For those who are tired doing the laundry, Samsung has found an answer: a washing machine that can tell you when your laundry is done via a smartphone app(application).

    Strange though it may seem — “my wife already does that” was a common response among attendees viewing the device when it was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week — Samsung is just one of many appliance makers racing to install (安装) a large number of internet-connected features in machines in an effort to make them “smart”.

    Last year, it was a refrigerator that tweeted. This year, it's Wi-Fi-enabled laundry machines and fridges that can tell you when your groceries are going bad.

    The washers and dryers, available starting in the spring, connect to any smartphone through a downloadable application. The phone can then be used as a remote control, so the machines can be turned on and off while their owners are at work or on the bus.

    Samsung says it's not just something new — the app connection actually has some practical uses.

     “If you started to dry clothes in the morning and forgot to take them out, you can go to your phone and restart your dryer for the time when come home, so your clothes are refreshed and ready to go,” said spokesperson Amy Schmidt.

    The company also says that with electricity rate(电价)varying depending on the time of day, more control over when the machines are used can help save money.

    Perhaps, but what they will probably really accomplish is what all good technologies do —enable laziness. Rather than getting up to check on whether the laundry is done, users will instead monitor it on their phones while watching TV.

    Let's look back all these years you've gone through, what have you done for your life? Are you spending your time wisely to make your life worthwhile? Neal Wu shared some ways we should do to make our short time of life meaningful, find out what you need to do next:

    a. Make friends as opposed to networking

    Your friends will go a lot further than the professional contacts you make, especially since only one of the two groups is invested in your personal happiness.

    b. Become an expert by learning as much as you can and deeply seeking out the things you are curious about

    Find the things you enjoy and practice the skills you want to develop. If you can achieve expertise then it will be easy to obtain an audience.

    c. Volunteer to help out those less fortunate

    In the process you will gain a ton of new perspective and will better understand other people's real problems. In a society that always looks upward, these people are being forgotten easily.

    d. Become as independent as possible

    Even though you work in a big company, you should constantly make small steps to reduce your dependence on your job. Write a book, build an app, or start a small business on the side. Release your inner entrepreneur.

    e. Don't spend too much time worrying about your personal brand

    Accomplish(完成) things, and the recognition will follow.

    f. Stop treating life as a competition and do things for their own sake

    Genuine(真正的) interest should be what drives you to improve yourself, rather than a desire to beat others. Find a community of people who are interested in the same things as you do, and drive each other to keep improving.

    On Monday, my classmates and I heard that our astronomy teacher's mother had died. We were surprised that he was still teaching in school. My best friend was telling me that the teacher was trying to forget the pain of losing his mother and trying to be strong in the middle of teaching.

    The teacher was such a warm-hearted person and we figured that we should give him a lot of love and good cheer. That night after school, my best friend and I thought about our teacher as well as his beloved mother and then we came up with an idea.

    When we went back to school yesterday, we gave him cheer-up cards which we had taken time to decorate with flowers, hearts and peace signs. As we handed the cards to him, we could both see the light in his eyes. The smiles on his face showed how much he appreciated what we did for him. The whole atmosphere was very warm and loving, and it's hard to express in words.

    This morning, when we both went to see the teacher again, he was so happy, and gave us both a hug. This made us feel that we just might have made his day, and that he was going to be okay.

    With that, I want to remind you to take the time to smile at the ones you love, be extra generous with hugs, kisses, things of that lovely nature! Life is so precious (宝贵的), so let us be happy and enjoy the gift of life.

    Parents should ban electronic media during mealtimes and after bedtime as part of a comprehensive "family media use plan", according to new recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics. "Excessive media use is associated with obesity, poor school performance, aggression and lack of sleep", said Marjorie Hogan, co-author of the new policy.

    Families should have a no-device rule during meals and after bedtime, the guidelines say. Parents should also set family rules covering the use of the Internet, cellphones, including, perhaps, which sites can be visited, and who can be called. The policy also restated the existing recommendations: Kids should limit the amount of screen time for entertainment to less than two hours per day; children younger than 2 shouldn't have any TV or Internet exposure. Also, televisions and Internet-accessible devices should be kept out of kids' bedrooms.

    Doctors say parents need to obey the family rules, too, to model healthy behavior. That, some say, may be the toughest part. "If you go to any restaurant, Family 3.0 is Mom and Dad on their devices and the kids on theirs", says Donald, a pediatrician and an AAP spokesman. "Who is talking to each other?"

    Children aged from 8 to 18 spent an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes a day consuming media for fun, including TV, music, video games and other content in 2009, according to a 2010 report from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The report was based on a survey of 2002 third through twelfth graders, 702 of whom completed a seven-day media use diary. That was up about an hour and 17 minutes a day from five years earlier. About two-thirds of 8 to 18-year-olds said they had no rules on the amount of time they spent watching TV, playing video games or using the computer, the Kaiser report found.

    Use of mobile devices by young kids has soared. A new report from Common Sense Media, a child-advocacy group based in San Francisco, found that 17% of children 8 and younger use mobile devices daily, up from 8% in 2011.

One of the tallest wooden buildings in Europe, a 98m timber mixture skyscraper, is to rise in Berlin.

The 29-storey WoHo Tower, to be designed by a firm of Norwegian architects, is intended to be a "light-house project" for low-carbon construction, towering over Potsdamer Platz and the Landwehr Canal.

Its core, including lifts and a staircase, is to be built around a steel-reinforced concrete structure but the rest of the building, including flats, offices, cafes and a kindergarten, will be fashioned down wooden beams and panels.

"As Norwegians, we are used to working a lot with timber," Nicolai Riise, CEO of the Mad Architects' Practice said.

"The thing about timber is that it demonstrates sustainability from top to bottom. The carbon footprint is close to zero and it's a fantastic material to build with. If you look at this in a broader way, it's one of the ways we are going to be able to beat the climate crisis."

Wooden skyscrapers, once regarded as an unprofitable pipe dream, have become a realistic prospect with the coming of cross-laminated building techniques and more flexible planning laws. Because these structures' parts are fit with care, they can be far lighter than their concrete equivalents and are thought to be relatively resistant to fire. A cubic meter of wood can also take an estimated ton of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Larger wooden structures are planned elsewhere. London is examining blueprints for the 300-meter Oakwood Tower. A project in Tokyo could rise to 350m.