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  3. For centuries, canes have served blind and partially sighted people well by giving them a means to negotiate the world around th

For centuries, canes have served blind and partially sighted people well by giving them a means to negotiate the world around th

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问题     For centuries, canes have served blind and partially sighted people well by giving them a means to negotiate the world around them. The only serious upgrade they have undergone dates back to 1921, when a Briton called James Biggs, who had recently lost his sight, painted his own cane white in order to make it easily visible and to alert others to the presence of someone unable to see nearby obstacles. In the opinion of Daniela Rus of MIT, however, the white cane has had its day. Dr. Rus would like to replace it with a system that scans its user’s environment and communicates back to him what it sees.
    Dr. Rus’s device consists of a camera worn on a string around the neck, and a belt. A computer inside the camera creates a three-dimensional image of the area ahead of the wearer, processes it to extract relevant information, and uses the results to pass on appropriate signals via the belt.
    Dr. Rus knew from previous attempts to build devices of this sort that what might seem the obvious way of manifesting those signals, namely as sounds with specific meanings, was not a good approach. Blind people depend a lot on their hearing and do not like it when stylish devices hamper this sense with beeps and clicks. Hence the belt, which has five vibrating motors installed in it.
    That configuration permits the computer to warn a wearer when he is on a collision course with an obstacle. It does so by telling the motor pointing most closely in the direction of the obstacle to vibrate. If the wearer is walking towards a wall, for example, the central motor vibrates softly when he comes within a couple of metres of it. If he ignores this, perhaps because he actually wants to reach the wall, the computer increases the amplitude as he closes in, giving him a good idea of exactly how far away he is. When compared with white cane, it reduced blind persons’ collisions with others by 86％.
    The new system can do more than just help someone walk around without collisions, for the belt incorporates a touchpad that is inscribed with instructions in Braille. This permits the user to program it to perform specific tasks.
    For example, Dr. Rus knew that blind students often struggle to find an empty seat in a crowded lecture theatre. Adding an appropriate algorithm to the computer’s software helps get around this by enabling it to recognize chairs, and also whether or not a chair is occupied.
    Whether a camera and a belt could replace a cane completely remains to be seen. In particular, Dr. Rus’s system does lack one important feature of Biggs’s innovation. A white cane not only helps a blind person to navigate, it also signals his condition to the rest of the world, allowing others to adjust their behavior accordingly.
According to the text, which of the following is true about Dr. Rus’s system?
选项 A、It has been upgraded in 1921.
B、It completely imitates the design of white canes.
C、It needs further improvement.
D、It is slightly inferior to James Biggs’s invention.
答案C
解析 细节题。文章第七段指出，“摄像机和腰带的组合能否完全取代导盲杖仍有待观察”。说明这套设备还需要进一步改进，故正确答案为C项。文章第一段第二句指出“拐杖唯一一次正儿八经的升级还是在1921年，当时刚刚失明的英国人詹姆斯.比格斯将自己的拐杖漆成了白色，使其变得更为醒目，以提醒他人这里有一个看不到周围障碍物的人。”所以排除A项；在文章最后一段提到“特别是鲁斯的系统与比格斯发明相比缺少了的一项重要功能”。所以说鲁斯的发明完全模仿比格斯是错误的，故排除B项；D项“它略逊于詹姆斯.比格斯的发明”，鲁斯的发明也有很多拐杖比不了的优点，他的发明有待改进，但是已经是巨大的进步，故排除。
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