Easing everyday tasks while saving energy
Nbsp; English Test
READING COMPREHENSION (100 points)
Text 1– The implications of humanoid robots as laboursaving devices are more ominous than most people realize
In the not-too-distant future, artificial intelligence will advance to the point where robots can perform useful functions in our everyday lives. But it's not just artificial intelligence that needs to advance in order to enable useful humanoid robots; we also need major advancements in portable power, vision recognition, touch sensing, and even muscle control.
Language detection capabilities are also desperately needed before we will see useful robots, but assuming that these technical hurdles will at some point be resolved, we will eventually end up with useful humanoid robots that can start to do some things for us around the house, around the office, around medical facilities, and other similar places.
Initially, these robots will be perceived as useful. It's sort of the way that people now use the floor sweeping robot Roomba, which wanders aimlessly around your house clogging its wheels with hair and dust. But eventually, as humanoid robots become more and more useful, they will begin to compete with human labour, and at that point we have a collision of interest. We'll eventually have the large, powerful robot-manufacturing corporations, which will probably be Japanese companies, facing off against the minimum-wage labour force.
Let's face it, if humanoid robots can flip burgers then you probably don't need to hire people to flip burgers, and there are many similar menial jobs that robots could be taught to do. It's not a stretch to imagine these machines could be programmed to clean floors and toilets, or carry objects such as supply items in a hospital or office supplies in a work environment. Robots could help with gardening, construction and, of course, security. If you have a roving robot that walks around your house or office keeping an eye on things, then you probably don't need to hire security guards to do it.
Http://www.naturalnews.com - by Mike Adams - Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Text 2– Connected Living: Smart home of the future debuts at CeBIT –
One of the highlights of this year’s CeBIT, the digital industry’s largest annual international event, is an intelligent, networked house. The 'Smart Home' would be able to find the cheapest electricity, warn of potential problems and use applications to combine and simplify everyday tasks.
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It may seem like a Star Trek idea, but the home’s intelligent technology for living would use computers to close doors by themselves, turn lights on and off when the last person leaves a room and switch heating to energy-saving mode. And that’s just to start.
The futuristic 'Smart Home' debuts to digital industry experts and the general public over some 200 square metres 1st - 5th March at the CeBIT trade fair in Germany. The home will offer features designed to meet particular needs of singles, families and seniors.
Easing everyday tasks while saving energy
One of the innovations on display includes a Home Service Platform, a kind of control centre from which various services and systems are controlled for home networking, among them household appliances, entertainment systems, heating, lighting and monitoring systems for burglary, fire or water damage.
Of special interest, is that the new home would enable household devices to communicate in real time over a so-called Home Service Box, an integrated add-on application (App) for energy management, which would also show a device’s energy consumption. The system would be able to communicate real-time messages with its user and turn on a household device.
Additional clever home options to feature at CeBIT include programmes for digital identification at the door, light control in individual rooms and the connection of Internet TV with mobile devices like iPads. Connected Living options will include such clever ideas as a personal trainer connected to a home exercise machine that coordinates with Internet TV or a personal chef in the kitchen. Of interest to senior citizens or the disabled, the Home Service Platform would also be able to communicate medical data in case of emergency.
Best of all, the Home Service Platform will not be tied to any particular equipment manufacturer, but rather it is to work on an open standard that can be networked with devices from different manufacturers. The Home Service Box is to make its way into stores in Germany within the next two years.
March 3rd, 2011
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