A Robert in Every Home

by Bill Gates

The leader of the PC revolution

predicts that the next hot field will
be robotics.
 Imagine being present at the birth of a new
industry. It is an industry based on
groundbreaking new technologies, wherein a
handful of well-established corporations sell highly
specialized devices for business use and a fast-
growing number of start-up companies produce
innovative toys, gadgets for hobbyists and other
interesting niche products. But it is also a highly
fragmented industry with few common standards
or platforms. Projects are complex, progress is
slow, and practical applications are relatively rare.
In fact, for all the excitement and promise, no one
can say with any certainty when——or even if—
this industry will achieve critical mass. If it does,
though, it may well change the world.
wherein ： in which
 Of course, the paragraph above could be a
description of the computer industry during
the mid-1970s, around the time that Paul
Allen1 and I launched Microsoft. Back then,
big, expensive computers ran the back-office
operations for major companies, governmental
departments and other institutions.
Researchers at leading universities and
industrial laboratories were creating the basic
building blocks that would make the
information age possible. Intel had just
introduced the 8080 microprocessor, and
Atari2 was selling the popular electronic game
Pong. At homegrown computer clubs,
enthusiasts struggled to figure out exactly
what this new technology was good for.
 But what I really have in mind is
something much more contemporary: the
emergence of the robotics industry, which is
developing in much the same way that the
computer business did 30 years
ago(adverbial+attributive clause). Think of the
manufacturing robots currently used on
automobile assembly lines as the equivalent
of yesterday's mainframes. The industry’s
niche products include robotic arms that
perform surgery, surveillance robots
deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan that dispose
of roadside bombs, and domestic robots that
vacuum the floor. Electronics companies have
made robotic toys that can imitate people or
dogs or dinosaurs, and hobbyists are anxious
to get their hands on the latest version of the
Lego robotics system.
 Meanwhile some of the world's best minds
are trying to solve the toughest problems of
robotics, such as visual recognition, navigation
and machine learning. And they are succeeding.
At the 2004 Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand
Challenge, a competition to produce the first
robotic vehicle capable of navigating
autonomously over a rugged 142-mile course
through the Mojave Desert, the top competitor
managed to travel just 7.4 miles before
breaking down.3 In 2005, though, five vehicles
covered the complete distance, and the race's
winner did it at an average speed of 19.1 miles
an hour. (In another intriguing parallel
between the robotics and computer industries,
DARPA also funded the work that led to the
creation of Arpanet4, the precursor to the
Internet.)
 What is more(progressive re;link
v;adverbial ） , the challenges
facing the robotics industry are
similar to those we tackled in
computing three decades ago.
Robotics companies have no
standard operating software that
could allow popular application
programs to run in a variety of
devices. The standardization of
robotic processors and other
hardware is limited, and very little of
the programming code used in one
machine can be applied to another.
Whenever somebody wants to build
a new robot, they usually have to
 Despite these difficulties, when I talk to
people involved in robotics—from university
researchers to entrepreneurs, hobbyists and
high school students—the level of excitement
and expectation reminds me so much of that
time when Paul Allen and I looked at the
convergence of new technologies and
dreamed of the day when a computer would
be on every desk and in every home. And as I
look at the trends that are now starting to
converge, I can envision a future in which
robotic devices will become a nearly
ubiquitous part of our day-to-day lives.
that time when Paul Allen and I looked at/ ：

虽然有这么多的困难，每当我与参与机器
人技术发展的人们（从大学里的研究人员
到 企
业家、机器人爱好者、中学生）交谈时，
他们的兴奋和期待都会使我想起当时我和
保 罗 ‧ 艾
伦看到新技术不断汇集的情景，梦想着有
一天计算机出现在每一个办公桌上，每一
个 家 庭 中 。
今天当我看到技术发展的趋势再次汇集的
时候，我可以预见未来机器人设备在我们
的 日 常 生
活中几乎无处不在。
I believe that technologies such as
distributed computing, voice and visual
recognition, and wireless broadband
connectivity will open the door to a
new generation of autonomous devices
that enable computers to perform tasks
in the physical world on our behalf. We
may be on the verge of a new era, when
the PC will get up off the desktop and
allow us to see, hear, touch and
manipulate objects in places where we
are not physically present.
From Science Fiction to Reality
The word "robot" was popularized in
1921 by Czech playwright Karel Capek5,
but people have envisioned creating
robotlike devices for thousands of years.
In Greek and Roman mythology, the gods
of metalwork built mechanical servants
made from gold. In the first
century A.D., Heron6 of Alexandria—the
great engineer credited with inventing the
first steam engine—designed intriguing
automatons, including one said to have
the ability to talk. Leonardo da Vinci's7
1495 sketch of a mechanical knight,
which could sit up and move its arms and
legs, is considered to be the first plan for a
humanoid robot.
 Over the past century,
anthropomorphic machines have become
familiar figures in popular culture through
books such as Isaac Asimov's' I, Robot,
movies such as Star Wars9 and television
shows such as Star Trek10. The popularity of
robots in fiction indicates that people are
receptive to the idea that these machines will
one day walk among us as helpers and even
as companions. Nevertheless, although
robots play a vital role in industries such as
automobile manufacturing—where there is
about one robot for every 10 workers—the
fact is that we have a long way to go before
real robots catch up with their science-fiction
counterparts.
 One reason for this gap is that it
has been much harder than expected to
enable computers and robots to sense
their surrounding environment and to
react quickly and accurately. It has
proved extremely difficult to give
robots the capabilities that humans take
for granted—for example, the abilities
to orient themselves with respect to the
objects in a room, to respond to sounds
and interpret speech, and to grasp
objects of varying sizes, textures and
fragility. Even something as simple as
telling the difference between an open
door and a window can be devilishly
 But researchers are starting to find the
answers. One trend that has helped them is the
increasing availability of tremendous amounts
of computer power. One megahertz of
processing power, which cost more than $7,000
in 1970, can now be purchased for just pennies.
The price of a megabit of storage has seen a
similar decline. The access to cheap computing
power has permitted scientists to work on many
of the hard problems that are fundamental to
making robots practical. Today, for example,
voice-recognition programs can identify words
quite well, but a far greater challenge will be
building machines that can understand what
those words mean in context. As computing
capacity continues to expand, robot designers
will have the processing power they need to
tackle issues of ever greater complexity.
 Another barrier to the development
of robots has been the high cost of
hardware, such as sensors that enable
a robot to determine the distance to an
object as well as motors and servos
that allow the robot to manipulate an
object with both strength and delicacy.
But prices arc dropping fast. Laser
range finders that are used in robotics
to measure distance with precision
cost about $10,000 a few years ago;
today they can be purchased for about
$2,000. And new, more accurate
sensors based on ultrawideband radar
are available for even less.
 Now robot builders can also add
Global Positioning System chips,
video cameras, array microphones
(which are better than conventional
microphones at distinguishing a voice
from background noise) and a host of
additional sensors for a reasonable
expense." The resulting enhancement
of capabilities, combined with
expanded processing power and
storage, allows today's robots to do
things such as vacuum a room or help
to defuse a roadside bomb—tasks that
would have been impossible for
commercially produced machines just
a few years ago.
A BASIC Approach
In February 2004 I visited a number of
leading universities, including Carnegie
Mellon University, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Harvard University,
Cornell University and the University of
Illinois, to talk about the powerful role that
computers can play in solving some of
society's most pressing problems. My goal
was to help students understand how exciting
and important computer science can be, and I
hoped to encourage a few of them to think
about careers in technology. At each
university, after delivering my speech, I had
the opportunity to get a firsthand look at
some of the most interesting research projects
in the school's computer science department.
Almost without exception, I was shown at
least one project that involved robotics.
 At that time, my colleagues at Microsoft were
also hearing from people in academia and at
commercial robotics firms who wondered if our
company was doing any work in robotics that might
help them with their own development efforts. We
were not, so we decided to take a closer look. I asked
Tandy Trower12, a member of my strategic staff and a
25-year Microsoft veteran, to go on an extended
fact-finding mission
and to speak with people across the robotics
community. What he found was universal enthusiasm
for the potential of robotics, along with an industry-
wide desire for tools that would make development
easier. “Many see the robotics industry as a
technological turning point where a move to PC
architecture makes more and more sense,5, Tandy
wrote in his report to me after his fact-finding
mission. "As Red Whittaker13, leader of [Carnegie
Mellon s] entry in the DARPA Grand Challenge,
recently indicated, the hardware capability is mostly
there; now the issue is getting the software right."
 Back in the early days of the personal
computer, we realized that we needed an
ingredient that would allow all of the pioneering
work to achieve critical mass, to coalesce into a
real industry capable of producing truly useful
products on a commercial scale. What was
needed, it turned out, was Microsoft BASIC.
When we created this programming language in
the 1970s, we provided the common foundation
that enabled programs developed for one set of
hardware to run on another. BASIC also made
computer programming much easier, which
brought more and more people into the industry.
Although a great many individuals made
essential contributions to the development of the
personal computer, Microsoft BASIC was one
of the key catalysts for the software and
hardware innovations that made the PC
revolution possible.
 After reading Tandy's report, it seemed
clear to me that before the robotics industry
could make the same kind of quantum leap
that the PC industry made 30 years ago, it, too,
needed to find that missing ingredient. So I
asked him to assemble a small team that would
work with people in the robotics field to create
a set of programming tools that would provide
the essential plumbing so that anybody
interested in robots with even the most basic
understanding of computer programming could
easily write robotic applications that would
work with different kinds of hardware.14 The
goal was to see if it was possible to provide the
same kind of common, low-level foundation
for integrating hardware and software into
robot designs that Microsoft BASIC provided
for computer programmers.
 Tandy's robotics group has been able to
draw on a number of advanced technologies
developed by a team working under the
direction of Craig Mundie15, Microsoft's
chief research
and strategy officer. One such technology
will help solve one of the most difficult
problems facing robot designers: how to
simultaneously handle all the data coming in
from multiple sensors and send the
appropriate commands to the robot's motors,
a challenge known as concurrency. A
conventional approach is to write a
traditional, single-threaded program—a long
loop that first reads all the data from the
sensors, then processes this input and finally
delivers output that determines the robot's
behavior, before starting the loop all over
again. The shortcomings are obvious: if your
robot has fresh sensor data indicating that the
machine is at the edge of a precipice, but the
program is still at the bottom of the loop
calculating trajectory and telling the wheels
to turn faster based on previous sensor input,
there is a good chance the robot will fall
down the stairs before it can process the new
information.16
 Concurrency is a challenge that extends
beyond robotics. Today as more and more
applications are written for distributed
networks of computers, programmers have
struggled to figure out how to efficiently
orchestrate code running on many different
servers at the same time. And as computers
with a single processor are replaced by
machines with multiple processors and
"multicore" processors 一 integrated
circuits with two or more processors joined
together for enhanced performance—
software designers will need a new way to
program desktop applications and operating
systems. To fully exploit the power of
processors working in parallel, the new
software must deal with the problem of
concurrency.
 One approach to handling concurrency is to write
multithreaded programs that allow data to travel
along many paths. But as any developer who has
written multithreaded code can tell you, this is one
of the hardest tasks in programming. The answer
that Craig's team has devised to the concurrency
problem is something called the concurrency and
coordination runtime (CCR). The CCR is a library
of functions 一 sequences of software code that
perform specific tasks—that makes it easy to write
multithreaded applications that can coordinate a
number of simultaneous activities. Designed to help
programmers take advantage of the power of
multicore and multiprocessor systems, the CCR
turns out to be ideal for robotics as well. By drawing
on this library to write their programs, robot
designers can dramatically reduce the chances that
one of their creations will run into a wall because its
software is too busy sending output to its wheels to
read input from its sensors.
 In addition to tackling the problem of
concurrency, the work that Craig s team has done
will also simplify the writing of distributed robotic
applications through a technology called
decentralized software services (DSS). DSS
enables developers to create applications in which
the services—the parts of the program that read a
sensor, say, or control a motor—operate as
separate processes that can be orchestrated in
much the same way that text, images and
information from several servers are aggregated
on a Web page. Because DSS allows software
components to run in isolation from one another, if
an individual component of a robot fails, it can be
shut down and restarted—or even replaced—
without having to reboot the machine. Combined
with broadband wireless technology, this
architecture makes it easy to monitor and adjust a
robot from a remote location using a Web browser.
 What is more, a DSS application
controlling a robotic device does not have to
reside entirely on the robot itself but can be
distributed across more than one computer.
As a result, the robot can be a relatively
inexpensive device that delegates complex
processing tasks to the high-performance
hardware found on today's home PCs. I
believe this advance will pave the way for an
entirely new class of robots that are
essentially mobile, wireless peripheral
devices that tap into the power of desktop
PCs to handle processing-intensive tasks such
as visual recognition and navigation. And
because these devices can be networked
together, we can expect to see the emergence
of groups of robots that can work in concert
to achieve goals such as mapping the seafloor
or planting crops.
 These technologies are a key part of
Microsoft Robotics Studio, a new
software development kit built by
Tandy's team. Microsoft Robotics Studio
also includes tools that make it easier to
create robotic applications using a wide
range of programming languages. One
example is a simulation tool that lets
robot builders test their applications in a
three-dimensional virtual environment
before trying them out in the real world.
Our goal for this release is to create an
affordable, open platform that allows
robot developers to readily integrate
hardware and software into their designs.
Should We Call Them Robots?
How soon will robots become part
of our day-to-day lives? According to
the International Federation of
Robotics, about two million personal
robots were in use around the world in
2004, and another seven million will
be installed by 2008. In South Korea
the Ministry of Information and
Communication hopes to put a robot
in every home there by 2013. The
Japanese Robot Association predicts
that by 2025, the personal robot
industry will be worth more than $50
billion a year worldwide, compared
with about $5 billion today.
 As with the PC industry in the
1970s, it is impossible to predict
exactly what applications will drive
this new industry. It seems quite likely,
however, that robots will play an
important role in providing physical
assistance and even companionship for
the elderly. Robotic devices will
probably help people with disabilities
get around and extend the strength and
endurance of soldiers, construction
workers and medical professionals.
Robots will maintain dangerous
industrial machines, handle hazardous
materials and monitor remote oil
pipelines. They will enable health care
workers to diagnose and treat patients
who may be thousands of miles away,
and they will be a central feature of
security systems and search-and-
rescue operations.
 Although a few of the robots of
tomorrow may resemble the
anthropomorphic devices seen in
Star Wars, most will look nothing
like the humanoid C-3PO17. In fact,
as mobile peripheral devices
become more and more common, it
may be increasingly difficult to say
exactly what a robot is. Because the
new machines will be so
specialized and ubiquitous—and
look so little like the two-legged
automatons of science fiction—we
probably will not even call them
robots. But as these devices become
affordable to consumers, they could
have just as profound an impact on
the way we work, communicate,
learn and entertain ourselves as the
PC has had over the past 30 years.
Notes:
3. At the 2004 Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Grand Challenge,
rugged 142-mile course through the
Mojave Desert, the top competitor
managed to travel just
7.4 miles before breaking down: 在 2004
年美国国防部高级研究计划署
(DARPA) 举 办 的
' 大挑战”赛上，获胜者制造的车辆仅
行驶了 7.4 英里就出了故障，尽管这
次 比 赛 的 目 的 是
要产生第一辆能够在美国加州莫哈韦
沙漠 142 英里的崎岖赛道上自主操控
行 驶 的 机 器 人 车 。
该句虽然较长，但仍是一个简单句，
句 子 的 主 要 部 分 是 the top competitor
managed to travel just 7.4 miles before
breaking down, 插入语 a competition to
produce the first robotic vehicle... 是 对
the 2004 Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand
Challenge 的 说 明 。
Notes:
4. Arpanet: 互联网的前身，由美
国国防部高级研究计划署于 1969 年
11 月建立。只有四个结 点，分布在
洛杉矶的加利福尼亚州大学洛杉矶分
校、加州大学圣巴巴拉分校、斯坦福
大
学、犹他州大学四所大学的四台大型
计算机上，采用分组交换技术，通过
专 门 的 接 口 信 号
处理机 (IMP) 和专门的通信线路相互
连 接 。

5. Karel Capek: 卡雷尔•恰佩克

(1890-1938), 奥地利著名的剧作家、
科幻文学家和童话 寓言家，是 20 世
纪初期最重要的文学家之一。他在
1920 年出版的作品《罗素姆万能机
器 人 ) 〉 (Rossum's Universal Robots)
中创造了 “机器人” 一词。
13. Red Whittaker: 莱德•惠塔克，卡内基•梅隆
大学（ Carnegie Mellon University ）机器人 工
程学教授，世界上最为知名的机器人专家之一。
14. So I asked him to assemble a small team that
would work with people in the robotics field to
create a set of programming tools that would
provide the essential plumbing so that anybody
interested in robots with even the most basic
understanding of computer programming could
easily write robotic applications that would work
with different kinds of hardware: 于是我让他召集
人成立一个小组，与机器人领域的专家合作，研
制出一套可提 供基本组件的程序工具，这样任
何对机器人感兴趣的人（即使只具备最基本计算
机程序知 识的人）都可以很容易地写出适用于
不 同 硬 件 的 应 用 程 序 。 句 中 plumbing 原 意 为
“（建筑物 的）管道装置，管件”，在本句中
转义为“（计算机程序的）组件”。
15. CraigMundie: 克雷格•蒙迪，微软首席研发
与 战 略 官 。
11. Now robot builders can also add
Global Positioning System chips, video
cameras, array microphones (which are
better than conventional microphones at
distinguishing a voice from bacl^round
noise) and a host of additional sensors for a
reasonable expense: 现在，工程师可在 合
理的成本之下，为机器人加装全球定位
系统晶片、摄影机、阵列传声器 ( 比传
统传声器 更善于从背景噪音中分辨出特
定声音 ) ，以及许多附加的感应器。句
中 a host of 相当于 a large number of, 意
为 “ 大 量 ， 许 多 " 。
12. Tandy Trower: » • 特劳尔，微软公
司 机 器 人 业 务 集 团 总 经 理 。
16. The shortcomings are obvious: if
your robot has fresh sensor data
indicating that the machine is at the
edge of a precipice, but the program is
still at the bottom of the loop
calculating trajectory and telling the
wheels to turn faster based on previous
sensor input, there is a good chance
the robot will fall down the stairs
before it can process the new
information: 这个方式 的缺点很明
显：当机器人从感应器收到最新讯
息时，机器已经临近一个危险的边
缘，但由 于程式还在回线后半部计
算轨迹的部分，所以会根据先前输
入的资料，命令轮子快点运 转，机
器人很可能根本没有机会处理新讯
息 ， 就 跌 下 了 楼 梯 。 句 中 a good
chance 的意思 是“很大可能”，相
当于 great possibility, chance 后面省
略了连接词 that 。又如： There's a
faint chance that youll find him at
home.
17. C-3PO: 电影《星球大战》中的
.I. Answer the following questions.
1. How has robot become the familiar figure
in popular culture over the past century?

2. What is the reason for the gap between

real robots and their science-fiction
counterparts according to the passage?

3. What was the goal of Bill Gates5 visiting

several leading universities about computer
talks in 2004?

4. What are the two greatest fruits that Craig

Mundie's team has achieved?

5. In what fields will the future robots play

their important part?
IL The following statements are incomplete.
Search the missing information in the passage
and fill in the blanks.
1. It was in the mid-1970s that big, expensive
mainframe computers ran ______________for
major companies, governmental departments and
other institutions.
. In spite of the difficulties in the robotics
industry, Bill Gates actively communicates with
people involved in robotics who are _________
and he still holds an optimistic view on the
future of robotics.
3. The word "robot" was first proposed by
___________.
4. Tandy Trower found that people across the
robotics community showed great interest in
and the whole robotics industry hoped to get
tools for easier development.
_____
5. Bill Gates believes that it was
_____________that made the PC revolution
possible.
6. A conventional solution to
concurrency problem is to ___
_______.
7. The purpose for Tandy's team
releasing Microsoft Robotics Studio is
to _____________.

8. Most of the robots tomorrow will

___________the humanoid C-3PO.
III. Identify the implied meanings
of the underlined parts of the
following sentences according to
the context of the passage, and
translate the sentences into
Chinese.
1. In fact, for all the excitement and
promise, no one can say with any
certainty when—or even if—this
industry will achieve critical mass.
2. Electronics companies have
made robotic toys that can imitate
people or dogs or dinosaurs, and
hobbyists are anxious to get their
hands on the latest version of the
Lego robotics system.
3. Meanwhile some of the world's best
minds are trying to solve the toughest
problems of robotics, such as visual
recognition, navigation and machine
learning.
4. In another intriguing parallel
between the robotics and computer
industries, DARPA also funded the
work that led to the creation of
Arpanet, the precursor to the Internet.
5. Whenever somebody wants to build
a new robot, they usually have to start
from square one.
6. I believe that technologies such as
distributed computing, voice and
visual recognition, and wireless
broadband connectivity will open the
door to a new generation of
autonomous devices that enable
computers to perform tasks in the
physical world on our behalf.
7. Even something as simple as
telling the difference between an
open door and a window can be
devilishly tricky for a robot.
8. After reading Tandy's report, it
seemed clear to me that before
the robotics industry could make
the same kind of quantum leap
that the PC industry made 30
years ago, it, too, needed to find
that missing ingredient.
9. I believe this advance will pave
the way for an entirely new class
of robots that are essentially
mobile, wireless peripheral
devices that tap into the power of
desktop PCs to handle
processing-intensive tasks such as
visual recognition and navigation.
10. And because these devices can be
networked together, we can expect to
see theemergence of groups of robots
that can work in concert to achieve
goals such as mapping the seafloor or
planting crops.
 Translation Techniques
Omission （ 减 词 法 ）
Just opposite to "amplification",
"omission" means leaving some
words out in the process of
translating English into Chinese.
This method is widely adopted
because many words which are
essential in English are not
necessary in Chinese, such as the
articles "a" and "the", and the
pronouns like "his", "her", and
"their", etc. For example, “A stroke
occurs when the blood flow to a
section of the brain stops; brain cells
in the area lose their source of
energy and within minutes begin to
die." （血流在大脑的某个部位受
阻时就会发生中风，这部分脑细
胞失去了能量来源，几分钟内 就
开 始 坏 死 。 ）
Which words should be omitted
depends on the meaning of the English
original and the usage of the Chinese
language. To translate the following
sentence into Chinese, for example, it
would make the meaning of the target
language clear and concise to omit the
words 如果 and 你： "If you melt
two or more metals together, you can
get a new metal.” （将两种或多种金
属熔合在一起可产生一种新金
属 。 ）
Observe the following English
sentences and compare them with the
Chinese translation, especially the
italicized words in the original
1. Male cigarette smokers have a higher death
rate from heart disease than non-smokers
males.
男性吸烟者的心脏病死亡率比不吸烟的高
2. The software interprets these subtle
numerical variations as different colors on the
video terminal screen, allowing the physician
to recognize change much more easily.
该软件把这些细微数字变化用不同颜色在终
端显示屏上显示出来，医生辨别这些 变化
就容易得多。
3. But for patients who have side effects,
doctors often can adjust medication to relieve
them.
但是对有副作用的患者，医生常可调整用药
来缓解。
4. It is generally thought that salt is a culprit in
this disease, and many doctors prescribe a low-
salt diet.
人们普遍认为食盐是这种病的病因，于是许
多医生建议低盐饮食。
Therefore, omission is needed to
make your translation smooth and
concise, and often sound more
professional. Generally,
amplification and omission
should be integrated in
translation.
IV. Translate the following
sentences into Chinese.
Pay attention to how the
technique of omission
should be used.
1. And as I look at the trends
that are now starting to
converge, I can envision a
future in which robotic devices
will become a nearly ubiquitous
part of our day-to-day lives.

2. Leonardo da Vinci’s 1495

sketch of a mechanical knight,
which could sit up and move its
arms and legs, is considered to
be the first plan for a humanoid
robot.
3. It has proved extremely difficult to
give robots the capabilities that
humans take for granted—for
example, the abilities to orient
themselves with respect to the objects
in a room, to respond to sounds and
interpret speech, and to grasp objects
of varying sizes, textures and fragility.
4. Another barrier to the development
of robots has been the high cost of
hardware, such as sensors that enable a
robot to determine the distance to an
object as well as motors and servos
that allow the robot to manipulate an
object with both strength and delicacy.
5. At each university, after delivering
my speech, I had the opportunity to
get a firsthand look at some of the
most interesting research projects in
the school's computer science
department.
6. Although a great many individuals
made essential contributions to the
development of the personal
computer, Microsoft BASIC was one
of the key catalysts for the software
and hardware innovations that made
the PC revolution possible.
7. Combined with broadband wireless
technology, this architecture makes it
easy to monitor and adjust a robot
from a remote location using a Web
browser.
8. It seems quite likely, however, that
robots will play an important role in
providing physical assistance and
even companionship for the elderly.
 Tranlaton Techniques (2)
English Verbs and Chinese
Translation ( 英 语 动 词 的 翻 译 )
Verbs are the words indicating actions,
events or states. English verbs are very
active, and a considerable number of
verbs have extended meanings, which
may derive from their basic meanings.
When these verbs are translated into
Chinese, careful consideration should
be given to the relations between the
verbs and the contexts in which the
verbs are used.
For example, the basic meaning of the
verb develop is "(cause sb./sth.) to
grow gradually ( 发展 )" ， but when
it is related to different contexts,
additional meanings will be attached
to it, and thus it is necessary to seek
for suitable words to convey these
meanings in Chinese translation. All
the following sentences contain the
word "develop", but different
expressions are adopted in the target
1. When related to diseases:
(1) Pneumonia develops from flu. 肺
炎是由流行性感冒引起的。
(2) Some people develop skin rashes
when they take sulfas.
有些人在服用磺胺药物后会出现皮
疹。
2. When related to animals and plants:
(1) Land animals are believed to have
developed from sea animals.
陆地动物被认为是由海洋动物进化
而来的。
(2) After the chemical was applied, the
bud developed into a blossom. 在施用
了这种化学药剂之后，花蕾开出了
鲜花。
3. When related to new
technology, inventions and
discoveries:
(1) Scientists are developing
ways to make plastics as
recyclable as metal or glass.
科学家正在研究使塑料像金属
或玻璃一样可以回收利用的方
法。
(2) The prototype of agricultural
robot has been developed to pick
melons or any other head crop.
采摘甜瓜或其他球状农作物的
农用机器人样机已经研制出来。
4. When related to photography:
(1) When developed, this pattern will
scatter light in exactly the same way as
the original tissue, so it will look just
like it.
冲洗后，该图散射光线的状况恰好
与原组织一样，所以看上去十分逼
真。

(2) The photographer developed

the film by treating it with
chemicals.
摄影师用化学药剂使底片显影。
V Discuss the translation
technique and the ways of
applying the technique to the
translation of the following
sentences. Complete each of the
Chinese translations.
1. It is reported that a number of
children developed symptoms of
consumption in this area. （据 报
道，该地区有些儿
___________ 市结核的症状。）
2. Sure enough, 80% of the plants
developed the disease. （果然
80% 的庄稼都 _______ 这 种
病害。）
3. Girls who became overweight
between 6 and 11 year of age
were 7 times more likely to
develop new asthma symptoms at
age 11 or 13. （ 6 至 11 岁超
重女孩在 11 岁 或 13 岁
______ 的哮喘症状的可能性增
加 6 倍 。 ）
4. Sealed industrial cooling
systems were originally
developed to offer efficient and
cost saving cooling alternatives to
industry. （ 最 初 _____ 闭 式
工业冷却系统的目的是给 工业
5. In the late 1960s and early 1970s

special nuclear warheads were

developed that generated enhanced

radiation in the X-ray portion of the

electromagnetic spectrum. （ 20 世纪

60 年代末和 70 年代初，特种核弹头

（），这种弹头在电磁光谱的 X 射线
区

产 生 加 强 辐 射 。

6. The fetus develop lungs relatively

late in the gestation period.

（妊娠期胎儿的肺 _______ 相对慢

些 。 ）
7. A biotech . firm in California has
developed a tomato that does not
rot as fast as normal varieties. （加利福
尼
亚 的 一 家 生 物 技 术 公
司已 _______ 一种不像普通品种烂得
那 样 快 的 西 红 柿 品 种 。 ）

8. If the offspring of patients develop the

disease, they will tend
to do so at an earlier age than their
parents. （ 若 患 者 的 子 女 也
_____ 此病，他们的发病年龄要比他
们 的 父 母 早 。 ）
VI. Translate the following sentences into
English. Each pair of the sentences
contains the same verb （ the italicized
word ） . Pay attention to how the verbs
should be translated properly.
1. a ） Of course, the paragraph above could
be a description of the computer industry
during
the mid-1970s, around the time that Paul
Allen and I launched Microsoft.
b ） A spokesman for the dockyard said they
hoped to launch the new submarine within
two years.

2. a ） The industry's niche products include

robotic arms that perform surgery,
surveillance
robots deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan that
dispose of roadside bombs, and domestic
robots that vacuum the floor.
b) It has been proved that the new
type of computers can perform
many special tasks in the spacecraft.

3. a) Because DSS allows software

components to run in isolation from
one another, if an
individual component of a robot
fails, it can be shut down and
restarted—or even replaced—
without having to reboot the
machine.
b) The wheat failed last year
because of the lack of rain.

4. a) Our goal for this release is

to create an affordable, open
platform that allows robot
developers to readily integrate
hardware and software into their
designs.
b) An integrated circuit is a very
small electronic circuit which
consists of a lot of small parts
made on a piece of
semiconducting material.
VII. Translate the following passage into Chinese.
Robots in Home-. As their price falls, and their performance and
computational ability rises, making them both affordable and
sufficiently autonomous, robots are increasingly being seen in the
home where they are taking on simple but unwanted jobs, such as
vacuum cleaning, floor cleaning and lawn mowing. While they have
been on the market for several years, 2006 saw a great increase in
the number of domestic robots sold. By 2006, iRobot had sold more
than two million vacuuming robots. They tend to be relatively
autonomous, usually only requiring a command to begin their job.
They then proceed to go about their business in their own way. At
such, they display a good deal of agency, and are considered
intelligent robots.
Telerobots\ When a human cannot be present on site to perform a
job because it is dangerous, far away, or inaccessible, teleoperated
robots, or telerobots are used. Rather than following a
predetermined sequence of movements a telerobot is controlled
from a distance by a human operator. The robot may be in another
room or another country, or may be on a very different scale to the
operator. A laparoscopic surgery robot allows the surgeon to work
inside a human patient on a relatively small scale compared to open
surgery, sign 由 cantly shortening recovery time. An interesting use
of a telerobot is by the author Margaret Atwood, who has recently
started using a robot pen to sign books remotely. At the other end of
the spectrum, iRobot ConnectR robot is designed to be used by
anyone to stay in touch with family or friends from far away. Still
another robot is being used by doctors to communicate with
patients, allowing the doctor to be anywhere in the world. This
increases the number of patients a doctor can monitor.