首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Science Fiction? Not Any More Science fiction has often been the source of inspiration for new technologies. The exoskeleton
Science Fiction? Not Any More Science fiction has often been the source of inspiration for new technologies. The exoskeleton
admin
2011-01-15
103
问题
Science Fiction? Not Any More
Science fiction has often been the source of inspiration for new technologies. The exoskeletons and head-mounted displays featured in the film "Aliens", for example, spawned a number of militaryfunded projects to try to create similar technologies. Automatic sliding doors might never have become popular had they not appeared on the television series "Star Trek". And the popularity of flip-top or "clamshell" mobile phones may stem from the desire to look like Captain Kirk flipping open his communicator on the same program.
Now it seems that "Star Trek" has done it again. This month, American soldiers in Iraq will begin trials of a device inspired by the "comm badge" featured in "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Like crew members of the starship Enterprise, soldiers will be able to talk to other members of their unit just by tapping and then speaking into a small badge worn on the chest. What sets the comm badge apart from a mere walkie-talkie, and appeals to "Star Trek" fans, is the system’s apparent intelligence. It works out who you are calling from spoken commands, and connects you instantly.
The system, developed by Vocera Communications of Cupertino, California, uses a combination of Wi-Fi wireless networking and Voice-overInternet Protocol (VoIP) technologies to link up the badges via a central server, akin to a switchboard. The badges are already being used in 80 large institutions, most of them hospitals, to replace overhead paging systems, says Brent Lang, Vocera’s vice-president.
Like its science-fiction counterpart, the badge is designed so that all functions can be carded out by pressing a single button. On pressing it, the caller gives a command and specifies the name of a person or group of people, such as "call Dr. Smith" or "locate the nearest anesthesiologist". Voice-recognition software interprets the commands and locates the appropriate person or group, based on whichever Wi-Fi base-station they are closest to. The person receiving the call then hears an audible alert stating the name of the caller and, if he or she wishes to take the call, responds by tapping the badge and starting to speak.
That highlights a key difference between the "Star Trek" comm badge and the real-life version: A Vocera’s implementation allows people to reject incoming calls, rather than having the voice of the caller patched through automatically. B But even the most purist fans can forgive Vocera for deviating from the script in this way, says David Batchelor, an astrophysicist and "Star Trek" enthusiast at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. C For there are, he notes, some curious aspects to the behavior of the comm badges in "Star Trek". D When the captain of the Enterprise says "Picard to sick-bay: Medical emergency on the bridge", for example, his badge somehow connects him to the sick-bay before he has stated the destination of the call.
Allowing badge users to reject incoming calls if they are busy, rather than being connected instantly, was a feature added at the request of customers, says Mr. Lang. But in almost all other respects the badges work just like their fictional counterparts. This is not very surprising, says Lawrence Krauss, an astrophysicist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and the author of "The Physics of Star Trek". In science fiction, and particularly in "Star Trek", most problems have technological fixes. Sometimes, it seems, those fixes can be applied to real-world problems too.
Vocera’s system is particularly well suited to hospitals, says Christine Tarver, a clinical manager at E1 Camino Hospital in Mountain View, California. It allows clinical staff to reach each other far more quickly than with beepers and overhead pagers. A recent study carried out at St. Agnes Healthcare in Baltimore, Maryland, assessed the amount of time spent by clinical staff trying to get hold of each other, both before and after the installation of the Vocera system. It concluded that the badges would save the staff a total of 3,400 hours each year.
Nursing staff often end up playing phone tag with doctors, which wastes valuable time, says Ms Tamer. And although people using the badges sometimes look as though they are talking to themselves, she says, many doctors prefer it because it enables them to deal with queries more efficiently. The system can also forward calls to mobile phones; it can be individually trained to ensure that it understands users with strong accents; and it can even be configured with personalized ring tones.
In Iraq, soldiers will use the Vocera badges in conjunction with base-stations mounted on Humvee armored vehicles. Beyond medical and military uses, Vocera hopes to sell the technology to retailers and hotels. And the firm’s engineers are now extending the system to enable the badges to retrieve stored information, such as patient records or information about a particular drag, in response to spoken commands. Their inspiration? Yet another "Star Trek" technology: the ship’s talking, ship’s computer.
Which of the following is true about the vocera badge is different from the fictional version.
选项
A、It is able to predict the future.
B、It allows people to reject incoming calls.
C、It works out who you are calling from spoken commands.
D、It’s very easy to use.
答案
C
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/w2yO777K
0
托福(TOEFL)
相关试题推荐
Completethetablebelow.UseONEWORDONLYfromthepassageforeachanswer.
Completethesummarybelow.ChooseNOMORETHANTHREEWORDSfromthepassageforeachanswer.Writeyouranswersinboxes6-8on
Lookatthefollowingresearchers(Questions19-22)andthelistoffindingsbelow.Matcheachresearcherwiththecorrectfinding
CompletethesummarybelowusingNOMORETHANTWOWORDSfromthepassage.Writeyouranswersinboxes22-25onyouranswersheet
TheInnovationofGroceryStoresA.Attheverybeginningofthe20thcentury,theAmericangrocerystoresofferedcomprehen
TheInnovationofGroceryStoresA.Attheverybeginningofthe20thcentury,theAmericangrocerystoresofferedcomprehen
Whatkindofcourseisthemanseeking?Whendoesthemanwanttostartthecourse?
Thelecturersaysthatanessayislike______toaspecificquestion.Lookatdivorcestatistics.
Completethelecturenotes.UseNOMORETHANTHREEWORDSforeachanswer.PurposeoftheminilectureToexperience【T32】______
Whichattitudeisassociatedwiththefollowingpeopleduringtheconversation?ChooseSIXanswersfromtheboxandwritetheco
随机试题
证券X的期望收益率为0.11,贝塔值是1.5,无风险收益率为0.05,市场期望收益率为0.09。根据资本资产定价模型,这个证券()。
A、30天B、9个月C、7周D、40天E、3个月丙型肝炎的平均潜伏期为
下列关于中国古代建筑木框架结构体系分类项内容说明正确的是()。
代销期限届满,原股东认购股票的数量未达到拟配售数量()的,发行人应当按照发行价并加算银行同期存款利息返还已经认购的股东。
客户张某给某商业银行信贷员小李出示了市科委颁发的获奖证书的复印件,小李据此签署了同意贷款的个人意见.小李的行为明显违反了()。
大伯:父亲:姑妈
A、 B、 C、 D、 A第一组的三个图,图形种类数是1、2、3,第二组图则是3、2、1。
以下关于堆文件的删除操作叙述错误的是______。A)堆文件的删除操作比较简单,在堆文件头存储它的最后一个磁盘块的地址B)先找到被删除记录所在的磁盘块,然后将该磁盘块读到内存缓冲区C)在缓冲区中删除记录,将缓冲区中修改后的磁盘块内容写回磁盘文件
Readthefollowingtextsfromanarticleinwhichfivepeopletalkedaboutenvironmentprotection.Forquestions61to65,match
ExpositionExpositioniswritingthatexplains.Mostofthebooksinuniversityli-brariesareexamplesofexposition.Alth
最新回复
(
0
)