Radio, telephone and TV are widely used in the world. When you turn on the radio, you can listen. But when you use telephone, not only can you listen to others but also you can chat with them, however, you can't see anything at all. TV is much better than both of them. People can watch TV and listen to it, but they can't take part in what they see.

    Today, some people are using a type of telephone called vision-phone（可视电话）. With it, two people who are talking can see each other. It is better than radio, telephone or TV.

    Vision-phones can be of great use when you have something to show the person whom you are calling. It will be helpful in people's life. Some day you may be able to call up a library and ask to read a book on your vision-phone. You may be able to do some shopping too. Perhaps in the future, people will use vision-phone.

    Nobody knows how many different languages there are in the world. The most widely used language is English. It's used by business people, airline pilots all over the world. It's also the first language of sports and science. So it's very important for us to learn English.

    English is most widely spoken in the world, while Chinese has the largest number of speakers. There are not only over one billion people living in China, but also many Chinese people living outside China. You can find large or small groups of Chinese people living in almost every country in the world.

    There are some other important languages in the world, too. Chinese is of course very important, especially in Asia. Arabic is widely spoken in many parts of Asia and Africa. Russian is spoken both in Europe and Asia. French is widely understood, not only in Europe, but also in parts of Canada, Africa and Asia. Spanish has a growing number of speakers all over the world, especially in Central and South Africa.

    What language do people speak in the United Nations? There are so many different languages in the world, but they decide to use only six of them. They are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. Everything spoken or written in one language is translated into the other five.

    Now, it seems that artficial intelligence （人工智能）is becoming more and more popular in our life, and it has greatly influenced the ways we live, work and play. Can you imagine that you can play table tennis with a robot one day?

    Recently, a scientist has invented a special robot that can be a table tennis coach. That means people can practice table tennis not only with humans but also with a robot.

    Named Forpheus, the smart table tennis robot is quite special. It can study the movements of human players and the speeds of the ball. In this way, it can exactly judge (判断) the player' skill levels (水平). Then it uses the information to change the ways to play. If the player are just beginners, Forpheus will play in a slow and easy way, but if the players are better ones, the robot will play in a faster and more difficult way. What's more, while playing, it encourages players to try their beat with words like "Good job!", "Come on!" and so on. At the same time, it gives some good advice to improve their skills. So it is both a good partner and a clever coach.

    Science and technology is developing quickly these days and it's hard to imagine what will happen in the future. "In the next 20 years, it will be possible that one robot teaches another to play table tennis or even invents another one!" Takuoya, the inventor of the robot, said.

    Our eyes may be playing tricks on us.  New research shows that sometimes people physically see what they want to see. Cornell University social psychologist(心理学家) David

    Dunning carried out experiments to test whether wishful thinking can actually affect what we see.

    “It's well proved from what is experienced in everyday life, and from the laboratory as well, that people think what they want to think," he says. "We're taking this a step further.

    We're asking if strong wishes and fears can actually affect what people physically see."

    Dunning and his assistants told volunteers that a computer game would show them either a letter or number to decide whether they would drink orange juice or fruit syrup(果子露).

    As they wrote in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the computer would flash an ambiguous picture, which could be seen as the letter "B" or the number "13". Volunteers who were told that a letter would get them orange juice most often reported seeing "B". Those who were told that a number would get them orange juice most often saw "13".

    The researchers also used a hidden camera to track volunteers' eye movements, particularly the first eye movement. "We don't control them," Dunning says, "and they don't even know that we are watching them, so it honestly shows what a person is seeing."

    "This research suggests that the brain is doing a lot of work between the eye and the conscious awareness to affect what we think," Dunning concludes (得出结论). "Before we even see the world, our brain has decided to keep what we want to see and avoid what we don't want to see."