2 . Smartphones are getting boring. The new models are either a bit faster or have better cameras, but they are basically no different from the ones already in our pockets. This is why scientists are hoping, and working for something new, something that will change our lives just as greatly as smartphones do. At the moment, the next invention might be smart glasses.

Just imagine. Instead of having to pick up your phone and look at the screen, all of the information you need simply appears just in front of you, in your glasses. Satellite navigation (导航) directions would appear right there on the road. And your smart glasses could guide you to the right shelf in the supermarket!

Smart glasses could also be used in industry. They could show engineers the instructions they need to fix things more quickly. A doctor could carry out a difficult operation, guided in real time by someone on the other side of the world.

This may sound impossible. But most of the technologies to invent them are already there. For example, one key technology is called AR, which can make digital 3D objects appear as if they are part of the real world. We’ve used it a lot on our video calls. Similarly, huge progress has been made in spatial audio. This is when a sound is made to give it a sense of place, like what you hear in an empty room. Some high-end earphones can already do that. Future glasses will of course need to recognize (识别) your voice to do tasks. This technology has been widely used in our daily life.

So, why aren’t we all wearing smart glasses yet? So far, no one has invented a good way to send images (映像) of our world onto glasses. However, with the rapid development of technology, smart glasses could arrive much sooner than we think.

4 . Ancient art doesn’t have to be boring. Technology in the 21st century can help to bring it to life by combining(融合) the best of the old and the new.

Walking into the China Pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai, people were amazed by seeing a huge digital(数码的) painting. Scientists digitized(数码化) the famous painting Along the River During the Qingming Festisal by Chinese artist Zhang Zeduan.

The original(原先的) painting shows life during the Northern Song period and it includes many details of ancient Chinese customs, lifestyles and technology.

           Farmers work in the fields, sailors move around their boats and people eat and do business in restaurants. Parts of the background are also animated(做成动画). You can see the wind blowing through the trees and across the water. These animations perfectly combine modern technology and ancient art.

Digital technology allows today’s artists to express their ideas in ways that ancient artists would not believe possible. Techniques such as animation and 3D digital projection(投影) make art come alive.

Dunhuang Caves, which are protected ancient treasures in the Gobi desert in Northwest China, are filled with paintings and sculptures with lasting value. This artwork was created over a period of around 1,000 years.

The good news is for art lovers who cannot travel and for the caves. Scientists have created a 360-degree, 3D digital projection of the caves, which makes the artwork come alive. There is also a function(功能) that lets viewers zoom in and enjoy the paintings and sculptures in greater detail.

Digitising ancient art allows us to explore the ancient practices. It also makes the whole world understand the art while protecting the original artworks for the future.

There is no doubt that technology has had a big influence on our lives. People from all around the world can now talk to each other almost at once on mobile phones and the Internet. People can easily solve their problems with the help of computers and the world wide web. With this technology, it seems that the world is more connected now than ever before. Even so, there have been worries about technology making people feel lonely and disconnected from others around them.

So does this mean that technology makes us lonely?

In my opinion, it is hard to say Yes or No.

It’s true that humans need communication with each other. If we depend on technology too much to communicate, this can badly impact our mental (心理的) health. For me, technology is a tool. And just like any other kind of tool — like scissors, a pencil or a ruler, for example, it depends on how we use it: in a right way or in a right place. Take social media (社交媒体) as an example. If you only use it to compare yourself with others, you might feel sad and lonely. But if you use it as a tool to connect with friends and family or to start a new community to talk about your hobbies and interests, the loneliness will turn into love and friendship.

When you feel lonely after staring at your computer screen all day, maybe you can use that technology to reach out to a reliable (可靠的) friend and invite him or her out for lunch or a coffee.

“I could tell it was him by the way he walked.” If you’ve ever said that, you understand biometrics（生物识别技术）. Biometric technology is an important topic in our work and private lives. It includes the use of finger prints or knowing a person’s voice. It is the science about what a person looks like and how a person does things. Like tree leaves, no two human beings are exactly the same. They’ve got different eyes and different hair. And everyone has a different way of walking or moving.

This technology can tell you from others. At the moment if you travel through an airport, you need your ID card or passport. If you go to your bank to get some money, you need a card and a special number. But what should you do if you lose your passport or forget your number? Biometric technology can solve this problem. The technology is becoming more and more popular with old people because they no longer need to remember their passwords（密码）.

This technology is all around us in our life. We use them to unlock a smart phone, get into our homes, start our cars without a key or even pay for our shopping.

Nothing is perfect. People are worried about the safety of their private information. However, the technology will become much better in the future, and it will become more and more important in our daily life.

7 . If you look around the room you are in right now, you’ll probably notice a number of electronics. But can you imagine if they all had to be joined together by wires (电线)? Picture the wire snaking along the floor, for example, from your smartphone to your speaker, or connecting your game controller to the computer screen, meaning you could never sit more than a couple of meters away from it. A world of electronics connected by wires wouldn’t just be untidy, but a possible danger, too. That’s where Bluetooth comes in. We’ve all heard of it — but what exactly is it?

Bluetooth is a method of short-distance (短距离) wireless communication between electronics that makes use of the power of radio waves. The idea was first thought of by Dr. Janp Haartsen at Swedish mobile company Ericsson in 1994. Things really stepped up in September 1998 when the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) was set up to develop and spread the technology. Bluetooth 1.0 came out in 1999, and a year later it began to be used in mobile phones and desktop computers. Now Bluetooth has become an increasingly popular way of solving the problem of more and more electronics needing to be connected. without having to connect everything together with wires.

But if you look at the remote control (温控器) you use to choose the program on TV, you might rightly ask yourself why Bluetooth was such a big deal. After all, connecting objects with infrared signals (红外信号) which can’t be seen had been done before. The problem with remote controls is that they need to keep what is called “line of sight”. If something is standing between the remote control and receiver, it won’t work. Because Bluetooth uses radio waves, the things standing in the way are no longer a problem.

Since its creation in the late 1990s, the technology has become more and more improved and widely used, with the 4 billionth Bluetooth objects shipped in 2020.

8 . Improvements in technology often happen overnight. Some gadgets get smaller and faster. Others are replaced (代替) by newer things like smartphones. They can do hundreds of things. Here are some old gadgets that people used to use.

①________

Do you have a landline at home? These are phones that people plug (插入) into their living room walls. Mobile phones didn’t use to be so common at that time, so most families had a landline. But landlines only worked at home. What did people do when they were outside and needed to call someone? They looked for a pay phone! Then, most people had their own mobile phones and many homes no longer had landlines.

②________

People today store plenty of information online, or on SD cards. But in the 1980s and 1990s, people used to use floppy disks. The first floppy disks were large, expensive, and not very useful — each disk could store just 175 KB of information! Later, floppy disks got smaller and better. But even the best ones could only hold 1.44 MB. You would need three or four disks just for one song, and about 22,000 disks to match the storage (储存空间) available on a 32 GB phone!

③________

It’s easy to take photos today. People often have thousands just on their phones! But photos used to be expensive, and people took fewer of them. To take a photo, you had to buy a roll of film. This allowed you to take about 30 photos. After finishing the roll, you left it at a shop. The shop developed the photos to make them be seen, which you could collect after a few days.

Technology changes all the time, and the gadgets we use today will one day be old. What do you think will be next to disappear?

10 . ①Since the first man looked up at the flying birds, countless successes have been achieved on the way up to the sky. From the stones thrown into the air to airships of all kinds, pioneers of humans never failed to let their imagination run wild.

②Stories of pioneers go back to centuries ago.

③Kite flying in China dates back to the 5th century BC and is thought to be the earliest example of man-made flight.

④From the 3rd century BC, the sky lantern (灯笼) was known in China. Many people believe that it was invented by Zhuge Liang in the war. Some say he wrote a message on a sky lantern for help, while others believe sky lanterns were used to drive the enemies away.

⑤Whichever is true, humans have never stopped, and they never will. In modern times, new fields are being explored (探索).

⑥In 1993, the world’s largest hot air airship was built. The AS-300 carried an underslung raft (悬挂式木筏). It allowed a team of French scientists to carry out their treetop researches without too much harm to the rain forest.

⑦On May 15, 2022, Chinese scientists sent up the latest model of “Jimu No.1”, China’s self-developed airship, to collect weather information on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

⑧The airship would work at a world-record altitude (海拔) of 9,032 meters. It was the first time an airship of its size had reached this height, even higher than that of the 8,849-meter-tall Mount Qomolangma, the highest mountain in the world.

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