王倩 選 硯青 注

Twendy-one: A Robot for Your Home

保姆機器人

修長的胳膊、藍色的眼睛加上一張扁平的大臉龐，機器人Twendy-one與電影中的外星人形象頗有幾分神似。這個歷時近七年，耗資數百萬美元打造而成的機器人除了外形拉風，做起家務來更是一把好手，它渾身布滿傳感器，動作十分靈活，不僅能為主人烤面包，端早餐，還是老年人或行動不便的人的好幫手。

A futuristic robot designed to help care for the ageing population was recently unveiled in Japan.

Twendy-one, as he or she is called, has a light touch and a soft grip with movements that respond to human touch. But don’t be fooled—he has enough strength to support a man to sit or stand. At the same time he can pick up a loaf of bread without crushing it and serve toast without showering the kitchen in crumbs.

“It’s the first robot in the world with this much system integration,” said Shigeki Sugano, professor of mechanical engineering at Waseda University, who led the Twendy-One project.

The project team have managed to balance strength and flexibility—but it has taken almost seven years and cost millions of pounds to assemble the 241 pressure-sensors in each silicon-wrapped “hand” and the ability to speak. In order for the robot to safely co-exist with humans, researchers have equipped it with a large number of touch and force feedback sensors allowing to detect and react to collisions in order to prevent injuries. The researchers demonstrated the robot helping an elderly person get out of bed and preparing breakfast with him.

Twendy-one is 3ft 8ins tall with long arms and a face that puts you in mind of E.T. from the sci-fi movie of the same name. The name represents a 21st-century version of Wendy, an earlier model.

The Twendy-One robot team wants to commercialize their creation by 2015 which would be plenty of time for them to work out many details that would allow the robot to operate in more complex and unconstrained situations.

Vocabulary

futuristic 未來（主義）的，極其先進的

unveiled 揭幕，向公眾展示

grip 緊握（或抓牢）的方式

a loaf of 長方形的一大塊

toast 烤面包片，吐司

crumb 碎屑，面包屑

integration 集成，綜合，整體

flexibility 靈活性

assemble 裝配，組裝

pressure-sensor 壓力傳感器

silicon-wrapped 硅包裹的

feedback sensor 反應傳感器

collision 碰撞

sci-fi movie 科幻電影

commercialize 使商業化，使……作為商品出售

unconstrained 不受約束的

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Philips Food Printer

飛利浦食物打印機

胡蘿卜可以變成意大利面，西蘭花能變身為糖果或冰激凌？沒錯！飛利浦的概念食物打印機能讓這些聽上去異想天開的主意統統變成現實。這款打印機運用分子烹飪學的原理將食物進行解構，再用3D打印的技術將食物重組成你想要的形狀。快來看看這款神奇的食物打印機吧！

Already for thousands of years people have been food designers. How will food technology develop itself into the 21th century? The Philips investigate how we will eat and source our food in the future, like in 15 to 20 years. One of such products that we might have in our home is this Philips Food Printer.

Molecular gastronomy approaches cooking from a scientific point of view. It studies the physical and chemical processes that occur during the cooking process and tries to understand and explain the transformation that takes place within the ingredients. Everyone who has cooked an egg before knows how different cooking times and temperatures will effect your egg, right? Molecular gastronomists who have a better understanding of these processes can use this knowledge to deconstruct food and reassemble them in bizarre new forms and shapes.

For example carrot could be served as foam or parmesan cheese as a strand of spaghetti! So if the kids don’t want to eat broccoli or brussels sprouts, how about shaping them as candy or ice-cream?

Combine this knowledge with the technology of a 3D printer and you have food printer which could print food in any shape by your own design. This would offer endless new possibilities to present food. A nice extra feature is that this printer would even allow you to adjust the nutritional value of the food that is being printed, perfect to keep a balanced diet.

Vocabulary

a strand of 一串（縷、股）

bizarre 奇形怪狀的，異乎尋常的

broccoli 西蘭花，花椰菜

brussels sprouts 湯菜，球芽甘藍（或其小而可食的球狀芽）

carrot 胡蘿卜

deconstruct 解構，拆分

foam 泡沫

ingredient 成分

Molecular gastronomy 分子烹飪法（美食學）

nutritional value 營養價值

parmesan cheese 帕爾馬干酪（一種用脫脂乳制成的意大利硬干酪）

reassemble 重新集合

spaghetti 意大利面

transformation 變化，轉換，轉變

（來源：英語學習雜志）