【推荐1】Reading on the go

A standard reading app for eBooks and audiobooks, FReader supports a variety of formats. The program is very pleasant to the eye and is adjustable to various spectrums (光谱). Apart from being a reading app, FReader has an integrated translator for five languages (English, Russian, German, French, and Ukrainian), making the app attractive to people across the world. You can also select a section of the page you are reading and share it via social networks, Bluetooth, SMS and other methods.

Although it can read every type of book, AlReader is specially designed for Sci-Fi lovers. The app doesn’t support iOS but you can open many book formats on your Android phone. This app has enhanced graphical (图解的) features and a wide range of customization options that focus on providing the best quality for fictional book reading.

Nook is strongly integrated with the online store Banes & Noble, where you can find over a million free books on their website or purchase new titles for the price of as low as $0.99. You can also buy you eBooks anywhere and they will automatically appear in the Nook library. The app supports most eBook formats.

Scribd has come a long way from the document-reading app it was initially. Today, it is one of the most famous programs with over a million titles in its library. Upon registration, you get a 30-day demoaccount that lets you read all the books you want for free! Apart from books, Scribd provides comic books, audiobooks articles, scientific studies, court cases and uncommon genres that no other app offers. You can even publish your own book on this platform.

【推荐2】Think the world loves your selfies as much as you do? Not exactly.

It’s become something of a ritual for many of us. When you’ve binge-watched everything on Netflix and you are tired of online shopping, you head to the bathroom to put on your very best makeup. Your goal is clear; to get the perfect selfie for Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat…or, more likely, all of the above. After perfecting your eyeliner and curling your lashes, you’re ready. You hold up your phone, pout those lips real tight, and in an instant, snap.

But wait, have you ever wondered what’s behind your burning desire to self-document? Most people would say that this is a form of expression or perhaps even a way of boosting their self-esteem. Whatever your reasons may be, the moment you upload that picture, it’s no longer yours to judge. Indeed, you pass over that immense power to the online world.

While you may think that your ever-growing collection of selfies endears people to you, quite the opposite may be true. That is, at least, according to a recent study, conducted by Sarah Diefenbach, a professor at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich and published in Frontiers in Psychology. Diefenbach surveyed a total of 238 people in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland to find out how many people regularly take and upload selfies and what they thought when others did the same thing.

Rather unsurprisingly, a massive 77 percent of the people surveyed admitted to being obsessed with regularly taking selfies. What was more interesting, though, was the fact that an astonishing 82 percent of people said that they would rather see other selfies on social media.Diefenbach calls this the “selfies paradox”: the idea that we like taking selfies but seriously dislike looking at other people’s selfies online.

The research didn’t just inquire into whether we want to see selfies, but also looked at how we view our own selfies as opposed to those of others. According to the results, people tend to see the selfies they like as “ self-ironic” and “authentic”,   whereas   they   think   that   other   people’s   selfies   as   “less   authentic”   and   more “self-presentational”.

In short, this research suggests that there is a massive gulf of difference between how we see our own selfies and how we judge other people’s pictures. It suggests that we are comfortable with the selfies we post since we believe they are obviously not serious or vain, but we think everyone else is a total egotist for doing the very same thing.

“This may explain how everybody can take selfies without feeling narcissistic. If most people think like this, then it is no wonder that the world is full of selfies,” explains Diefenbach. So, as illogical as it sounds, this could be why weunashamedly post selfies and then judge other people for doing so. Somehow, we are able to separate our own selfies from the sea of them online and naively think that ours are the only authentic ones.

So, the next time you idly reach for your phone and flick through the filters, consider this: The people around you may not need another carefully planned snap of your face. Instead, you might be better off, giving it a break and calling off the selfie photo shoot today. While you’re at it, make sure you never post these pictures on social media either.

【推荐3】The recent world chess championship saw Magnus Carlsen defend his title against Fabiano Caruana. But it was not a contest between the two strongest chess players on the planet, only the strongest humans. Soon after Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion, lost his re-match against IBM’s Deep Blue in 1997, the short window of human-machine chess competition was shut forever. Unlike humans, machines keep getting faster, and today a smartphone chess app can be stronger than Deep Blue.

In the late 19th century, Alfred Binet hoped that understanding why certain people stood out at chess would unlock secrets of human thought. Sixty years later, Alan Turing wondered whether this sort of ability represents an essential difference between the potentialities of the machine and the mind. Much as airplanes don’t flap their wings like birds, machines don’t generate chess moves like humans do. Early programs that attempted it were weak.

But now things are different. Based on a common game-playing algorithm(算法), AlphaZero incorporates deep learning and other AI techniques to play against itself to generate its own chess knowledge.   AlphaZerostarts   out   knowing   only   the   rules   of   chess,   with   no   inserted   human strategies(策略). In just a few hours, it plays more games against itself than have been recorded in human chess history. It teaches itself the best way to play, reevaluating such fundamental concepts as the relative values of the pieces.It quickly becomes strong enough to defeat the best chess-players in the world, winning 28, drawing 72, and losing none in a victory over Stockfish, one of the strongest chess engines.

The conventional wisdom is that machines would approach perfection with endlessstrategies, usually leading to drawn games. But AlphaZero prefers positions that look risky and aggressive, and it programs itself, which allows it to outclass the world’s top traditional program despite calculating far fewer positions per second. It’s the example of the cliché, “work smarter, not harder.”

AlphaZero shows us that machines can be the experts, not merely expert tools. It’s not going to put chess coaches out of business just yet. But the knowledge it generates is information we can all learn from. AlphaZero is surpassing us in a profound and useful way.

Machine learning systems aren’t perfect, even at a closed system like chess. There will be cases where an AI will fail to detect exceptions to their rules. Therefore, we must work together, to combine our strengths. Instead of being angry against them, it’s better if we’re all on the same side.

【推荐1】Litterati is an app that people can use to upload information about litter they collect outside, such as its appearance, material, location, and brand. Shared online, this information contributes to building a global database of “litter maps”, which can influence policy and packaging design.

“Society’s failure to solve the litter problem is not from a lack of trying. There have been public service announcements, and coastal cleanups. But I believe two components are missing from the discussion — community and data,” said Jeff Kirschner, the developer of Litterati app.

Uploading pictures to an app shows users that they are not the only ones picking up litter from public places and that others are invested in cleaning the planet, too. And the data accumulates rapidly, telling a story that helps people understand who picked up what, where, and when. In this way, people are encouraged to do more.

In San Francisco, the Litterati app was able to identify and map more than 5,000 pieces of litter in order to determine how much was caused by cigarettes specifically. Using this information, the city successfully challenged a lawsuit by tobacco companies and doubled an existing cigarette sales tax, bringing in US $4 million annual revenue (税收).

By joining forces with others using the same platform, individuals are able to take their anti-litter activism to another level. The power of combined data leads to more Extended Producer Responsibility, which is precisely what we want and advocate here — producers are forced to be responsible for dealing with their own products once consumers no longer find them useful and areincentivizedto create more environmentally friendly packaging or better policies as a result of that new responsibility.

Litterati takes a refreshingly non-judgmental approach. It shows a positive we-can-do-it attitude. Just as Jeff Kirschner said, “Our goal isn’t to shame. It’s to provide transparency to the problem. We provide access to data and share insights with cities, citizens and businesses, guiding us all to identify the root cause of the problem, and make informed decisions of how to clean the planet.”

【推荐2】“Developed and developing nations can learn from each other seeking a low-carbon economy. In terms of energy saving and green economy, China doesn’t lag behind developed nations,” said Zhou Changyi, director of the energy saving department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

“While we can learn many aspects from developed nations, they also should learn something from us, such as water conservation,” Zhou said in a speech during the new Path of China’s Industrialization forum at the ongoing China International Industry Fair.

He said industrialized nations and China are dealing with different issues to fight climate change. The United Kingdom, for example, is concerned about transport, buildings and new energy in reducing carbon emissions. For China, the most urgent task is how to realize new type of industrialization and avoid mistakes that other countries made when they industrialized.

Swiss power and automation technology group ABB called for a stronger focus on product life-cycle assessment, or LCA, which is used to study the environmental impact of a product from the research and manufacturing stage through its usage and recycling.

Tobias Becker, head of ABB’s process automation division for North Asia and China, said LCA is an effective tool in helping manufacturing industries to reduce carbon emissions.

LCA shows that industrial customers should focus on a product’s environmental impact throughout its life-cycle instead of on its initial investment.

Richard Hausmann, North East Asia CEO of Siemens, said, “The color of future industrialization is green. ”

The Germany company recently announces that it wants to receive orders worth more than 6 billion Euros ( US 8. 8 billion) for intelligent power networks, Smart Grid, over the next five years. Siemens has set a 20 percent market share target for the global smart grid business.

A smart grid delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using digital technology, advanced sensors specialized computers that save energy, reduce costs and increase reliability. The United States and China are considered the two biggest markets for smart grid.

【推荐3】A study shows that the more eco-conscious way to shop is going to a physical store rather than by making purchases online from companies that don't have physical stores. Researchers estimated that shopping at physical stores for frequently bought items such as toilet paper, shampoo and toothpaste, often results in less greenhouse gas emissions than ordering the products from a company that only sells through the Internet.

The main reason is because of how people shop online： Many buy items online frequently — but they only buy a few items per purchase. Frequent online purchases produce more packaging waste, and online items tend to come from different distribution centers. Both factors result in higher greenhouse gas emissions per item.

The team modeled their research on the movement of goods from the factory all the way through to the end consumer. They analyzed the carbon footprint of the "last mile delivery" for the three most popular types of shopping channels in the United Kingdom — physical stores, "brick & clicks" (when people order online and a physical store delivers the items to them) , and "pure players” (strictly online sellers). Included in the three models were greenhouse gas emissions estimates from the number of products bought, transportation, warehouse storage , delivery and packaging activities.

The analysis showed that total greenhouse gas footprints per item purchased were higher from physical stores than those from bricks & clicks purchases in 63% of the shopping events but lower than those of pure players in 81 % of shopping events in the United Kingdom. In the United States, greenhouse gas emissions from shopping at physical stores were also estimated to be higher than from the brick & click channel, and lower than the pure play channel, on average.

This pattern holds true in countries where people mostly drive. It really depends on the country and consumer behavior there.