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Are you wondering whether there’11 be television in the future?’There’ll almost cer-tainly be wonderful programs.Television screens probably wi11 be large and flat，hang-ing on the wall or going across the four walls of a room.People on the screen will look real as if they were right in the room with you.What about highways of the future?Well,a very small child probably will be able to drive a car.Nobody will need to steer.Electric sig-nals will hold each car on the right road to get wherever the“Driver”wants to go.And it probably will be impossible for cars to smash together。Controllers that won’t even have to be touched will make all speeding cars miss each other or will put on the brakes.Driving in a car will be as safe as be-ing at home. But maybe the most wonderful surprise in the future will be weather control，Cities may have giant plastic domes over them to keep out snow，rain，or storms. When you plan a picnic in a park。you won't have to worry about rain.It will rain only when the“ weatherman”thinks it is needed to freshen the air inside the city.All other days will be fair and warm. The future should be a wonderful time in which to live.But the time you are living in now was also“ a wonderful future”to the people who lived 100 years ago. 2。Three Things That Will Change Your Life Today our lives are changing faster than at any time in history.Here we report on three important changes that will have a big impact on our everyday lives in the future. The cashless society Cash and bank-notes wi1l disappear almost completely.They will be replaced by smart cards--plastic cards with microchip processors“loaded” with some money.When we pay for goods.the re-tailer w1l insert our smart card into a pay-ment terminal and money w.1l be transferred from our card to the retailer's card.When all the money is used up，we will be able to“re-load”it by inserting it into a telephone，dia-ling our bank account and transferring money to the card from the account.1f we want to transfer money from our card to a bank ac-count.we will use the same method.Smart cards will be able to hold several different currencies at the same time.so if we go aboard.we will use our smart cards in the same way. Interactive telephones Hhuman telephone operators will be sharply replaced by talking computers.These computers will recognize speech.ask us what information we need，ac-cess the information from a database，and convert it to speech.If we want to book a flight or pay a bill by phone，we will interact with a talking computer to do SO.Of course，this won't happen until all the technology is in place，but when it is we will soon get used to interacting with computers in this way.Human telephone operators will be used only for more complex operations such as dealing with complaints or solving concrete prob-lems. Intelligent cars Traffic congestion in cities will be reduced because drivers will use electronic route maps to find the quickest route to their destination and avoid traffic jams.Congestion will also decrease when e-lectronic systems start changing motorists for driving in cities.As soon as motorists have to pay to drive in cities，they will stop Using their cars and use public transportinstead. Speed control systems will be built into cars.These systems will automatically regulate the speed of the car to take account of traffic and weather conditions and prevent accidents.It will be many years before these changes bring results but when they do，there will be a titanic improvement in road safety. (责任编辑：admin) |