The kids in this village wear dirty, ragged clothes. They sleep beside cows and sheep in huts made of sticks and mud. They have no school. Yet they all can chant the English alphabet, and some can make words.

    The key to their success: 20 tablet computers(平板电脑) dropped off in their Ethiopian village in February by a U.S. group called One Laptop Per Child.

    The goal is to find out whether kids using today's new technology can teach themselves to read in places where no schools or teachers exist. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers analyzing the project data say they're already amazed. “What I think has already happened is that the kids have already learned more than they would have in one year of kindergarten,” said Matt Keller, who runs the Ethiopia program.

    The fastest learner—and the first to turn on one of the tablets—is 8-year-old Kelbesa Negusse. The device's camera was disabled to save memory, yet within weeks Kelbesa had figured out its workings and made the camera work. He called himself a lion, a marker of accomplishment in Ethiopia.

    With his tablet, Kelbasa rearranged the letters HSROE into one of the many English animal names he knows. Then he spelled words on his own. “Seven months ago he didn't know any English. That's unbelievable,” said Keller.

    The project aims to get kids to a stage called “deep reading,” where they can read to learn. It won't be in Amharic, Ethiopia's first language, but in English, which is widely seen as the ticket to higher paying jobs.

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    Robots writing newspapers

    Whether it's robots working as hotel receptionists or artificial intelligence creating poetry, it's becoming more and more common to read about technology doing the jobs of humans.

    And now, it seems that software is even capable of writing news stories –such as the very one you're reading.

    Recently the Press Association (PA), a UK news service, has created a computer program that's capable of creating articles that are almost impossible to tell apart from those written by human journalists.

    Called “robo-journalism”, such software “teaches” itself by analyzing thousands of news stories written by humans. The PA's software is already so advanced that many UK newspapers and websites publish articles created by it.

    According to the Reuters Institute of Journalism, many publishers are using robo-journalism to release interesting information quickly, from election results to official figures on social issues. For example, The Washington Post has its own robo-journalism software, Heliograf. Heliograf “wrote “over 850 articles in 2017, as well as hundreds of social media posts.

    So what does this mean for regular journalists?

    “We're naturally wary about any technology that could replace human beings,” Fredrick Kunkle, a Washington Post reporter, told Wired.

    “But this technology seems to have taken over only some of the work that nobody else wants to do.” “Indeed, it appears that robo-journalism software is designed to help humans, rather than take away their jobs.

    “In the future, Heliograf could do things like search the web to see what people are talking about, check The Washington Post to see if that story is being covered, and, if not, alert(提醒) editors or just write the piece itself.”Wired reporter Joe Keoha wrote.

    However, Joshua Benton at Harvard University's Nieman Journalism Lab believes that while robo-jounalism is undoubtedly going to become more present in newsrooms, nothing can replace traditional human creativity.

“Good journalism is not just a matter of inputs and outputs, it is a craft(技艺) that has developed over decades, “ he told BBC News. “The really difficult part of what professional journalists do—carefully weighing information and presenting balanced , contextualized(全景式的) stories —will be very hard for machines to master.

    The lower East Side is neither rich nor beautiful, but it can be a good place to shop.

    On Sundays, its streets are crowded with visitors and shoppers like these. They are trying to find a coat or a pair of shoes at a good price.

    Most people prefer to shop in the big department stores like Macy's, Gimbel's, or Bloomingdale's because there they can find clothing, furniture, toys, and food in one store.

    Some people like the smaller stores of Greenwich Village or other areas when they are looking for an unusual present.

    Some streets have only one kind of stores. Bracelets (手镯) and rings shine in the windows of Canal Street, and wedding dresses fill the stores of Grant Street. There are streets for furs(皮大衣), and, in one area, there are 600 shops for antiques (古玩)! Fifth Avenue is the most famous place to shop, and it is usually the most expensive. There you can find the latest styles from Paris, Italy, or New York. You can spend thousands of dollars on Fifth Avenue, or you can just window shop and admire the sights for free.

    You may know about “junk food” like French fries. But do you know about “junk sleep”?

    Recently, a British survey found that electronic(电子的) products in teenagers bedrooms are affecting(影响)their sleep.

    The survey was done among 1,000 British kids from 12 to 16. It found that 30 percent of them got just 4 to 7 hours sleep every day. But doctors say they need 8 to 9 hours.

    Almost a quarter of the kids said they fell asleep more than once a week while watching TV, listening to music or using other electronic products.

    “This is very worrying.” said Dr Chris Idzikowski, a British expert, “We call it 'junk sleep', it means you don't get enough sleep and the quality of the sleep is bad, too. If you don't get good rest, you don't perform well in school the next day.”

    The survey found that 40 percent of the kids felt tired each day, with girls between 13 and 16 feeling the worst. Nearly all the teenagers have a phone, Mp4 or TV in their bedroom. And many of them have all three.

    Google's new camera, called Clips, is a small, smart device. It comes with a case that has a clip (夹子)，but it's not designed to be worn on your clothing. Most interestingly, it uses artificial intelligence to take photography out of your hands so it can capture moments on its own.

    This roughly 2-inch by 2-inch camera, with a three-hour battery life and Gorilla Glass for toughness, is intended for candid moments, like when a child does something cute that may happen too quickly for you to pull out your smartphone.

    Onboard the Clips device, it uses machine learning algorithms (计算程序) to help capture scenes. Those algorithms include face recognition. "Once it learns that there's a face you see frequently, it'll try to get nice photos of those faces," said Juston Payne, the device's product manager. And they also want it to recognize facial expressions, which involved "training it to know what happiness looks like". The Google team also trained it to recognize what not to shoot — like when a child's hand is over the lens, or if it is tossed in a dark purse.

    The only way to see the images is by connecting the camera with your phone, as it has no screen for viewing or editing.

    Were people concerned it could seem strange? Yes, Payne admitted. But they said they addressed that by making it obvious what it is. A green light on the front signals that it is on. Besides, unlike a camera meant to monitor your home, it is not connected to the Internet.

    "This product is only possible because of the way that silicon has advanced" Payne said, noting that it was only in the past year or so that they could squeeze the technology down into a device this size. Going forward, we're likely to get more assistance from the artificial intelligence packed into our apps and gadgets.

    Technology offers conveniences such as opening the garage door from your car or changing the television station without touching the TV.

    Now one American company is offering its employees a new convenience: a microchip implanted (植入) in their hands. Employees who have these chips can do all kinds of things just by waving their hands. Three Square Market is offering to implant microchips in all of their employees for free. Each chip costs $300 and Three Square Market will pay for the chip. Employees can volunteer to have the chips implanted in their hands. About 50 out of 80 employees have chosen to do so. The president of the company, his wife and their children are also getting chips implanted in their hands.

    The chip is about the size of a grain of rice. Implanting the chip only takes about a second and is said to hurt only very briefly. The chips go under the skin between the thumb and forefinger. With a chip in the hand, a person can enter the office building, buy food, sign into computers and more, simply by waving that hand near a scanner. The chips will be also used to identify employees. Employees who want convenience, but do not want to have a microchip implanted under their skin, can wear a wristband (腕带) or a ring with a chip instead. They can perform the same tasks with a wave of their hands as if they had an implanted chip.

    Three Square Market is the first company in the United States to offer to implant chips in its employees. Epicenter, a company in Sweden, has been implanting chips in its employees for a while.

    Three Square Market says the chip cannot track the employees. The company says scanners can read the chips only when they are within a few inches of them. "The chips protect against identity theft, similar to credit cards." The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the chips back in 2004, so they should be safe for humans, according to the company.

    In the future, people with the chips may be able to do more with them, even outside the office. Todd Westby is Chief Executive Officer of Three Square Market. He says, "Eventually, this technology will become standardized allowing you to use this as your passport, public transit, all purchasing opportunities, etc."