A world-famous Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, has created the world's first long-distance signing device(装置), the LongPen.

    After many tiring……from city to city, Atwood thought there must be a better way to do them . She hired some technical experts and started her own company in 2004. Together they designed the LongPen. Here's how it works: The author writes a personal message and signature on a computer tablet(手写板) using a special pen. On the receiving end, in another city, a robotic arm fitted with a regular pen signs the book. The author and fan can talk with each other via webcams(网络摄像机) and computer screens。

    Work on the LongPen began in Atwood's basement(地下室). At first, they had no idea it would be as hard as it turned out to be. The device went through several versions, including one that actually had smoke coming out of it. The investing finally completed, teat runs w ere made in Ottawa, and the LongPen was officially launched at the 2006 London Book Fair. From here , Atwood conducted two transatlantic book signings of her latest book for fans in Toronto and New York City.

    The LongPen produces a unique signature each time because it copies the movement of the author in real time. It has several other potential applications. It could increase credit card security and allow people to sign contracts from another province. The video exchange between signer and receiver can be recorded on DVD for proof when legal documents are used.

     “It's really fun”, said the owner of a bookstore, who was present for one of the test runs. “Obviously you can't shake hands with the author but there are chances for a connection that you don't get from a regular book signing..

    The response to the invention has not been all favorable. Atwood has received criticism from authors who think she is trying to end book tours. But she said, “It will be possible to go to places that you never got sent to before because the publishers couldn't  afford it.”

    When we think about happiness, we usually think of something surprising and unexpected, a top great delight.

    For a child, happiness has a magic quality. I remember playing police and robbers in the woods, getting a speaking part in the school play. Of course, kids also experience lows, but their delight at tops of pleasure is easily seen, such as winning a race or getting a new bike.

    For teenagers, or people under 20, the idea of happiness changes. Suddenly it's conditional on such things as excitement, love, and popularity. I can still feel the pain of not being invited to a party that almost everyone else was going to. I also recall the great happiness of being invited at another event to dance with a very handsome young man.

    In adulthood the things that bring great joy — birth, love, marriage — also bring responsibility and the risk of loss. Love may not last; loved ones die. For adults, happiness is complex.

    My dictionary explains “happy” as “lucky” or “ fortunate”, but I think a better explanation of happiness is “ the ability to enjoy something”. The more we can enjoy what we have, the happier we are. It's easy for us not to notice the pleasure we get from loving and being loved, the company of friends, the freedom to love where we please, and even good health. Nowadays, with so many choices and much pleasure, we have turned happiness into one more thing we have. We think we own the right to have it, which makes us extremely unhappy. So we try hard to get it and consider it to be the same as wealth and success, without noticing that the people who have those things aren't necessarily happier.

    While happiness may be more complex for us, the answer is the same as ever. Happiness isn't about what happens to us. It's the ability to find a positive for every negative, and view a difficulty as a challenge. Don't be sad for what we don't have, but enjoy what we do possess.

    What do we think of when we someone mentions Scandinavia(斯堪的纳维亚半岛), the group of Northern European countries? Many things come to mind. We might think of the breath-taking natural beauty of Norway's fjords(海湾). If we enjoyed the fairy tales of Han Christian Anderson as children, perhaps we will think of  Denmark's capital, Copenhagen, and its statue of Anderson's Little Mermaid（美人鱼）.

    Perhaps we shiver at the thought of Scandinavia, as the countries there can be very cold. Or maybe we imagine this part of the world, so high up in the Northern Hemisphere, as dark and a little gloomy.

    What doesn't come to mind is people who like to party. However, according to a survey released by travel site Hostel-world this month, Scandinavia has some of the most sociable cities on the planet.

    For the study, 12,188 people from cities around the world were asked about their attitudes to socializing. Overall, Gothenburg in Sweden came out on top, but Copenhagen and Stockholm also placed highly, among with more predictably lively cities like New York and Madrid.

    A city made up of many little islands, Gothenburg is, according to The Daily Telegraph, "charming in an old-fashioned way". The city's authorities have preserved Gothenburg's attractive wooden houses from the 19^th century. Many of these have been made over into restaurant and coffee bars. Music fans are as well satisfied too — Gothenburg has dozens of record stores and live music venues(场所).

    As you'd expect, Scandinavia cities are also welcoming to visitors. People here don't care about your cultural background or anything else that some other places might take exception to. In these friendly Scandinavia cities, everyone's invited to the party.

    I was born in England, but I am an American. Americans like to travel on their yearly holiday. Today, more and more travelers in the United States are spending nights at small houses or inns (客栈) instead of hotels. They get a room for the night and the breakfast the next morning.

    Rooms for the night in private homes with breakfast have been popular with travelers in Europe for many years. In the past five to ten years, these bed­and­breakfast places have become popular in the United States. Many of these America's bed­and­breakfast inns are old historic buildings. Some bed­and­breakfast inns have only a few rooms; others are much larger. Some inns do not provide telephones or televisions in the rooms; others do.

    Staying at a bed­and­breakfast inn is much different from staying at a hotel. Usually the cost is much less. Staying at an inn is almost like visiting someone's home. The owners are glad to tell about the areas and the interesting places to visit. Many vacationers say they enjoy the chance to meet local families.

    Several Jobs That Will Be Automated By Artificial Intelligence(AI) And Robots

Translator

    Image recognition software and voice recognition software are bringing some major advances to language translation. Applications like Google's Word Lens can translate words from signs and documents in real time and there are a lot of translation apps that allow you to type in a word or phrase and will translate it for you.

    Some will even speak the phrase for you and raw word-to-word translation will be fully automated soon.

    Fast food workers

    Automated ordering booths have already made their way into a few McDonald's restaurants around the world, and cooking positions could be removed next. The booths probably can't handle customer service problems well, so televideo systems could bring in an office employee to deal with complaints.

    Field technician

    New advances in the Internet of Things could make this work obsolete.

    Low-cost sensors combined with high availability cellular／satellite communications and cloud technology are being started to automate and alarm these sites, and can be checked and maintained from a desktop or mobile device.

    Sales representative

    But, e-commerce is changing how we make purchasing decisions, especially those where there isn't much differentiation among the major competitors.

    If you're selling a high-differentiation product and／or a high-price, low-volume product you have some job security, but if you're selling a high-volume, low-differentiation product, you better start polishing your resume, said Doug Camplejohn, CEO of Fliptop. “These kind of product sales are all moving online.”

    Chinese New Year has been welcomed in Britain with its biggest ever program of events and celebrations.

    From London's Trafalgar Square to major cities across Britain, tens of thousands of British people have joined Chinese communities to celebrate the arrival of the Year of the Rooster.

    In Manchester there was a Dragon Parade, led by a spectacular 54-meter long dragon, ending is Chinatown where there was traditional Chinese entertainment, more than 6,000 lanterns, street food villages and a fireworks show. Celebrations also took place in Liverpool. Birmingham, Lake District, Durham, Edinburgh. Leeds and Newcastle.

    Academic Dr. Wu Kegang said that the Chinese New Year event in Britain “is now bigger than ever and it is growing every year.”

    When Wu arrived in Britain 26 years ago from Guangdong, south China, the first thing he noticed was that Chinese New Year was celebrated mainly in towns and cities with big Chinese communities. “You would go to London Chinatown and join your countrymen to celebrate, or to Chinatowns in places like Liverpool and Manchester for what were events almost exclusively held for Chinese people,” Wu recalled.

    “Now it is so different, and we are seeing local communities all over the country taking part alongside their own Chinese populations,” he said. “It is clear to me that the celebrations will continue to grow in Britain. Chinese New Year has earned its place in the calendar of events in Britain, and is here to stay.”