1 . Don’t you want to talk less and smile more? That seems to be Amazon’s vision for the future of the smart home. According to the company, talking to their devices is just a temporary stage. Next, their gadgets (小玩意) will just know what we want and do it for us without a single command. To plot this route, the consumer tech giant showed off a series of new gadgets at its annual hardware event in September, 2020.

This vision of a smart home has been the road map for home automation for decades. A true smart home doesn’t just react to commands, it can foresee what will happen and take action accordingly. This could include lights switching on when you arrive home, heating turning off when the house is empty, or security drones (无人机) activating when somebody breaks in. Amazon says it’s ready for this domestic revolution, even if it’s still a few decades off.

Connectivity is the guarantee of a true smart home. The updated Echo smart speaker line that was recently displayed doesn’t just have a showy new look, it comes with a suite of tech to keep everything connected. This extended network, which will be launched in the US in later 2021, is designed to support expanding the smart home out to the smart garden and the smart driveway and beyond to the smart neighbourhood.

At the event, Amazon also showed off an actual robot. The Ring Always Home Cam ($ 250, coming in 2021) was perhaps the most fancy offering from the event, and certainly raised a fair number of eyebrows. At roughly 13cm high, the Always Home Cam is a drone with a camera. It rises up from its docking station and flies on pre-set paths. If a security event is detected, it will send warnings to your phone.

Ultimately, a true smart home won’t just rely on voice commands or drones. The less aggressive tech such as sensors, computer vision, and AI will work together to respond to our needs without violating our privacy. But, as Limp says, the true smart home “is a long-term vision, and there’s still lots to be done to make that a reality”.

1. According to Amazon’s vision, a true smart home ______.

A．is already available to the consumers last September

B．will be active and predictive

C．will be limited to indoor activities

D．can only act at its owner’s request

2. About the updated Echo smart speaker line, we know ______.

A．it only connects things in one’s own home	B．it is necessity for a true smart home
C．it has an attractive new look	D．it enjoys great popularity

3. What may the Ring Always Home Cam be unable to do?

A．Call the police.

B．Detect invaders.

C．Send messages

D．Take photos.

4. What does the passage focus on?

A．Introducing the company of Amazon.

B．Advertising the benefits of the smart home.

C．Talking about how Echo smart speaker line works.

D．What the true smart home is like and some related gadgets.

2 . Who is smarter? A human being or artificial intelligence(人工智能)?

The question swept the world when a Google－developed program called AlphaGo defeated the world top player，South Korean Lee Se－del，4－1.

So，what comes next?

Some people have been arguing that artificial intelligence，or AI in short，will be a bad thing for humans. In an interview with the BBC in 2014，UK scientist Stephen Hawking warned that “the development of full artificial intelligence could mean the end of the human race.”

So are we really about to live in the world shown in the Terminator movies?

“Not quite，” answered The Economist. After all，it's not hard to get a computer program to remember and produce facts. What is hard is getting computers to use their knowledge in everyday situations.

“We think that，for the human being，things like sight and balance(视觉平衡)，are natural and ordinary in our life.” Thomas Edison，founder of Motion Figures，a company that is bringing AI to boys，told the newspaper. “But for a robot，to walk up and down just like human beings requires various decisions to be made every second，and it's really difficult to do.”

As The Economist put it，“We have a long way to go before AI can truly begin to be similar to the human brain，even though the technology can be great.”

Meanwhile，John Markoff of The New York Times said that researchers should build artificial intelligence to make people more effective.

“Our_fate_is_in_our_own_hands，” he wrote.“Since technology depends on the values of its creators，we can make human choices that use technology to improve the world.”

1. What was the result of the match?

A．Lee Se－del won AlphaGo 4－1.	B．Lee Se－del was defeated.
C．Google program beat AlphaGo.	D．Neither side won the match.

2. What does Thomas Edison possibly mean in his remarks?

A．It's very hard for AI to beat the human brain.

B．AI would take the place of human beings.

C．AI can make various decisions quickly.

D．AI does better than humans in sight and balance.

3. Who believes much has to be done to improve AI?

A．Stephen Hawking.	B．John Markoff.
C．The New York Times.	D．The Economist.

4. What does the underlined part in the last paragraph imply?

A．AI will improve the world completely.

B．AI is in the control of human beings.

C．AI may bring disasters to human beings.

D．AI will make our future out of control.

3 . People have always wanted to know what the future will look like. Then, how can we?     1       The world has changed a lot in the last 150 years, but we humans are driven by the same basic needs as we were 150 years ago, such as food, sleep, the feeling of being appreciated and loved.     2     No. In addition, generally speaking, the inventions for the last 150 years have been a human effort for freedom and communication, to be able to get in control of the time and world. Since there is still much to do in this area, this will be the focus at least for the next 150 years.

But why do we need to predict the future? Predicting the future is important for two reasons: First, we need to start to think about what kind of future we would like for ourselves and to pass on to the next generation.     3    

How about the virtual worlds? It might be in the future to experience the sand between your toes, and hear the waves, just lying in your bed at home.     4     So, even if a great invention is there for an affordable price, it’ll never take the place of the common experience if it is not real.

    5     What we’ll see in the next 50 years is the transition (过渡) from an oil-dependent society to a new society. Here there’ll be new medicine, continued exploration of space, challenges in the climate change, and new inventions that make life a little easier.

A．So what will the future look like then?

B．Will this change in the next 150 years?

C．Predicting the future can help us in many ways.

D．However, you’ll never get the feeling of being there.

E．Well, to understand the future, you must know the past.

F．However, no matter how real the experience will feel, it doesn’t happen for real.

G．Then we need to know what decisions we need to make today that will give the best result in the future.

4 . "If popular culture has taught us anything, it is that someday mankind must face and destroy the growing harm caused by robots." Author Daniel Wilson's description of How to Survive a Robot Uprising seems like it is straight out of a robot disaster movie. "The problem with cleverly-designed robots is that we become dependent on them," says Wilson.

The classic movie Westworld describes an amusement park where, after a safety error, the robots spend a killing period of time. Yet in reality, statistics show that as technology improves there is a trend towards increased safety. Similarly, public transport systems using computers and machines are believed to be more reliable than those in human control, and a robot-assisted operation is more precise and results in fewer medical problems.

But where does the idea of robots being cruel and harmful come from? "Robots were pop culture figures before they existed," says Wilson. "They were frightening creatures in novels. When robots really started existing, they already had this image(形象) set up not based on reality. That's exactly what happened—a movie monster became real."

Recent reports talked of a robot "attack" on a worker in Sweden. Even if these references to an attack rather than an error are meant in joke, this only makes the problem worse. "We're so interested in the robot-attack storyline that it can influence the way real robot-safety problems are discussed," says one journalist. But with robots becoming increasingly advanced, is it going to come a time when an error could become an unkind and cruel attack?

"Robots are just a bunch of metal," says one engineer. "If you are scared, then you are scared of the people building them." So what do engineers think we should be afraid of? Nanotechnology is the science which involves developing and making extremely small but very powerful machines. Some engineers suggest that with these new developments come "severe dangers" if they are used inappropriately. Its theory goes that "the small size and rapid potential of nano-built weaponry（武器）will make it difficult to control and hard to keep out of the hands of terrorists. "And this is a view shared by some artificial intelligence experts. "With robots...if it makes an error, you can unplug it and shut it down. But if you have lots of nano-built weapons, which are extremely small, there is no way you can do the same thing."

1. In the first paragraph, Daniel Wilson ________.

A．confirms the existence of robots

B．introduces the development of robots

C．states that robots are potentially dangerous

D．suggests that we should be dependent on robots

2. People have come to think of robots as something bad because ________.

A．designers of the first robots spread this idea

B．reality shows they are the same as in the movies

C．movie audience continue to give this impression

D．they were originally described this way in novels

3. The author believes that the report of the robot attack in Sweden ________.

A．is intended as a joke

B．serves as a serious warning

C．presents the technical problem

D．expresses sympathy for the worker

4. What are experts afraid of when considering nanotechnology?

A．Robots could use it inappropriately.

B．It could make robots harder to control.

C．It could be more dangerous than robots.

D．There'll be more terrorist attacks because of it.