【推荐2】In business, there’s a speed difference: It’s the difference between how important a firm’s leaders say speed is to their competitive strategy and how fast the company actually moves. The difference is important regardless of industry and company size. Companies fearful of losing their competitive advantage spend much time and money looking for ways to pick up the speed.

In our study of 343 businesses, the companies that chose to go, go to try to gain an edge ended up with lower sales and operating incomes than those that paused at key moments to make sure they were on the right track. What’s more, the firms that “slowed down to speed up” improved their top and bottom lines, averaging 40% higher sales and 52% higher operating incomes over a three-year period.

How did they disobey the laws of business physics, taking more time than competitors yet performing better? They thought differently about what “slower” and “faster” mean. Firms sometimes fail to understand the difference between operational speed (moving quickly) and strategic speed (reducing the time it takes to deliver value). Simply increasing the speed of production, for example, may be one way to try to reduce the speed difference. But that often leads to reduced value over time, in the form of lower-quality products and services.

In our study, higher-companies with strategic speed always made changes when necessary. They became more open to ideas and discussion. They encouraged new ways of thinking. And they allowed time to look back and learn. By contrast, performance suffered at firms that moved fast all the time, paid too much attention to improving efficiently, stuck to tested methods, didn’t develop team spirit among their employees, and had little time thinking about changes.

Strategic speed serves as a kind of leadership. Teams that regularly take time to get things right, rather than plough ahead full bore, are more successful in meeting their business goals. That kind of strategy must come from the top.

【推荐3】Internet has been a powerful force fueling economic growth across Europe, North America and Asia over the past several decades. Further globalization will bring far more profits in the future. To help those countries in poverty and expand trade worldwide to benefit all the mankind, Africa is the next frontier（地区）for the internet.

Digital reforms have taken off quickly in Africa, partly because the younger generation is more ready for adoption of new technologies. Compared to aging populations in developed countries, the average age in Africa is 19.2 years old. While less than half the population has access to electricity, two-fifths own a mobile phone.

With the growing demand for being connected, a number of mobile carriers are now seeking to expand network coverage in Africa. Governments of African countries are also pushing for the network construction as they recognize that communications and renewable energy play an important role in the development of their countries.

In recent years, the majority of the investment（投资）into Africa has come from China. Direct investment from China has grown 40% annually over the past decade, far more than investment from other economic partners, including the US. Huawei, ZTE and China Telecom have all entered the field. Huawei recently announced that it was launching a 5G transport network in South Africa, the first company to expand 5G network in this area. Meanwhile, Western governments are planning to do more to invest in Africa to maintain their economic relationships with it. That has received support from many tech giants like Facebook, which recently announced plans to lay a 37,000 kilometers of subsea cable network to build a direct high-speed internet connection between 16 countries in Africa with Europe and the Middle East.

Expanding network connectivity across Africa will open up digital services that many of us take for granted, like mobile banking, e-education and online shopping. Because the global economy is so closely linked, the increase in internet access will not only power economic growth and create new markets in Africa, but encourage development in other fields and around the world.

【推荐1】Robots in the art world are nothing new. In fact, for centuries, people have built robots as art objects. However, what’s different now is that artists and engineers are building robots that actually create art.

In 1973, British-born painter Harold Cohen wrote a computer program and called it AARON. At first, AARON only made simple outlines whose color and details Cohen would later add. Fifty years later, AARON is able to paint anything a human could paint. So can AARON be called an artist or creative? In 2010, Cohen explained, “Although he wrote the initial computer code that AARON follows, AARON can generate unlimited numbers of images.” So according to Cohen, the simple answer is yes-AARON is creative.

It’s not just paintings that robots are creating, though. Last year, a robot called Shimon released is first album (唱片) on Spotify. Shimon began life as a simple robot marimba (木琴) player. Over the years, however, it’s learned how to perform with other musicians, write original songs. Shimon does this by analyzing huge amounts of music—roughly 50,000 rock, jazz and hip-hop songs-to identify patterns and then uses that information to create original works.

It may be cool to hear a song created by a robot, but is there any other reason to build robots that can play music? According to Gil Weinberg, one of Shimon’s creators, because the robot is capable of doing things that a real musician might not think of, he and his team “hope and believe that these new abilities would lead to new directions that could not be achieved in human-to-human cooperation.”

While questions about robots creating art are fun to think about, there are many other ways that robots can help artists in the way they create their works. For example, advancements in 3D-printing technology will allow artists to build more complex pieces for their sculptures. Therefore, robots in the art world are here to stay.

【推荐2】Doing away with naps (小睡)disturbs children's ability to process and remember the information they learn at school, researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst argued in a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers examed the memory retention (保留)skills of 40 preschool students by playing a memory-like game with them during regular school hours. In one condition, the kids took their regular classroom nap after the memory game, averaging 77 minutes of sleep. In the second condition, children were kept awake for the same amount of time.

Researchers examed the kids' recall (回忆)later that same day and the following day, and found the nappers remembered about 75% of what they had learned in the game-a full 10% better than the kids who went without a nap.

“While the children performed about the same immediately after learning in both the nap and wake conditions, the children performed significantly better when they napped both in the afternoon and the next day,” the study authors wrote. “That means that when they miss a nap, children cannot recover this benefit of sleep with their overnight sleep. It seems that there is an additional benefit of having the sleep occur in close proximity (临近)to the learning.”

As evidence increases to support the positive effects of attending preschool on future school performance, some parents and educators have questioned whether in-school naptime should be replaced with more learning.

These results provide some of the first scientific evidence for the benefits of naps, said study author Rebecca Spencer, professor of psychology at UMass Amherst. “Until now, there was nothing to support teachers who feel that naps can really help young children. There had been no specific science behind that,” Spencer said in a statement. “We hope these results will be used by policy makers to make educated decisions regarding the nap chances in the classrooms. Children should not only be given the chances, they also should be encouraged to sleep by creating an environment which supports sleep.”

【推荐3】The long, white robot weighs more than 450 kilograms. Like other robots, it is equipped with cameras and mechanical arms to automatically perform many different jobs.

Angus is a major part of operations at Alexander’s indoor robot farm about 40 kilometers south of San Francisco. The 743-square-meter farm uses a hydroponic system that grows plants without soil. The plants grow inside equipment that provides a continuous flow of water. The indoor farm uses electrical light instead of sunlight.

This kind of farm uses much less water and does not require human labor to run. The main job for Angus is to transfer thousands of plants around the farm, from small containers to larger ones as they grow. Angus also carries plants to another robot that does not have a name yet. Angus moves slowly to complete its work. But the robot is very strong and can lift about 300 kilograms.

For now, the farm uses humans to collect vegetables and other crops when they are ready. But Alexander says he is working on a robot that will eventually take over that job too.

Alexander helped start the company Iron Ox after leaving Google, where he worked on robotics at the company’s Google X project. He teamed up with another former Google employee, Jon Binney. Together they founded Iron Ox.

Iron Ox’s website says the hydroponic growing system uses 90 percent less water. It also says the growing method is up to 30 times more productive than growing crops on land.

Alexander says growing food robotically throughout the year in major cities will provide more consistent(一致的) and fresh products. Most of the vegetables sold in the U.S. are grown in California, Arizona, Mexico and other nations. That means many people in the U.S. cities are eating vegetables that are nearly a week old by the time they arrive at stores.

Indoor farms operate all year round and are not generally affected by bad weather. This will permit the company to provide a steady flow of goods without major price changes.