【推荐1】Japanese engineer Masaaki Nagumo had always dreamed of operating a robot from “Mobile Suit Gundam”, a popular animation(动画) TV series.It was Nagumo's favourite show when he was a child. The series features huge, human­controlled machines in battle.

Now Nagumo has made the show come to life. Inspired by the machines, he has built a large robot called LW­Mononofu.The farming machinery company Sakakibara Kikai developed it.The robot is 8.5 meters tall, has two legs and weighs more than seven tons.It has a seating area with devices for the pilot to control the robot's arms and legs.

The “Mobile Suit Gundam” series inspired movies, video games and more.And Nagumo thought the robot could be popular as well.“I think this can be turned into a business opportunity.”he said.

Sakakibara Kikai develops robots and entertainment machines in addition to its main agriculture machinery business. At a price of about $930 an hour, people can rent the machines for children's birthday parties and other events. The company has created robots of all sizes. There is the almost 3.5­meter­tall Landwalker, the smaller Kids' Walker Cyclops, and the MechBoxer boxing(拳击) machine.

But the Mononofu stands above them all. It also does more complex movements. It can move its fingers and turn its upper body, and walk forward and backward. However, it moves very slowly—at a speed of less than one kilometer per hour. Although it may be slow, the Mononofu is very powerful.The air gun on its right arm shoots(发射) balls of soft material at 140 kilometers per hour.

“As an animation­inspired robot that one can ride, I think this is the biggest in the world,”Nagumo said. But Mononofu might be a bit too large.It is unable to leave the factory without being taken apart because it was built taller than the entrance.

【推荐2】If you walked by James Fasulo’s bedroom, in Queens, New York, you might hear the 8-year-old talking. You might think he was speaking with a friend, or with his 4-year-old sister, Anna. More likely, James would be talking to his smart speaker, an Echo Dot. “I use it daily,” he says.

James often asks his Dot to tell jokes, report the time and temperature, and play music. And his sister? “She asks it to play songs from Frozen,” he says.

As of December 2017, there were about 67 million smart speakers in households in the United States, according to a study by National Public Radio and Edison Research. A year later, that number had jumped to nearly 119 million. That’s a 78% increase.

“Families are very interested in trying these products,” says Caroline Knorr of Common Sense Media. Kids like James and Anna also love that they are fun.

Smart speakers include devices (设备) such as Google Home and Amazon Echo. Common Sense Media made a survey of more than 1, 000 parents with kids ages 2 to 8. The survey asked about how kids use smart speakers. It also asked about privacy.

Nearly half of the parents said their kids use the speakers, and half of those kids use them daily. Of parents who have, at some point, turned off a smart speaker’s microphone (麦克风), about one-third of them did it because they didn’t trust the device.

“A smart speaker might behave like a human in some of the ways it answers us,” says Florian Schaub, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. “But that’s really a company collecting data (数据) about you. Everything you say to a smart speaker is recorded by these companies.”

“Companies use the recordings in different ways,” Schaub says, “such as to personalize service or decide which ads to play.” If users don’t like this, he suggests they mute the speaker when it’s not in use and consider setting privacy controls.

James Fasulo says he doesn’t worry about privacy. But his mom, Nancy Ellwood, does. “Sometimes, the speaker flashes (闪现) its lights when we’re not talking directly to it, ” she says. “I wonder what it’s doing.”

【推荐3】A very dangerous situation happened in California last week. More than 12 wildfires broke out in the state. Most of them began on September 8, in Northern California. They grew rapidly. The fires were made bigger by winds of up to 50 miles per hour and dry air in the area.

At least 20 people have been killed, the state government said. About 200 have been injured. At least 3,500 homes and businesses have been destroyed. About 50,000 people have been required to evacuate. Many left in a hurry, without time to take their personal things. “All the good stuff (东西)—I’m never going to see it again,” Jeff Okrepkie said. He escaped from his Santa Rosa home. It was destroyed soon after he left.

The fires burned through eight counties (郡). These include Sonoma and Napa, which are important to California’s economy. They are home to many of the state’s vineyards (葡萄园) and wineries (酿酒厂). In 2021, California’s wineries made more than $90 billion.

September is when wildfires usually produce the most ruins in California. But it is unusual for so many fires to start at once. Up to now, the government has not given a cause for any of the fires, many of which were still burning.

(News from VOA September 13,2022)