrote:

"We come from all regions and now we are one community. Hong Kong is home to us all."

In their condolences to his family, many people called Cha a "hero" even though he considered himself a writer of hero stories.

That's because of the humanistic concerns in both his novels and his newspaper articles. In all his wuxia stories, he shows a strong anti-war tendency. In The Legend of the Condor Heroes, one of his most famous novels, he wrote how Genghis Khan was moved by the hero's words and regretted his killings before his death.