Mrs. White lived in a town of England. Her husband died three years ago and one of her children worked in the capital and the other three lived in another town. Her husband didn't leave her much money and she had to live a simple (简朴) life. Sometimes her children went to see her during their holidays, but they stayed with her for only two or three days.

    One winter morning the old woman got up early. She was going to buy some food in a shop. And when she came out, she found there was much snow in the street. She had to sweep it away. And suddenly she found a dying dog at the comer of the house. She picked it up and took it into the house quickly. She put it near the fire and gave it some milk and bread. At first the poor dog ate nothing and that afternoon it drank some milk and three days later it was all right. Now the old woman found it was a beautiful dog. And she liked it very much and took it everywhere she went. A week later she went shopping with her dog. At a bus stop a young man was eating fish and chips. The little dog became very excited at the smell of the man's lunch and began jumping up at him.

    “Do you mind if I throw it a bit?'' asked the young man.

    “Not at all,” answered Mrs. White.

    Having heard this, he picked up the dog and threw it over the wall.

    It seems that no one can live a happy life without friendship. While a great number of people expect others to be their friends, they don't give friendship back. That is why some friendships don't last long. To have a friend, you must learn to be one. You must learn to treat your friend the way you want your friend to treat you. Learning to be a good friend means learning three rules: be honest; be generous; be understanding.

    Honesty is where a good friendship starts. Friends must be able to trust one another. If you do not tell the truth, people usually find out. If a friend finds out that you haven't been honest, you may lose your friend's trust. Good friends always depend on one another to speak and act honestly.

    Generosity means sharing and sharing makes a friendship grow. You do not have to give your lunch money or your clothes. Naturally you will want to share your ideas and feelings. These can be very valuable to a friend. They tell your friend what is important to you. By sharing them, you help your friend know better.

    Sooner or later everyone needs understanding and help with each other. Something may go wrong at school. Talking about the problem can make it easier to solve. Turning to a friend can be a first step in solving the problem. So to be a friend you must listen and understand. You must try to put yourself in your friend's place so that you can understand the problem better.

    No two friendships are exactly alike. But all true friendships have three things in common. If you plan to keep your friends, you must practice honesty, generosity and understanding.

    Angad Rekhi, a graduate student and an assistant professor of electrical engineering, has developed a wake-up receiver. This wake-up receiver has many potential applications, particularly in designing the next generation of net worked devices, including so called "smart" devices that can communicate directly with one another without human intervention (介入).

    Once attached to a device, a wake-up receiver listens for a unique ultrasonic（超声波）pattern that tells it when to turn the device on. It needs only a very small amount of power to maintain this constant listening, so it still saves energy overall while extending the battery life of the larger device. A well-designed wake-up receiver also allows the device to be turned on from a significant distance.

    Given the increased interest in networked devices, researchers and industry organizations are starting to define what features and techniques will become standard. Regardless of whether this ultrasound wake-up receiver is among these standard designs, it is likely wake-up receivers of some kind will be combined into commercial applications soon.

    By comparison, the ultrasound wake-up receiver requires a battery but has much greater range than the wirelessly powered devices, while still maintaining a long lifetime due to extremely low power draw. These two technologies-wireless power and wake-up receivers-would likely serve different purposes but both indicate at a turning point in devices that make up the Internet of Things.

    "In light of a long-promised future where interconnected, autonomous, widespread and unremarkable technologies make life easier, the networked devices available now, like video doorbells and app-enabled lights, seem like rather slight advances." the researchers said. They believe technologies like theirs could help cross the gap between the Internet of Things as we know it and the Internet of Things at its best-whatever that may be.

    If you're living in or visiting New York, take a few hours to visit one of these places to ice skate during your time in New York City.

    Bank of America Winter Village at Bryant Park

    The free rink in Manhattan's Bryant Park first opened in 2005 At 17,000 square feet, it is about half the size of the Wollman Rink in Central Park and twice as big as the rink at Rockefeller Center.

    As Manhattan's only free skating rink, and centrally located at that, it tends to be mobbed(闱聚) with waits up to 2 hours on weekend days.

    Sky Rink at Chelsea Piers

    Manhattan's only year-round skating rink is a delight that's been around since 1965 It's large, indoors, and has few lines, and courteous staff It's also, amazingly, open 24 hours a day In the winter it sometimes gets so cold that the ice cracks, but at least they fix it!

    Prices for skating admission is $11 and skate rental $6.

    Riverbank Stile Park Ice Skating Rink

    This sizeable outdoor rink is open to the public Friday through Sunday, and has a root to prevent December snows and April rain .And since Riverbank Stale Park overlooks the Hudson, you'll have nice views of the river and the George Washington Bridge as a backdrop.

    Admission is S5 for adults, children S3 Skate rental is $6 The Ice Kink at Rockefeller Center Ice skating at Rockefeller Center is a truly unique New York holiday staple(重要内容). It is the most sumptuous(豪华的)getting for skating Since opening on Christmas Day back in 1936 this skating rink has been an institution at the Rockefeller.

    Admission is $25—$32 for adults, children up to 12 years S15, skate retual $12.

    I visited Elba last June, joining Mary and John on a bicycling vacation. They made the arrangements for the car, hotel and bicycles. I studied the history of the island, which of course particularly features Napoleon.

    Napoleon (now I know) picked Elba as a place for peace when he was forced to give up the throne (王权) as Emperor of France in 1814. Far from being a prison island, Elba is beautiful with towering mountains, thick forests and sweeping bays and beaches.

    It is also an island filled with treasure. Very early on this island, locals discovered rich deposits of iron. Soon outsiders, too, discovered the iron and 150 other valuable minerals on this little piece of land. Long before Etruscans and other Greeks set foot on it, Dorians had moved in by the tenth century B. C. and were mining the island. The Romans ruled next, obtaining the minerals and building grand houses overlooking the sea. From the twelfth century until the nineteenth, the island was traded back and forth and was passed to France in 1802. Then came Napoleon, the new ruler of Elba.

    I was eager to visit his house in Portoferraio. The Emperor lived with his court and his mother, but his wife, Marie Louise had ensconced herself in the splendid Viennese palace of her father, Emperor of Austria. She lived safely there and showed little interest in visiting her husband in his mini-kingdom. Apparently, Napoleon wasn't troubled much by this. He was too busy riding everywhere on horseback, building roads, modernizing agriculture and, above all, sharpening his tiny army and navy into readiness for his escape.

    In the formal gardens behind the house it seemed to me that I could imagine the exiled (流放的) conqueror's anxious thoughts. He might gaze over where I stood now, toward the lighthouse of the Stella fort, the sandy bay, and across it, the green mountains of the Tuscan coast. Napoleon spent only ten months here before making his victorious return to France and the throne.

Life in the future will be very different from that today. Between then and now many changes will take place (发生), but what will the changes be?

The population is growing fast. There will be many people in the world and most of them will live longer than people now. Computers will be much smaller and more useful, and there will be at least one in every home. And computer studies will be one of the most important subjects at school then. 

People will work fewer hours than they do now and they will have more free time for sports, watching TV and travelling. Travelling will be much easier and cheaper. And more people will go to other countries for holidays. 

Work in the future will be different too. Robots(机器人) can do dangerous and hard work. Because of this, many people will not have enough work to do. This will be a problem.