VOA常速英语2019--消费类电子产品展览会展现尖端人文科技(在线收听

The Consumer Electronics Show or CES is a showcase for the world’s best technology. As expected, a big topic is how many things are now wired and online.

消费类电子产品展览会(CES)展现了世界上的尖端技术。不出所料,一个热议的话题是:有多少产品是可以在互联网上使用的。

But CES is also focused on finding technological answers to questions regarding health, wellness and robotics. That’s a particular interest to people in the handicapped community. This year’s CES highlights how technology can make their lives easier, too. Like this device that plugs into any electric wheelchair, and moves by reading the user’s facial expressions. Creator Paulo Pinheiro says the Wheelie 7 was inspired by a smile. A few months ago, I was at the airport. I was waiting for my fly. And I saw this girl in a wheelchair. She could not move her hands or her legs. But she had a great smile, you know, those kind of smile that cannot stop to think about it. So we knew that we could use our experience in robotics and deep learning to translate that smile into comments to control her wheelchair. Users like Eric Ingram say there’s a bit of a learning curve, but the expression controlled wheelchair works. The wheelchair was a little awkward at first. Using facial expressions instead of other manual forms of movement, it was a little confusing. But once you use it for a decent amount of time and get comfortable with the controls, it becomes a lot more natural and easy to use.

不过,CES还有一个关注点是:寻找与健康和机器人有关的技术解决方案。这是残疾人群体尤其关心的主题。本年度CES的另一个亮点是:科技如何让残疾人的生活更便捷。比如,这个装置可以插入任何一个电动轮椅,并通过读取用户的面部表情来移动。发明它的是保罗·帕内罗,他表示,Wheelie 7的灵感来自于一个微笑。几个月前,我在机场等班机起飞的时候,看到一个女孩坐着轮椅。她的手和腿都动不了,但她满脸都是笑意,让人能不停想起的笑意。我们从她的笑容想到可以通过我们在机器人和深度学习方面的经验来将残疾人的笑容转化为语言,从而控制轮椅。埃里克·英格拉姆等用户表示,虽然有学习曲线的问题在,但由面部表情控制的轮椅真地奏效。这个轮椅,一开始用起来会有点不习惯。用面部表情来代替其他的手动方式会让人有些不解。但如果多花些时间用起来,就会适应那种控制的方式,用起来会更自然、更便捷。

People with vision disabilities have new options as well. Jeffrey Fenton from eSight says his electronic glasses can open up a whole new world for the vision impaired. So you could be living with, in Rosa’s case, 20 over 200 vision. And when you put on eSight and you look ahead, you could see the fine detail on a piece of paper or in someone’s eyes. It’s remarkable. Rosa Henderson was impressed by her time with the eSight glasses. I’m seeing things that I’ve never seen before with the unit. So it’s like it’s revolutionary for people who are visually impaired.

有视力障碍的人也有新的选择了。来自eSight的杰弗里·芬顿表示,他研制的电子眼镜为视力受损的人打开了新世界的大门。以罗莎为例,像她一样的人要离20英尺的距离才能看到正常人离200英尺就能看清的东西。但用了eSight之后,抬头看的时候,就能看清一张纸上或者某人眼中看到的细节。这太棒了。罗莎对eSight眼镜带给她的用户体验感到印象深刻。戴上eSight的眼镜之后,我能看到以前从来看不清的东西。这对于视力受损的人来说是变革性的技术。

And for people with limited ability to grasp objects, Scott Kim has created a leather glove that helps increase a person’s grip. This device helps them to be able to close their hand by themselves, so that they can do basic activities like tooth brushing, opening the door, just grabbing a coffee cup. NeoMano will go on sale this year and cost about two thousand dollars. The other products are already available on the market.

对于抓不住物体的人来说,金斯科特发明了一种皮革手套,这个手套能增强人抓住物体的能力。这个装置可以帮助人们靠自己来握紧双手的能力,这样,他们就能做一些基本的活动,比如刷牙、开门或者握住咖啡杯。这个发明叫做NeoMano,今年就将面世。其成本在2000美元左右。还有一些产品已经在市面上出售了。

  原文地址:http://www.tingroom.com/voastandard/2019/1/464061.html