The Future of Technology

    William, a businessman, arrives in a foreign airport. He doesn't show his passport. Instead, a machine in the wall reads the computer chip（芯片）in his arm. This contains information about him: his name, age, and I.D number. He exits the airport, and a car door opens when it “sees” him. The car takes him to his hotel. His room “knows” he has entered the building and it “reads” his body. He is cold, so the room becomes warmer. William then watches a business presentation on a video wall. When he takes a bath, the presentation “follows him and continues ”on the bathroom wall. Finally, the room plays music to help him sleep. It turns off the music when it “sees” him sleeping.

    William doesn't exist, and none of this is real. But it might be soon. “In five to ten years, computing and communications are going to be free and everywhere, in your walls, in your car, on your body,” says Victor Zue, leader of Project Oxygen.

    Project Oxygen has one big idea: to create better relationships between machines and people. The dream is that computer will learn to understand what people want.

    So, what changes will there be at work? Firstly, the building will know where everyone is, all the time. You want to talk to someone? Type the person's name on the nearest computer. It will show you a map of the building and exactly where this person is. You then call this person, who picks up the nearest telephone, also shown on the computer. If he or she is busy with a client（客户）or in a meeting, the computer will tell you.

    Is all this really possible? Visit the Siebel Center, Illinois and see for yourself: computers in the doors and walls, cameras everywhere, the technology of the future, but here today.

    A family is a collection of people who share the same genes（基因）but cannot agree on a place to pull over for lunch. Ed and I, plus his parents and sister Doris and eight-year-old niece Alisha, are on a road trip to Yosemite. Ed wants Subway, I want. In-N-Out Burger, Doris wants Sonic. In the end, we compromise on McDonald's, where Alisha will get an action figure.

    It's a three-hour drive to Yosemite, but we're taking a little longer, as we're working in a tour of Highway 80's public restrooms. As the saying goes, “Not one bladder（膀胱）empties but another fills.” Many of these restrooms belong to gas stations. I prefer them to the high-tech ones on planes.

    We get back on the road. Ed is driving now. When all the tabloids（小报）have been read, the travel has grown tedious and anyone under age 12 asks “Are we there yet?” at ever-shortening internals. Just outside Manteca, California, we stop for coffee. At a Starbucks checkout, Ed buys a CD of Joni Mitchell's favorite musical picks. The hope is that it will have a calming effect.

    As we pull back onto the highway, it starts to pour. Then something amazing happens. As we climb the mountain, the rain turns to snow. The pines are spotted with white. We're struck dumb（说不出话）by the scene outside. For a solid 15 minutes, everyone forgets about their bladder, their blood sugar and the temperature. Alisha has never seen snow, so we pull over to make snowmen and catch snowflakes on our tongues. Then Ed realizes we need tire chains, and we have to turn back and drive 30miles to Oakhurst. “Good,” says Doris. “There was a very nice restroom there.”

    Things a Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls, UK.

    A hundred years ago, women had very few opportunities. Their role was to marry and raise children. Sally Nicholls, new novel is set in that time. Her main characters are three young London women. Evelyn is from a wealthy family, May is from a religious background, and Nell is a woman from a much poorer community. Though they are from, different backgrounds, they all become involved in the women's suffrage(选举权)movement during World War 1(1914-1918).

    Far From the Tree by Robin Benway, US

    The New York Times reviewer called the book a “brilliant exercise in empathy (感同身受) It's an unusual novel. It begins with a troubling event for the main character, Grace, a 16-year-old who loves chemistry and cross-country running. But when she finds that she has become pregnant, she chooses to give up her baby for adoption and has to deal with the pain that this causes her.

    The situation is __________for her because Grace was once an orphan(孤儿)herself. She feels that she cannot turn to her adoptive parents for comfort and advice. Instead, she turns to her blood siblings (兄弟姐妹). But Grace soon finds that they are as troubled as she is, and that they are also keeping things to themselves that hurt too much to speak about.

    Readers can expect to be moved by the characters and their situations, but also gain insight (理解)into modem family life in America.

    Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, US

    This novel has two principal teenage characters. Aza Holmes has a mental illness, which is a condition where a person does the same thing over and over, without being able to stop. Aza narrates (叙述)the novel, so we learn all about her from the inside out.

    The second main character is Daisy, Aza's friend. The two start an adventure to find a billionaire who has gone missing.

    “This is my first attempt to write directly about the kind of mental illness that has affected my life since childhood, so while the story is fictional (虚构的)，it is also quite personal, ” said Green in a statement.

    Have you ever heard someone say "You totally look like you're a Jessica" or something similar? People seem to think that they know what kind of person a "Jessica" or a "Michael" looks like. Why is this?

    According to a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, humans tend to associate people's names with their appearances, and can even guess someone's name based on how they look.

    Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, collected thousands of photos of people's faces. They labeled (贴标签于) each photo with four names. Then, they asked volunteers to guess which of the four names was correct.

    The volunteers were able to guess the right name 38% of the time. It seems that certain characteristics of faces give them clues about someone's name, Reader's Digest reported.

    However, this only worked when the volunteers looked at names from their own culture. In addition, the volunteers were not as good at guessing the real names of people who used nicknames(昵称)more often than their real names. This may show that a person's appearance is affected by their name only if they use it often.

    "This kind of face-name matching happens because of a process of self-fulfilling prophecy (预言), as we become what other people expect us to become," Ruth Mayo from tile university told science news website EurekAlert.

    Earlier studies have shown that gender (性别) and race stereotypes (刻板印象) can affect a person's appearance. The researchers believe there are also similar stereotypes about names. For example, people tend to think that men named Bob should have rounder faces because the word itself looks round. People may think that women named Rose are beautiful. They expect them to be "delicate" and "female", just like the flower they are named for.

    It's school time again! You're probably feeling excited and maybe a little sad that summer is over. Some kids feel nervous or a little scared (害怕的) on the first day of school because of all the new things: new teachers, new friends, and even a new school. Luckily, these "new" worries only stick around for a little while. Let's find out more about going to a new school.

    Most teachers kick off the new school year by introducing themselves and talking about all the stuff you'll be doing that year. Some teachers give students a chance to tell something about themselves to the rest of the class, too. When teachers do the talking on the first day, they often go over classroom rules and school rules so you'll know what's allowed and what's not. Please pay close attention.

    You might already know a lot of people in your classes on the first day, but it's a great day to make new friends, so try to say hello to kids you know and new ones that you don't. Make the first move and you'll be glad, and so will your new friends!

    Seeing friends you haven't seen in a while can make the first day a good one. You can make the day feel special by wearing clothes that you really like. Maybe you got a great T-shirt on one of your vacations, or a pair of sneakers (运动鞋). It also can make you feel good to be prepared and have all the things you need, such as pencils, folders, and whatever else you'll be needing. But make sure that you pack them the night before in case you don't have time in the morning.

Freshmen at Central Valley High in Ceres had a busy week of good deeds, tied to Pay It Forward Day, April 30, and an urge to show the world that teens can be awesome.

Kids in Success 101 spent first period making sandwiches for the homeless. The classes, taught by Natalie Rowell and Becky Lynch, got to hand 200 bagged sandwiches to the charity giving out the food. "They got to really see what an impact they had. It was inspiring and heartwarming," Rowell said. Besides, students also made blankets to send to soldiers, and created 45 flower arrangements for senior people at the Hale Aloha Home in Ceres. "They were nervous going into it. But when they saw how happy the elderly were, the reality of what they did really surfaced," Rowell said.

Rowell said she liked working with children. get to see how they learn. "It's different from how we learn, but we're kind of the same because they struggle in some of the subjects that we find hard as well."

Success 101 was tailor-made for students with that kind of insight. The first-period class includes study help, speakers on teen subjects and an overall focus on looking past high school, figuring out the steps to create their future. "Some kids need that little push. In this class, that's what we do, we give them that little push," Lynch added. "Success would be beneficial for all ninth-grade students. Since the start of the year, I really see a change in them."

Raquel Alfaro, a teen participant who worked with the younger kids, likes the Pay It Forward idea. "This helps us show adults, and also kids, that we're doing something different and that we're not as mean and selfish as they think we are," Alfaro said.