A new concept vehicle, Pod was introduced by Toyota and Sony at the Tokyo motor show. The car is intended as a four-wheeled friend. It aims to provide affection, sympathy and encouragement. Like a dog welcoming its master, the car sits up, wags its tail and acknowledges its owner's presence using hydraulics(液压装置) and a multi-coloured LED display panel(引擎) across the front.

    While on the road, the car constantly monitors the driver's mood with pulse and sweat(汗) sensors on the joystick(操纵杆). Cameras focused on the eyes keep watch for any sigh of drowsiness. If a driver appears to be losing his or her cool, Pod will display warnings, play soft music and blow cold air at the face. Drivers are shaken awake with loud music and a shaking chair.

    To improve driving skills, Pod uses a comparison to score drivers, offer advice and rank all Pod owners. Toyota claims that the car will eventually be able to learn its owner's likes and dislikes by monitoring passenger conversations. If the car hears a favorite song being discussed, it will download the track from the Internet and play it without being asked. It will also recommend(推荐) restaurants that might suit the driver's taste and take photographs of passengers when they sound particularly happy.

    In keeping with the moodiness that is the car's main selling point, Pod expresses a form of road anger. If a driver brakes or swerves(急转弯) suddenly, the LED panel shows an angry red and the tail rises at the back.

    Anger is one of the car's ten “emotional states”. Another is sadness — a blue front with tear-shaped lights seemingly dropping from headlights — which appears after a flat tire or when gas is low.

    “We wanted to show that the cars can be cheerful and entertaining,” said Yasunori Sakamoto, part of the Toyota design team. Mr Sakamoto said Toyota has no plans to put Pod on the market. Sad, really.

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    “Cleverness is a gift while kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy—they're given after all. Choices can be hard.”—Jeff Bezos

    I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that the Internet usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I'd never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I'd been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go to do this crazy thing that probably wouldn't work since most start-ups don't, and I wasn't sure what to expect. MacKenzie told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I'd been a garage inventor. I'd always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.

    I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn't already have a good job.” That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but finally, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn't think I'd regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision not to try at all.

    After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I'm proud of that choice. For all of us, in the end, we are our choices.

    Some people have the feeling that nothing can be done about their poor reading ability（能力）.They feel hopeless about it.Can you learn to read better,or must you agree that nothing can be done about it?

    To be sure,people are different.You cannot expect to do everything as well as certain other people do.If all the students in a class tried out for basketball,some would be very good players,others would be very poor;and many would be in between.But even the very poor players can become much better players if they are guided in the right way,and with plenty of practice.It is the same with reading.Some seem to enjoy reading and to read well without any special help.Others find reading a slow and tiring job.In between,there are all degrees of reading ability.

    Many experiments have shown that just about every poor reader can improve his reading ability.In these experiments,the poor readers were given tests of reading ability.After some of the causes of their poor reading were discovered,they were given special instruction and practice in reading.After a few months,another test of the same kind was given.In nearly all cases,these people had raised their reading scores.

    I grew up in a house where the TV was seldom turned on and with one wall in my bedroom entirely lined with bookshelves，most of my childhood was spent on books I could get hold of. In fact，I grew up thinking of reading as natural as breathing and books unbelievably powerful in shaping perspectives (观点) by creating worlds we could step into，take part in and live in.

    With this unshakable belief，I，at fourteen，decided to become a writer. Here too，reading became useful. Every writer starts off knowing that he has something to say，but being unable to find the right ways to say it. He has to find his own voice by reading widely and discovering which parts of the writers he agrees or disagrees with，or agrees with so strongly that it reshapes his own world. He cannot write without loving to read，because only through reading other people's writing can one discover what works，what doesn't and， in the end，together with lots of practice，what voice he has.

    Now I am in college，and have come to realize how important it is to read fiction (文学作品)．As a law student，my reading is in fact limited to subject matter — the volume (量) of what I have to read for classes every week means there is little time to read anything else. Such reading made it all the clearer to me that I live in a very small part in this great place called life. Reading fiction reminds me that there is life beyond my own. It allows me to travel across the high seas and along the Silk Road，all from the comfort of my own armchair，to experience，though secondhand，exciting experiences that I wouldn't necessarily be able to have in my lifetime.

    Students in a college French class have helped fill the empty bookshelves of a very poor Haitian(海地的) school by writing 90 books. Although many children in Haiti speak Creole(克里奥尔语) at home, French is taught in classrooms and used by the government , and students are asked to know the language in order to get further education. Therefore, the class hoped to provide resources to help the young students learn French well.

    The project, called Little French Books, was headed up by Jennifer Shotwell, a French professor at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. Shotwell had visited Haiti with a group of students in 2013 to support a Haitian student and give books to a new library. Following the trip, Shotwell brought the experience back to her classroom.

    "My students have a chance to use the French language in a special way by writing children's books," Shotwell said. "Though some learners don't think they can produce much with a new language, my students are learning to express themselves and create entertaining stories that we finally share with disadvantaged children who are also learning French."

    Shotwell had sent French books to Haitian schools, but they were printed on cheap paper that could be easily broken. So she started a Kickstarter, which collected more than $1,000 to make books with durable covers.

    The books, which included stories about princesses, dinosaurs and exciting experiences, were given to the St.Gabriel's school in Lascahobas.

    "Each time a child gets into a new book, he will no doubt get new knowledge and new understanding. The Little French Books means a lot to our students, said Gardy Myrtil, a teacher at the school.

    When athletes at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics collect their medals, they'll not only be wearing something that celebrates their sporting performance, but something that symbolizes lastingness. For both the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, organizers aim to make all of the gold, silver, and bronze medals out of used electronics. This strong message about how to make use of e-waste has gotten a lot of Japan involved.

    Starting in April 2017, the Japanese Olympic Committee began collecting old laptops, digital cameras, smartphones, and other abandoned electronics. The initiative(倡议)has achieved great  success. Already, the quantity needed for bronze medals has been met, and they're in the homestretch for silver and gold medals, meaning the collection process can pack up at the end of March.

    When looking just at the number of cell phones collected, the amount of waste is shocking. In a period of about 18 months, a little over 5 million smartphones were collected thanks to cooperation with NTT DOCOMO.

Japan's largest mobile phone operator allowed the public to turn in phones at their shops, which counted a lot in the project's success.

    After being taken apart and sorted, the small electronics underwent a smelting process to extract(提炼)all the gold, silver, and bronze elements. Thanks to this initiative, the worldwide struggle with e-waste will have a global platform. According to a study published by the United Nations University—44.7 million metric tons of e-waste were made in 2016. Only 20% of that was actually recycled. Unfortunately, this figure is set to rise significantly in the coming years, moving to 52.2 million metric tons by 2021. So while the Tokyo Olympics initiative might be just a drop in the bucket, it's a good start in showing what the public can do if they're made more aware of the issue.