A famous designer(设计师) and a university student produce a new cup call Vessyl. They have spent several years _______ it. The smart cup can not only tell Coca Cola from Pepsi Cola, _______ also tell people whether they should drink water or not.

When people _________ liquid(液体) into this smart cup, a few seconds(秒) later, it can check this kind of liquid and tell them what it is. Then it gives _________ information of the drink, such as sugar, fat and calorie. When people put the cup in their _______, it can also show them the condition of their bodies. If they are _________, Vessyl can tell them to drink water.

“My partner and I want people to _________ healthy. In modern society, people are usually _________ busy to do exercise, or even drink enough water every day. They have much _________. We produce this smart cup so that people can make a choice __________,” the designer said.

According to a latest report, a few schools in China are using a kind of very special uniform to watch their students’ daily life and stop them from playing truant (旷课).

Such uniforms have tracking chips (追踪芯片) in them which can record the time and date a student enters the school and a short video parents can see through a mobile app.

Once a student doesn’t have class without asking for leave, an alarm will be caused to tell both teachers and parents. And a voice alarm will go off as long as a student leaves school without being allowed. A GPS system also follows a student’s movements once he has left the school.

Eleven schools in Guizhou have used the uniforms which are developed by Guizhou Guanyu Technology. But the company’s project manager said the school wouldn’t use the tracking system during out-of-school hours. The project manager said that fewer and fewer students had been absent since the uniforms were used in some schools.

However, the uniforms have been criticized (批评) on social media. “If you were a child, would you like to be watched 24 hours a day?” one Weibo user asked. “Don’t children have human rights and privacy?” added another user.

A headmaster in Guizhou said that although teachers were able to track students at all times, they did not use this technology often.

“We choose not to check the position of students after school, but when the students are missing and playing truant, the uniforms help to find out where they are,” the headmaster said.

If you watch the sky for about an hour after the sun goes down, you may see some moving stars. But they’re not real stars. They’re man-made satellites (人造卫星). And the biggest of all is the International Space Station(ISS). From May to July is the best season to watch the ISS flying over the earth. And people can see it with their eyes.

The ISS is the biggest satellite and scientists want to live on it. They think that the best way to learn more about space is to live there.

When the space station is finished, it will be like a city in space. People will stay and study there with many of the things they have at home. Laboratories, living rooms and power stations are being built. The ISS is the most expensive space program. Billions of dollars are being spent on it every year.

Scientists hope that the ISS will be a stepping stone for future space exploration(探测). “The ISS will help us understand the human body better, explore space and study the earth. It can help us make life on the earth better,” said Kathryn Clark, an ISS scientist.

Sixteen countries are part of the program: the US, Russia, Canada, Japan, Brazil and 11 European countries. China isn’t an ISS country, but it has helped with some of the experiments. In 2003, China sent some rice up to the ISS to find out what space would do to it.

Humans’ Greatest Achievements

The Earth is about 4.6 billion years old, but the humans have lived on it for just 200,000 years. In that short time, we have achieved some amazing things.

    21     The list is almost endless. The invention of the airplane has changed our lives. The discovery of antibiotics( 抗生素 ) has saved the lives of millions of people. Can you imagine living without electricity? What about the printing press(印刷术) ? Without the printing press, you wouldn’t be reading this. In the last 50 years, there have been great achievements in communication, such as radio, TV, computers, the Internet. and smartphones(智能手机).     22       

What about the arts? The arts have brought pleasure to many people, but are the Beatles and Bach more important than antibiotics?     23    

Finally, we must not forget humans’ early achievements.     24     We can’t imagine modern life without cooked food and cars.

What are humans’ greatest achievements? To answer the question, we need to decide what we mean by “great”.     25     Or is it just something that makes us say “Wow”, like the Great Wall? What do you think?

The Internet is shaping our lives. We already have online shopping services and mobile payment. However, this is just a start. The world’s leading tech companies are planning to build smarter online communities.     26     It was held in Wuzhen, Zhejiang last year.

The company Alibaba uses AI technology in its unmanned supermarket in Wuzhen. There is no salesperson in the supermarket, just a tablet on a desk that says “please smile”.     27     The bigger you smile, the more discounts (折扣) you get.

There is also AI that can read lips.     28     It recognizes your mouth’s movements and turns them into voice or text messages. This could be very useful when you are trying to talk to someone on your phone in a noisy place.

    29     Microsoft’s chatbox Xiaole can not only provide useful information, but also chat with people like a real friend. Xiaole has a WeChat account. After following the account, users can start talking with her.     30     She keeps improving herself by talking with users.

These technologies are being put into wider use. We may see a smarter world and better lives in the near future.