【推荐1】Louis Braille was born in France in 1809. Sadly when he was a little boy, he had an accident. By the time he was four years old, he was completely blind. However, at the age of ten, Louis was lucky enough to go to one of the first schools for blind children in Paris. At this particular school they had special books. They were written in ordinary French but the letters raised up off the page, so that the students could feel the shape of the words and read them. But there were two problems with this system. First, the letters were huge and difficult to read. Second, the books were very expensive so the school library only had fourteen altogether. Louis, who was very clever and creative, thought of a better way to improve books for blind people to read.

In 1821, when Louis was twelve years old a soldier came to his school. This man had invented a system for soldiers to send and receive messages in the dark. This system used small dots for the letters. Soldiers used this system in time of war. Braille thought this system could help the blind to read. Soon Braille discovered that there were some shortcomings (缺点) in this system, but it gave him a brilliant idea. He improved the system. By the age of fifteen, his new system was completed! And by 1827 the first book using his system was published.

It still took a long time before people realised what a wonderful invention Brailles system was. In fact, Louis died in 1852 and did not live to see the success of his system, which has been adapted to almost every language in the world. Today we call this system Braille in honour of Louis Braille. Thanks to him, blind or weak-sighted people are able to read or write as well as any sighted person.

【推荐3】Whether in the home or the workplace, social robots are going to become a lot more common in the next few years. Social robots are about to bring technology to the everyday world in a more humanized way, said Cynthia Breazeal, chief scientist at the robot company Jibo.

While household robots today do the normal housework, social robots will be much more like companions than mere tools. For example, these robots will be able to distinguish when someone is happy or sad. This allows them to respond more appropriately to the user.

The Jibo robot, arranged to ship later this year, is designed to be a personalized assistant. You can talk to the robot, ask it questions, and make requests for it to perform different tasks. The robot doesn’t just deliver general answers to questions; it responds based on what it learns about each individual in the household. It can do things such as reminding an elderly family member to take medicine or taking family photos.

Social robots are not just finding their way into the home. They have potential applications in everything from education to health care and are already finding their way into some of these spaces.

Fellow Robots is one company bringing social robots to the market. The company’s “Oshbot” robot is built to assist customers in a store, which can help the customers find items and help guide them to the product’s location in the store. It can also speak different languages and make recommendations for different items based on what the customer is shopping for.

The more interaction the robot has with humans, the more it learns. But Oshbot, like other social robots, is not intended to replace workers, but to work alongside other employees. “We have technologies to train social robots to do things not for us, but with us,” said Breazeal.