[A]Robots Come from the Movies. [B]Development of Robots Is Fast. [C]Google Enters the Robot Industry. [D]Robots Today A

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问题   [A]Robots Come from the Movies.
  [B]Development of Robots Is Fast.
  [C]Google Enters the Robot Industry.
  [D]Robots Today Are Not Impressive Enough.
  [E]The Future Robot Market Rests With Fancy.
  [F]Robots May Be Different in the Near Future.
  [G]More Money Is Thrown into the Robot Industry.
   Robots came into the world as a literary device whereby the writers and film-makers of the early 20th century could explore their hopes and fears about technology, as the era of the automobile, telephone and aeroplane picked up its reckless jazz-age speed. From Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot to WALL-E and the Terminator films, and in countless repetitions in between, they have succeeded admirably in their task.
   【R1】______
   Since moving from the page and screen to real life, robots have been a mild disappointment. They do some things that humans cannot do themselves, like exploring Mars, and a host of things people do not much want to do, like dealing with unexploded bombs or vacuuming floors. And they are very useful in bits of manufacturing. But reliable robots—especially ones required to work beyond the safety cages of a factory floor—have proved hard to make, and robots are still pretty stupid. So although they fascinate people, they have not yet made much of a mark on the world.
   【R2】______
   That seems about to change. The exponential growth in the power of silicon chips, digital sensors and high-bandwidth communications improves robots just as it improves all sorts of other products. And, as our special report this week explains, three other factors are at play.
   【R3】______
   One is that robotics R&D is getting easier. New shared standards make good ideas easily portable from one robot platform to another. And accumulated know-how means that building such platforms is getting a lot cheaper. A robot like Rethink Robotics’s Baxter, with two arms and a remarkably easy, intuitive programming interface, would have been barely conceivable ten years ago. Now you can buy one for $ 25,000.
   【R4】______
   A second factor is investment. The biggest robot news of 2013 was that Google bought eight promising robot startups. Rich and well led and with access to world-beating expertise in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, both highly relevant, Google’s robot programme promises the possibility of something spectacular—though no one outside the company knows what that might be. Amazon , too, is betting on robots, both to automate its warehouses and, more speculatively, to make deliveries by drone. In South Korea and elsewhere companies are moving robot technology to new areas of manufacturing and other services. Venture capitalists see a much better chance of a profitable exit from a robotics startup than they used to.
   【R5】______
   The third factor is imagination. In the past few years, clever companies have seen ways to make robots work. Now more people will grasp how a robotic attribute such as high precision or fast reactions or independent locomotion can be integrated into a profitable business; eventually some of them will build mass markets. Aerial robots—drones—may be in the vanguard here. They will let farmers tend their crops in new ways, give citizens, journalists and broadcasters new perspectives on events big and small, monitor traffic and fires, look for infrastructure in need of repair and much more besides.
【R3】

选项

答案B

解析 该段首句为中心句One is that robotics R&D is getting easier.“第一,机器人研究与开发变得更容易了。”其中,R&D指research and development“研发”,与之接近的是选项[B]Development of Robots Is Fast“机器人发展迅速”,其中development of robots=robotic research and development:is fast=is getting easier;故本题答案为[B]。
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