Is your TV connected to the Internet? What about your chair,or your fridge? Probably they are not. But in the future, most things in your home may be connected, thanks to the so-called “Internet of things”.

The Internet of things may be coming sooner than you think. Earlier this year, A Samsung CEO spent a lot of time talking about the Internet things. He said that five years from now,every Samsung product will be part of the Internet of things,no matter whether it's a remote control or a washing machine.

So, how do household(家用的) objects that are part of the Internet of things work? Well,think of a common chair. When connected to the Internet, the chair warms up when it knows the user has just walked into the room and is feeling cold.

An Internet-connected camera could help people feel safer in their homes. It can know people's faces and has an infrared sensor(红外传感器),so even if it's dark it can see when someone passes by and send you a message on your smartphone to let you know who's there. If the person is someone you don't know,it can tell you that ,too.

But according to MIT Technology Roview, whether companies are connecting dog food bowls or security systems to the Internet, there may be some problems. For example, many early connected-home objects don't have much built-in security, which means they could be hacked(被黑客攻击). Morever, it could be difficult to get these new machines to work together especially when they are made by different companies. To fight this ,many companies have joined the Open Interconnect Consortium, which had 45 menbers by late 2014.

So, picture this: you enter your home.The temperature changes to make you feel comfortable. Your favorite music starts playing for you. Do you think that this would be a good thing? It may happen sooner than you think.

    A crow(乌鸦) is about twenty inches (英寸) long and black all over. Crows are dirty birds because they live on bad food. Crows eat a lot of waste food. In this way they are more useful to us than any birds. They clean up the dirty things in our streets. Crows are always hungry. They look for food all day, and in the evening you can see them in large numbers flying back to their nests(巢) in the trees. They sleep there at night.

    Crows are much noisier than other birds. Very often a large number of crows will get together on one house and talk. Sometimes they talk together, and sometimes they do it by turns(轮流) like human beings(人类). It is easy to tell(判断) from crow's sound if they are pleased or angry. Perhaps crows talk a lot because they are friendly birds. A pair of crows will live together all their lives, and if one of them dies, the other one becomes very sad and quiet for the rest of its life and some time later it dies too.

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.

    Have you ever seen a car without a driver? It sounds crazy, but these computer-driven driverless cars will soon be filling roads near you. Companies like Google and Tesla have been designing and testing these cars, and the technology is there.

    So how? The cars have sensors（感应器）all around which can find other cars and objects in the road. Road signs are read by cameras, and satellite navigation systems（卫星导航系统）are used so the car knows how to get where you want to go. All you have to do is type in the address! Finally, a central computer system takes in all the information that it receives from the sensors and cameras and works out when to speed up, stop and turn.

    Sound like your idea of heaven（天堂）? Sitting back, looking out of the windows and even watching a film or reading a book while ‘driving' would be possible with this new technology. You wouldn't have to worry about remembering directions to where you're going. In addition, computers would also drive more safely than people — they would obey the rules and have quicker action times when in dangerous situations.

However, there are many drawbacks of driverless cars. Computers would have difficulties making ethical（道德的）decisions: if a child ran into the road, would the computer choose to hit the child or turn suddenly and potentially kill the car's passengers? Moreover, I personally find driving fun –I'd miss never driving a car myself. There would also be many other decisions to be made –should children, or drunk people, be allowed in a driverless car by themselves? Or would there need to be a person with a driving license in the car at all times?

    I'm not certain I'd want a driverless car – but it's only a matter of time before they'll become more affordable and popular on our roads.

    Humans can go to the hospital when they're ill. But as for animals, what should they do？To stay healthy, animals have their own ways to heal(治愈)themselves. Now let's get to know their special skills.

    Skill One

    Have you ever seen your dog or cat lick(舔)its wounds？Why do they do it？It probably feels good, but it's good medicine. Licking cleans a wound, and saliva(唾液)has chemicals that kill germs(细菌).

    Skill Two

    To avoid diseases, many animals have good living habits. They hate to be dirty. Most animals separate their pooping(排便)areas from their eating areas. Horses poop far away from the grass they eat. Rabbits put their poop in special pooping areas.

    Skill Three

    Have you ever heard of the expression "starve a fever(发烧时宜饿)"？Many animals stop eating when they're ill. When a sick animal stops eating, it can stop germs from getting necessary things.

    Skill Four

    Another way that animals heal themselves is to raise their body temperature. High temperature can kill germs. Warm—blooded animals(like us)get fevers to fight with germs.

    Cold—blooded animals(like snakes)look for pieces of wood or rocks heated by the sun.

    Fish move to warmer waters.

    How do you deal with plastic bags from the supermarket? Throw them away or recycle them? How about eating them?

    The bags are not harmful to the environment. Humans and animals can safely eat them. Indian company EnviGreen has made a bag with natural materials. It looks and feels just like plastic, but can be broken down(分解) easily.

    Ashwath Hedge who set up the EnviGreen company spent four years doing experiments (实验) with 12 natural materials. They include potatoes, corn, vegetable oil and bananas. He made the materials into liquid(液体) and used the liquid to make the bag.

    Although the EnviGreen bag is more expensive than a common plastic bag, it has many advantages. According to The Wall Street Journal, it takes 1,000 years for common plastic bags to break down. But an EnviGreen bag can naturally break down in less than 180 days. It also breaks down in less than a day in water, and in less than a minute in boiling water. Hedge was happy to show it in his interview, and he put an EnviGreen bag in water and ate it with a smile.

    There are more than 15,000 tons of plastic waste in India every day. But only 9,000 tons are processed. In China, 3 billion plastic bags are used

    Every day. Maybe the EnviGreen bag could be a solution to the world problem of plastic pollution,