花式英语

IBM Ends Facial Recognition, Questions Police Use of Technology

America's IBM has ended its facial recognition business and raised concerns about how police forces might be using the technology.

IBM and other major technology companies have been developing facial recognition systems using machine learning methods and artificial intelligence, or AI.

Facial recognition systems are designed to identify individuals in photo databases or from video surveillance.

Facial recognition accuracy has greatly improved in recent years. The technology is used by police in several major cities and by some U.S. government agencies. Privacy groups and civil rights activists have criticized such use of the technology.

Several studies have shown the technology can have difficulties correctly guessing a person's race or sex. Critics say such failures could violate a person's civil rights. Activists have also warned that facial recognition systems could be used for mass surveillance of citizens.

新闻来源：VOA

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听力来源：VOA

http://www.unsv.com/voanews/specialenglish/scripts/2020/06/10/0701/
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New Zealand Declares Itself Free from Coronavirus

New Zealand has declared itself free from the coronavirus and lifted all virus-related restrictions within the country.

Health officials said Monday the last known person infected with coronavirus had recovered.

Border controls will remain in place in an effort to prevent infected people from bringing the virus into New Zealand. All other restrictions will end, including social distancing and limits on economic activity and public gatherings.

New Zealand's 75 days of restrictions included about seven weeks of a strict lockdown in which most businesses were shut and everyone except necessary workers had to stay home.

新闻来源：VOA
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Scientists have discovered the largest and oldest-known structure that was built by the ancient Mayan people.

Large and shaped like a rectangle, the structure was built between 2,800 and 3,000 years ago in what is now the Mexican state of Tabasco.

Unlike the large Mayan pyramids built some 1,500 years later, the newly discovered building was made with clay and earth. It was likely used for ceremonies, researchers say.

Built near the Guatemalan border, the structure measured nearly 400 meters wide and nearly 1,400 meters long. It stood between 10 and 15 meters high. It had more volume -- the amount of space -- than Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza.

Researchers noted that there were no signs of statues of powerful or wealthy people. This suggests Mayan culture may have had more equality during this period.

Takeshi Inomata, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona, led the research. The findings were published in the scientific journal Nature.

听力来源：VOA
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Feeling 'Under the Weather'?

Today, we talk about feeling sick. We have all felt sick at some point in our lives. And our condition can go from one extreme to the other. If I am very sick, you could say I am as sick as a dog. Other times I may feel good enough to go to work, but still not great.

When I feel tired, worn out or just a little sick, I can say I am feeling under the weather.

This is probably the simplest, most common way to say, "I don't feel well." In fact, I could not think of another phrase that expresses the same meaning as well as "under the weather" does.

When you are under the weather, your condition is not serious. You do not need to be in a hospital or see a doctor.

Now, bad weather can affect your health. For example, if I'm caught in a cold rainstorm for several hours without proper protection, I very possibly will get sick. But why do we say under the weather when we're sick? That just sounds strange.

To find out, I turned to a publication called Farmers' Almanac. Farmers' Almanac is not really meant for language learners. It was founded in 1818 to help American farmers understand more about the natural world around them as they grow and harvest their crops. That is still its purpose today.

The Farmer's Almanac website tells about all things weather-related – from average snowfall totals to phases of the moon to advice for fishing on a rainy day. So, if an idiom is weather-related, it probably will be explained in the Farmer's Almanac!

To explain, "under the weather," the website published the writing of Richard Lederer, a word expert. Lederer notes that the expression "under the weather" comes from the language of sailors.

Esha Serai travels along as some girls from South Carolina go on a confidence-building trip on board a sailing ship. Imagine being on a boat on rough seas. The waves continually force the boat up and down and side to side. This continual movement can make many people feel seasick.

听力来源：VOA
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Contest Makes Handwashing Fun for Children

Parents around the world often urge children over and over – wash your hands!

This advice was already common before the coronavirus crisis. Now there is added pressure on children – as well as adults – to wash their hands even more.

It can be difficult, however, to get children to remember to wash and many are likely to resist.

But what if washing hands was connected to a fun, creative activity? What if instead of simply reaching for the soap, a machine could drop it right into your hands?

Well, such a machine was recently built by a boy and his sister in the U.S. state of Maryland as part of a creative competition. The not-for-profit Rube Goldberg organization is holding the competition.

新闻来源：VOA

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13 Percent of World’s Museums May Not Reopen after Pandemic

Two studies show that museums are another part of the world economy that has been greatly weakened by the coronavirus pandemic.

The studies report that 90 percent of museums worldwide have been forced to close and stop in-person operations during the crisis. Of more than 85,000 closed museums, an estimated 13 percent are at risk of never reopening again because of heavy financial losses.

The studies were carried out by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The two studies sought to understand the full effects of COVID-19 on museums worldwide. The research also looked at changes cultural organizations have made to survive the pandemic.

新闻来源：VOA

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Bionic eye with better sight
世界首款人造3D眼问世

The world's first 3D artificial eyeball - capable of outperforming the human eye in some ways - may help droves of people who are partially or fully blind in five years, according to experts.
专家称，世界首款3D人造眼球有望在五年内帮助许多部分或完全失明的人重见光明，这种人造眼球在某些方面比人眼还要好。


Researchers from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have devised an electrochemical eye whose structure and performance mimic those of the ones humans are born with.
香港科技大学的研究人员设计了一款模拟人眼结构和性能的电化学眼球。


"The device design has a high degree of structural similarity to a human eye with the potential to achieve high imaging resolution when individual nanowires are electrically addressed," researchers of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology wrote in a paper published in the journal Nature.
香港科技大学研究人员在《自然》杂志上发表的论文中写道，该设备的设计结构与人眼高度相似，当对单个纳米线进行电寻址时，具有实现高成像分辨率的潜力。


Aside from helping individuals improve their vision, experts claim the technology may help create biomimetic photosensing devices that could be used in a "wide spectrum of technological applications."
除了帮助人们提高视力外，专家称这项技术可能还有助于创造能被广泛应用于各种技术领域的仿生光敏设备。

新闻来源：China Daily
 
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Plastic pavement to curb waste

Ninety percent of the plastic we use ends up in landfills, or in the world's oceans.

Now, a Scottish firm has invented a way to recycle that hard-to-use plastic for a role that requires durability: paving roads and highways.

The driveway at Christopher Boyle's 17th-century English estate used the equivalent of 750,000 plastic bags and bottles ground up along with other hard-to-recycle plastic.

"It has all the ecological, environmental benefits, but to your ordinary punter, you don't see any difference at all," Boyle said.

新闻来源：China Daily

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In Some Olympic Sports, Training from Home Is Almost Normal
在家进行奥运活动训练已成为平常


Nikhil Kumar is one of the best young table tennis players in the United States. Less than a month after Kumar won the right to compete in them, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games were postponed until 2021. Like so many other Olympic athletes, he is now trying to stay sharp and in shape.


What is different are all the details of his training. All things considered, he says, everything seems to be wong.


"For my sport, a little lucky that we&`&re able to have everything indoors, and it&`&s not taking up too much space and everything," Kumar said. "Not many sports are as lucky as ours is right now, to be able to have the opportunity to continue playing on a daily basis."


The coronavirus pandemic has forced many athletes to be creative as they try to continue their training. But in some Olympic sports, wong from home is fairly common. Kumar has been able to play table tennis with a robot that shoots balls at him.


Everyone is facing issues during the pandemic, but some competitors have been lucky. Weightlifter Kate Nye trains at home in her garage.


She said, "When everything kind of started shutting down, it obviously affected our lives in other ways — but weightlifting wasn&`&t one of them. I&`&ve kind of just been going as scheduled."


新闻来源：AP