【推荐2】What do you think is the most important invention in the last 1,000 years? Many people say that it’s the printing press (印刷机) that allows us to print copies or books.Why is the printing press so important in human history?

Before the printing press was invented, books were copied by hand. An ancient Roman book trader sometimes sold as many as 5,000 copies of a book that had been copied by slaves (奴隶), copying a book took so much time and was so expensive. As a result, usually only a small part of the people learned to read and owned books.

In 1450, Johannes Gutenberg from Germany invented the modern printing press. The effect of his machine is sometimes compared to the invention of the Internet. Gutenberg’s printing press was easy to use with languages such as English that had alphabetic (字母的) words. After 1450, thousands of copies of a popular book or newspaper could be made quickly and cheaply. Books and newspapers with ideas and images from all over the world went into the market for the wide public.

Reading has brought about amazing changes in science and technology. We’ve learned how to create wealth (财富) and even travel to far places. Computers, mobile phones, because millions of readers were created by the printing press.

Since 1450, more and more people have become readers. These readers help the world to make progress at a fast speed.

【推荐3】Researchers at Georgia Tech have been working to improve a musical robot called Shimon. Now Shimon doesn’t simply play music, he also writes the words to his own songs and sings them.

Shimon has been around for quite a while as a musical robot. Even back in 2015, he was playing with other musicians at the Kennedy Center in New York. What Shimon could do back then was already pretty cool.

Using AI（人工智能）, Shimon was taught to write his own music. ① For Shimon, that meant he could not only make up his own music, but do it in real time, while playing with other musicians.

Now Shimon can write the words to his own songs. ② Shimon learned to write the words for the songs the same way he learned to write music—by being “fed” thousands and thousands of examples. Shimon was trained on the lyrics （歌词） to 50, 000 songs.

Georgia Tech professor Gil Weinberg, who leads the Shimon project, gets Shimon going with a starting idea. Shimon then writes the lyrics based around that idea. “You’ll get a word like ‘storm’, and then it’ll produce a lot of relational words, like ‘wind’ and ‘rain’.” He says Shimon gets many ideas, keeps the good ones, and builds on them.

③ To give Shimon a voice, the Georgia Tech team worked with experts at Pompeu Fabra University in Spain. The voice was created using AI and sounds very much like a man.

④ To show off Shimon and his new abilities, the researchers have recorded one of Shimon’s songs, called “Into Your Mind”. They have made a video for the song, which is out on Youlube.

Later this spring, the team plans to put out an album（专辑） of about 8—10 of Shimon’s songs. There are also plans for Shimon to go on tour with a band to play and sing his songs live.

For Mr Weinberg, that’s the main goal behind the Shimon project—not to have robots take over, but to have robots and humans make something beautiful together.

【推荐1】Smart home technology doesn’t just mean using apps and automation (自动化). For example, you can now be sitting at the office and simply tell your smart home to turn on the lamps at sunset, or wake up and order the curtains to rise as you do. But things that support voice demands aren’t just for young people, either.

The Puleyuan Nursing Home (普乐园敬老院) in South Beijing is a good example. All the electronic devices in the rooms are controlled by smart speaker Tmall Genie (天猫精灵).

The machine, developed by Alibaba, started as a speaker that can play whatever music or audio programs when it was asked to play.

Rooms equipped with it can detect human presence, as well as temperature, which ensure the safety of the environment for the people. At night, it can also sense (检测) wake-up movements and automatically turn on the lights.

Besides, the idea of a voice-controlled home will make nursing homes an even more attractive choice for the elderly, and they are totally affordable. A Tmall Genie costs 499 yuan and other sensors are around 100 yuan. People don’t have to pay extra for these services.

More than one million Chinese families are using Tmall Genie. China will have 400 million people aged 60 or more before 2033. A Tmall Genie makes it easier to look after the elderly.

【推荐3】My neighbor, Mr. Black, is seventy years old. He always complains about how fast things have changed, and often says that life used to be better than nowadays.

Now cities are full of cars. Some families even have two or more cars, so parking is a big problem. The traffic in some cities is getting worse and worse, too. Car drivers drive so fast that there are more traffic accidents. Yesterday Mr. Black’s old friend was hit by a car and died. He is very sad now.

Most families own computers now. A study found that children use the Internet more and more. The number of children using the Internet has grown by three times in the past three years. Mr. Black’s grandson is a high school student. He often stays up late playing computer games on the Internet. He falls asleep in the early hours of the morning and spend less time doing homework. His English teacher told Mr. Black his grandson failed another test. Mr. Black got very angry with him.

根据短文内容，选择最佳答案。

(1) There are lights at home.                            (2) Lots of families own computers.

(3) Some families have two or more cars.            (4) There is less room for parking.

【推荐1】China is a country with a long history. It has great traditional culture, especially Chinese characters. Chinese characters usually have more than one meaning and some of them are very interesting. Here are six ones. We use ”pinyin “ here because ”pinyin“ is the Chinese spelling way or the characters. For example, ”fu“ is the “pinyin” for good luck. Chinese character ”fu” is one of the most popular ones used during Chinese New Year. Chinese people often put up “fu” upside down on the front door of a house or an apartment. The upside down “fu” means good luck since the character for upside down in Chinese sounds the same as the character for “come”.

“lu” is used to mean official’s (官员的) pay in old China, “shou” means a long life, age or birthday, “xi” means happiness. The doubled characters “xi” mean double happiness. It is usually put up everywhere at Chinese weddings (婚礼). “cai” means weal由 or money. Chinese often say “money can make a ghost turn a millstone (推磨)”. It is said money really can do a lot of things. But money can’t buy everything, “he” is an important part of Chinese culture and it means good relations with other people, when you have “it”, things will be a lot easier for you.

The top six lucky Chinese characters, fu, lu, shou, xi, cai, ne, are especially loved by Chinese people.

【推荐3】Suitable clothes can make men handsome and women attractive, so more and more people spend much money on clothes.

Thanks to fashion designers, many different styles of clothes appear every day. If you go to big stores or walk on busy city streets, you’ll find many fashionable clothes easily.

Of course everyone has his or her own way of dressing. Perhaps the most popular clothes are casual clothes. They’re mostly made of cotton and there are many types of designs. They feel comfortable, so men and women as well as the young and the old enjoy wearing them. Most casual clothes don’t need dry-cleaning, so they can save us money.

Not everyone can wear casual clothes at anytime and any place. Some people have to wear uniforms when they’re at work such as police officers, soldiers, firefighters and pilots. Uniforms can not only protect them but also show good discipline.

It doesn’t matter what kinds of clothes you wear. It is important for everyone to dress neatly and suitably.