Text1考研英语双语阅读:支付方式又出新招
Forget the titanium Apple Card — Amazon's latest payment method uses
flesh and blood.
苹果公司的 Apple Card 钛金卡可以收起来了，亚马逊的最新支付方式只要用户伸手就可以。
The e-tailing giant's engineers are quietly testing scanners that can identify an individualhuman hand as a way to ring up a store purchase, with the goal of rolling them out at itsWhole Foods supermarket chain in the coming months, The Post has learned.
据《纽约邮报》报道，这家电商巨头的工程师正在默默测试可以辨识手部的扫描仪用来结账，打算几个月后在旗下的全食连锁超市推出。
Employees at Amazon's New York offices are serving as guinea pigs for the biometrictechnology, using it at a handful of vending machines to buy such items as sodas, chips, granola bars and phone chargers, according to sources briefed on the plans.
据消息人士透露，亚马逊纽约办公室的员工正在试用这种生物识别技术，在少数几台自动售货机上使用该技术购买汽水、薯条、格兰诺拉燕麦棒和手机充电器等商品。
The high-tech sensors are different from fingerprint scanners found on devices like the iPhoneand don't require users to physically touch their hands to the scanning surface.
这种高科技传感器不同于 iPhone 手机等装置上的指纹扫描仪，不需要使用者将手碰触到扫描仪表面。
Instead, they use computer vision and depth geometry to process and identify the shape andsize of each hand they scan before charging a credit card on file.
扫描仪使用计算机视觉和深度几何学技术，处理和辨识扫描到的每双手的形状和大小，而后进行信用卡付款。
The system, code-named "Orville," will allow customers with Amazon Prime accounts to scantheir hands at the store and link them to their credit or debit card.
这套系统代号为“奥维尔”，亚马逊 Prime 会员顾客可以在门店通过该系统扫描自己的手，并将信息与信用卡或借记卡绑定。
It's accurate to within one ten-thousandth of 1%, but Amazon engineers are scrambling toimprove it to a millionth of 1% ahead of its launch, the source said.
据消息人士透露，这一系统已精准到出错率不到百万分之一，但亚马逊的工程师们正努
力在正式推出之前，将出错率降至亿分之一。
Amazon hopes to introduce the tech to a handful of its Whole Foods stores by the beginning of next year and to eventually expand the super-fast checkout tech to all US locations. The paceof the rollout will depend on how quickly Whole Foods is able to install it and train employees onhow to use it, sources said
消息人士还透露说，亚马逊希望在明年初之前能在一些全食超市引进这项技术，并希望最终将这一快速结账技术推广到所有美国门店。技术推开的进度将取决于全食超市安装系统的速度，以及培训员工使用系统的时间。
"We don't comment on rumors or speculation," an Amazon spokesperson said.
亚马逊一位发言人表示：“我们不对谣言或猜测发表评论。” While a regular card transaction typically takes between three and four seconds, Amazon'snew technology can process the charge in less than 300 milliseconds, a person familiar with theproject said.
一位知情人士表示，普通的银行卡交易通常需要 3 至 4 秒的时间，而亚马逊的新技术可以在不到 300 毫秒的时间内处理完交易。
"Retailers have always been interested in faster checkout," Majd Maksad, founder and CEO of Status Money, a personal finance site, told The Post. "You only have to walk into Whole Foods tosee the massive lines of people waiting to check out. It's a massive friction point."
个人理财网站“金钱地位”的创始人兼首席执行官马吉德·马卡萨德在接受《纽约邮报》
采访时说：“零售商一直对加快结账速度很感兴趣。你只要走进全食超市，就会看到人们排
着长队等着结账，很容易发生摩擦。”
If successful, the technology also could help encourage consumers to spend more when theyvisit Whole Foods, he said.
他说，如果能成功的话，这项技术还可以鼓励消费者在全食超市购物时多花点钱。
"People tend to spend more when they don't have the experience of touching somethingtangible like money," Maksad said. "The utility of money becomes more ephemeral."
马卡萨德说：“当人们没有实实在在地花出纸币时，他们往往会花更多的钱。金钱的效
用变得更加短暂。”
At Amazon's budding chain of "Go" convenience stores that launched last year, customers usea phone app to check in at a turnstile. They can then fill their bags and carry them out withoutever passing a register thanks to computer vision and an array of sensors all over the store.
在亚马逊去年推出的新兴 Go 连锁便利店中，顾客进入门店时使用一款手机应用程序在闸门处刷一下，买完东西以后不用到收银台结账，打包就可以走 了。因为店里安装了计算机视觉设备以及无处不在的传感器。
With the new, hand-based tech, shoppers won't even have to bring their phones. Nevertheless, experts say it's unclear whether customers will be enthusiastic about scanning their hands atWhole Foods.
有了这种扫描手部的新技术，顾客甚至不用带手机。不过专家表示，目前还不清楚消费者是否会对全食超市的手部扫描感兴趣。
Text2考研英语时事阅读：面试机器人
A robot has hired a human being for the first time in history as an AI was left to do jobinterviews. 人工智能被应用于工作面试，有史以来第一次，一个机器人聘用了一名人类。
Robotic head Tengai has been commissioned to carry out recruitment in the Upplands BroMunicipality, Sweden.
首席机器人腾艾被委托在瑞典乌普兰斯布罗市进行招聘。
Tengai resembles a head on a stick, with a friendly looking face beamed onto a screen whichwraps around his plastic skull.
腾艾就像一颗长在木棒上的头，他的塑料脑袋上有一块屏幕，屏幕上展现着一张友好的
脸。
The robot was developed by recruitment company TNG together with the tech firm FurhatRobotics.
这款机器人是由招聘公司 TNG 和科技公司 Furhat 机器人公司共同研发的。
He is reported to have hired a man called Anders Ornhed, from Jarfalla.
据报道，他从耶尔费拉聘请了一位名叫安德斯·奥恩赫德的男子。
Anders has the honour of becoming the first person ever to hired by an AI.
安德斯有幸成为史上第一位被人工智能聘用的人。
Swedish radio reported Anders got through the interview process with Tengai.
据瑞典之声报道，安德斯顺利通过了腾艾的面试。
He was given the job as digital coordinator at the municipality office.
他被任命为市政办公室的数字协调员。
Tengai is boasted to be "bias free".
人们称赞腾艾“没有偏见”。
The robot is not affected by the jobseeker's age, gender of ethnicity – he just wants the bestperson for the job.
机器人不受求职者年龄、性别或种族的影响，他只想找到最适合这份工作的人选。
Anders said: "It's very different from being interviewed by a human being.
安德斯表示：“这与接受人类的面试十分不同。
"For example, you do not get any confirmation whether you have answered enough."
“例如，关于你是否充分回答了问题，你并不会得到任何确认。”
Tengai was designed to "challenge old stereotypes" and help to eliminate humanities"subconscious prejudices".
设计腾艾的目的在于“挑战陈规旧制”，以消除人类“潜意识中的偏见”。
TNG bosses claim the robot will create "business value, increased competitiveness anddiversity in the workplace".
TNG 经理表示，机器人将“在职场上”创造“商业价值、提高竞争力并增加多样性”。
Previously, CEO Asa Edman Kallstromer said: "We humans often try to find people who havethe same interests and are like ourselves.
阿萨·艾德曼·科尔斯托默总裁曾表示：“我们人类往往尝试去找与自己有着相同爱好，
并与自己相像的人。
"This is often done through private questions that get us emotionally
involved. “这往往会通过那些让我们投入感情的私人问题来实现。”
"The robot never asks such questions and never gets emotional." “而机器人从不会问这样的问题，也不会变得情绪化。”
Furhat Robotics advert features a woman with a hijab being turned down by three recruitmentmanagers before being given a job by Tengai.
在 Furhat 机器人的广告中，一名带着头巾的女士被三位招聘经理拒绝了，但之后她被腾艾录用了。
Text3考研英语双语阅读:用中餐诱哄想自杀的男子
A Chinese food craving is a powerful thing — just ask Officer Jason Inacio of the Newark PoliceDepartment.
对中国食物的渴求是一件很强大的事——只管问问纽瓦克警察局的杰森·伊纳西奥警官。
He was able to use a simple offer of Chinese takeout to help coax a man out of his apartmentbedroom, where he was reportedly threatening to cut his own throat with a knife on Saturday.
他用一份中餐外卖就把一名男子诱哄出他公寓的卧室，而据报道，这名男子周六曾扬言要用刀割喉。
"He said he was hungry," Inacio told NJ.com. "And wanted Chinese food."
“他说他饿了，想吃中餐。”伊纳西奥告诉新泽西地方新闻。
Cops had been negotiating with the 38-year-old man for roughly 20 minutes before Inaciocame up with the idea to grab him some takeout.
警察与这名 38 岁的男子沟通了约 20 分钟，之后伊纳西奥想到了给他拿点外卖的办法。
"We gave someone $20 and I told him, 'I'll let you eat on the way to the hospital,'" Inaciorecalled. "We just wanted to figure out where he was coming from and reassure him. The onlyreason we're there is to help him and try to comfort him."
“我们给了某人 20 美元，并且我告诉他，‘我会让你在去医院的路上吃东西的，’”伊纳西奥回忆道。“我们只是想了解他来自哪里，并打消他的疑虑。我们去那儿的唯一原因
就是要帮助他并试着安慰他。”
A family member reportedly grabbed the food — described as "a hearty" chicken and broccolibowl — and delivered it to the man.
据报道，一位家庭成员拿了一碗“丰盛的”西兰花炒鸡肉，给了这名男子。
"Look, you see it right there," Inacio can be heard saying on video captured through hisbodycam, as he shows the man a bag of food. "I promised you that, right? So come on…I'll letyou eat it on the way."
从伊纳西奥的执法记录仪上拍摄的一段视频中可以听到他说，“你看，它就在那儿，”他向那名男子展示了那袋食物，“我答应过你，对吧?所以，来吧……我会让你在路上吃的。”
The man eventually agreed to drop the knife and was transported to a local hospital byambulance soon after.
这名男子最终同意放下刀，并乘坐之后到达的救护车去了当地医院。
"I like to always keep my promises," Inacio said. "If I promise something, I want to followthrough with my promise. And in this case, I promised him the Chinese food if he came withus."
“我愿意一直信守承诺，”伊纳西奥说道。“如果我做出了承诺，我就会信守承诺。这次我承诺他，如果他跟我们走，我就让他吃中餐。”
Text4考研英语时事阅读："量子霸权"
According to a report in the Financial Times, a team of researchers from Google led by JohnMartinis have demonstrated quantum supremacy for the first time.
《英国金融时报》的一篇报告称，John Martinis 带领的一个 Google 研究团队首次证明了量子霸权。
This is the point at which a quantum computer is shown to be capable of performing a taskthat's beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional supercomputer.
当时发现一台量子计算机能完成最 强大的传统超 级计算机都不能完成的任务。
The claim appeared in a paper that was posted on a NASA website, but the publication wasthen taken down. Google did not respond to a request for comment from MIT TechnologyReview.
这一声明出现在 NASA 网站上发表的一篇论文中，但随后被删除了。《麻省理工科技评论》请求 Google 对此作出评论，但未得到回应。
Google struck an agreement last year to use supercomputers available to NASA asbenchmarks for its supremacy experiments.
去年 Google 决定将 NASA 可用的超 级计算机作为霸权实验的标杆。
According to the Financial Times report, the paper said that Google's quantum processor wasable to perform a calculation in three minutes and 20 seconds that would take today's mostadvanced supercomputer, known as Summit, around 10,000 years.
据《英国金融时报》报道，该论文称 Google 的量子处理器能在3分20秒内完成现在最先进的超级计算机 Summit 一万年才能完成的计算。
In the paper, the researchers said that, to their knowledge, the experiment "marks the firstcomputation that can only be performed on a quantum processor."
该论文中研究人员称，据他们所知这一实验“标志着第一个只能在量子处理器上进行的计算”。
Quantum machines are so powerful because they harness quantum bits, or qubits. Unlikeclassicalbits, which represent either a 1 or a 0, qubits can be in a kind of combination of bothat the same time.
量子计算机如此强大是因为他们利用了量子比特或量子位。经典的二进制只代表1或0，
而量子位不一样，可以同时是两者的一种组合。
Thanks to other quantum phenomena, which are described in our explainer here, quantumcomputers can crunch large amounts of data in parallel that conventional machines have towork through sequentially.
多亏了其他我们在解释中描述过的量子现象，量子计算机可以并行运算大量数据，而传
统计算机只能按顺序进行运算。
Scientists have been working for years to demonstrate that the machines can definitivelyoutperform conventional ones.
科学家已研究多年，想要证明量子计算机绝对优于传统计算机。考研英语双语阅读 : 2020，快手计划在美国上市
Chinese startup Kuaishou is considering to a U.S. initial public offering to bankroll itsexpansion in short videos and fend off competition from TikTok-owner ByteDance Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.
据知情人士透露，中国初创公司快手公司正考虑赴美上市，为其短视频的业务拓展提供资金并抵御来自抖音母公司字节跳动的竞争。
The company, backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., plans to list next year, the people said, requesting not to be named because the matter is private.
因为这件事仍然保密，所以知情人士匿名透露，腾讯控股的这家公司计划明年上市。
One person said Kuaishou also weighed the option of going public this year. The video startupis raising more than $1 billion at a $25 billion valuation in a pre-IPO round mostly from Tencent, one of the people said.
一个人说快手也考虑了今年上市。还有一个人说这家视频初创公司融资超过 10 亿美元，
本轮 Pre-IPO 估值达到 250 亿美元，融资主要来自腾讯。
Kuaishou is an important part of Chinese social media giant Tencent's strategy to competeagainst ByteDance, now the world ’ s most valuable startup.
快手是中国社交巨头腾讯公司与字节跳动公司竞争的一张王牌，字节跳动现在是世界最
有价值的初创公司。
Tencent has devoted a lot of resources toward building a library of short and mini videoofferings -- key to retaining user attention and boosting advertising revenue -- but has yet tocatch its rival. 腾讯将大量资源投入到建立一个简短和迷你视频库中，这是保持用户关注并增加广告收
入的主要手段，但还是没有赶上竞争对手。
"Tencent's biggest enemy is ByteDance right now," said David Dai, a Hong Kong-based analystat Bernstein. "Tencent hasn't been very successful in short videos in the past, so resorting toinvesting in other companies instead is its best option."
香港 Bernstein 投资公司的分析师 David Dai 说：“腾讯目前的劲敌是字节跳动，腾讯过去在短视频领域不是非常成功，所以通过投资其他公司来翻身是最好的选择。”
U.S.-listed shares of some of Kuaishou's competitors fell. Momo Inc. Fell 2.8%, the most inmore than a week, while DouYu International Holdings Ltd. fell 1.9%, the most in about amonth. Both under-performed the Nasdaq, which rose 0.3%.
在美国上市的部分快手的竞争对手股价下跌。陌陌公司下跌 2.8%，是一周多的时间内
下跌最多的;斗鱼国际控股有限公司下跌 1.9%，是约一个月时间内下跌最多的。两家公司的
表现都不及上涨了 0.3%的纳斯达克指数。
Text5考研英语时事阅读：网络欺凌
One in three young people in 30 countries said they have been a victim of online bullying, withone in five reporting having skipped school due to
cyberbullying and violence, a new poll saidlast Wednesday. 上周三发布的最新民意调查指出，在 30 个国家中，有 1/3 的年轻人表示自己是网络欺
凌的受害者，1/5 的年轻人称曾因网络欺凌和暴力逃学。
Speaking out anonymously through the youth engagement tool U-Report, almost three-quarters of young people also said social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchatand Twitter, are the most common place for online bullying.
受访者通过青少年交流工具 U-Report 匿名发表意见，近 3/4 的年轻人还表示，脸书、
Instagram、Snapchat、推特等社交网络是网络欺凌最常见的地方。
More than 170,000 U-Reporters aged 13-24 years old participated in the poll released by UNChildren's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN special representative of the secretary-general onviolence against children, including young people from 30 countries in Europe, Asia, SouthAmerica and Africa.
超过 17 万年龄在 13-24 岁的 U-Report 用户参加了这项由联合国儿童基金会和联合
国秘书长关于儿童暴力问题特别代表进行的民调，调查对象是来自欧洲、亚洲、南美和非洲
30 个国家的年轻人。
"Connected classrooms mean school no longer ends once a student leaves class, and, unfortunately, neither does schoolyard bullying," said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.
联合国儿童基金会执行主任亨丽埃塔·福尔表示：“联动的教室意味着，校园生活不再在学生离开教室时就结束，且不幸的是，校园欺凌也是如此。”
"Improving young people's education experience means accounting for the
environment theyencounter online as well as offline."
“改善年轻人的教育经历，意味着要同时考量他们在线上和线下遭遇的环境。”
According to the poll, some 32 percent of the young people believe governments should beresponsible for ending cyberbullying, 31 percent said young people and 29 percent said internetcompanies.
该民意调查显示，约 32%的年轻人认为政府应该对结束网络欺凌负责，31%的人表示应是年轻人自己，29%的人表示应是互联网公司。
The poll results challenge the notion that cyberbullying among classmates is a uniquely high-income issue. 34 percent of respondents in sub-Saharan Africa said they had been a victim ofonline bullying.
调查结果对网络欺凌是高收入国家特有的问题的观点提出了质疑。撒哈拉以南非洲34%的受访者表示，他们是网络欺凌的受害者。
Some 39 percent said they knew about private online groups inside the school communitywhere children share information about peers for the purpose of bullying.
约 39%的人表示，他们知道一些年轻人在学校社区内的私人在线网络中为了欺负别人
而分享同龄人的信息。
Text6考研英语时事阅读：这个面霜有毒
A Sacramento woman went to the emergency room in July with numbness in her hands andfeet, slurred speech and trouble walking.
七月份，萨克拉门托的一名女子因手脚发麻、口齿不清且走路困难而去了急诊室。
The 47-year-old mother of five wasn't having a stroke or heart attack. She was suffering frommercury poisoning from a tainted anti-wrinkle cream imported from Mexico, KCRA-TVreported.
这名 47 岁有 5 个孩子的母亲并没有中风或心脏病发作。据 KCRA-TV 报道，她因使
用了从墨西哥进口的被污染的抗皱面霜而汞中毒。
She has been in the hospital since then, according to her son, who told KCRA he wished toremain unidentified. His mother, who also hasn't been identified, was initially able torespond to verbal commands before she entered her semi-comatose state.
从那时起她就一直在医院里，她的儿子告诉 KCRA，但他表示不希望表明身份，而他
母亲的身份也未被证实。在她进入半昏迷状态之前，她最初还能对口头指令做出反应。
Olivia Kasirye, the public health officer for the Sacramento County Department of HealthServices, told CBS Sacramento that the woman's cream contained methylmercury, a verytoxic type of mercury.
萨克拉门托县卫生服务部门公共卫生官员奥利维亚·卡西尔耶告诉哥伦比亚广播公司萨
克拉门托分公司，这位女士的面霜中含有甲基汞，这是一种毒性很高的汞。
This is the first time a methylmercury poisoning from face cream has occurred in the UnitedStates, the department said in a statement.
该部门在一份声明中表示，这是美国首次出现由面霜引起的甲基汞中毒。
Kasirye is urging the public to immediately discontinue use of similar skin creams imported fromMexico because of how dangerous methylmercury is for adults and children.
卡希尔耶敦促公众立即停止使用从墨西哥进口的类似护肤霜，因为甲基汞对成人和儿童
都是非常危险的。
"We don't know whether this was an intentional change or whether there was a mistake in theperson who was adding the mercury," she said, telling the station that there's an informalnetwork of suppliers who bring the altered skin creams into the country.
“我们不知道这是故意更换的，还是添加汞的人犯了错，”她说道。她告诉电视台，有一个非正式的供应商网络把被改动的护肤霜带入了美国。
The most common way that people are exposed to methylmercury is through eating fish andshellfish that contain the toxin, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
美国环境保护局表示，人们接触甲基汞最常见的方式是食用含有这种毒素的鱼类和贝类。
Skin exposure to methylmercury can affect the central and peripheral systems, withsymptoms including tremors, memory loss and cognitive and motor dysfunction, according tothe World Health Organization.
世界卫生组织称，皮肤接触到甲基汞会影响中枢和外周系统，引起震颤、记忆丧失、认
知和运动功能障碍等症状。
The average amount of mercury in blood is up to about 5 micrograms per liter as a result ofmercury that is likely to be in someone's diet, according to the New York State Department of Health. The woman had 2,630 micrograms per liter in her blood, according to KCRA.
纽约州卫生部门表示，由于人们饮食中可能含有汞，所以血液中汞的平均含量可达每升5微克，而据 KCRA 报道，这名女子血液中的汞含量为每升 2630 微克。
考研英语时事阅读：华为 5G 基站出货量排名世界首位
Huawei Technologies Co Ltd said last Tuesday that it has shipped more than 200,000 5G basestations worldwide, putting it in a leading role with other global vendors in the superfasttechnology despite all the restrictions it faces from the United States.
华为技术有限公司上周二表示，尽管面临来自美国的种种限制，但是该公司已经在全球范围内供货 20 多万个 5G 基站，在 5G 超高速网络技术领域，华为仍牢牢占据全球供应商领头羊地位。
William Xu, Huawei's director of the board and president of the institute of strategicresearch, said that the company has had more than 200,000 5G base stations in shipment, which marked a steady step forward compared with its earlier announcement of 150,000 base stations in late June.
华为董事会董事兼战略研究所所长徐文伟表示，华为公司已经有超过 20 万个 5G 基站交付使用，与 6 月底宣布的 15 万个基站相比，标志着该公司的稳步前进。
Xu also noted that the firm has secured over 50 commercial contracts for 5G with carriersglobally, among which 28 contracts are from Europe, 11 from the Middle East, six from theAsia-Pacific region, four from the Americas, and one from Africa.
徐文伟还指出，华为公司已经与全球运营商签订了 50 多份 5G 商业合同，其中 28 份
来自欧洲，11 份来自中东，6 份来自亚太地区，4 份来自美洲，1 份来自非洲。
Even though he did not disclose the exact total number, the figure is overwhelmingcompared with that of major telecom equipment makers.
尽管他没有透露确切的总数，但与其他主要电信设备制造商相比，这一数字是绝对领先的。
Finland's Nokia said in July that it has obtained 45 commercial orders while the latest publicdata showed that Swedish telecom manufacturer Ericsson has got .
芬兰诺基亚公司今年 7 月表示，已获得 45 个商业订单，而最新的公开数据显示，瑞典电信制造商爱立信获得了 24 个订单。
Industry insiders said the move again shows unaffected confidence among foreign telecomcompanies and consumers and also demonstrates Huawei's leading prowess in 5G despite USrestrictions.
业内人士表示，此举再次显示出外国电信公司和消费者信心未受影响，也表明尽管受到
美国限制，华为在 5G 领域依然拥有强大的领先实力。
Text7考研英语时事阅读：旅游巨头公司破产
Thomas Cook, a 178-year-old British travel company and airline, declared bankruptcy earlyMonday morning, suspending operations and leaving hundreds of thousands of tourists strandedaround the world.
拥有 178 年历史的英国旅游及航空公司托马斯库克本周一(9月23日)凌晨宣布破产，暂停运营，导致数十万游客滞留在世界各地。
The travel company operates its own airline, with a fleet of nearly 50 medium- and long-rangejets, and owns several smaller airlines and subsidiaries, including the German carrier Condor. Thomas Cook still had several flights in the air as of Sunday night but was expected to ceaseoperations once they landed at their destinations.
这家旅游公司旗下的航空公司有近 50 架中远程喷气式飞机，并拥有数家规模较小的航空公司和子公司，其中包括德国秃鹰航空。截至上周日晚间，托马斯库克仍有几架航班在空中飞行，但预计一旦飞机抵达目的地，就会停飞。
Condor posted a message to its site late Sunday night saying that it was still operating but thatit was unclear whether that would change. Condor's scheduled Monday-morning flightsappeared to be operating normally.
秃鹰航空周日晚间在其网站上发布消息称，公司仍在运营，但尚不清楚是否会有变化。秃鹰航空本周一上午的预定航班似乎运行正常。
About 600,000 Thomas Cook customers were traveling at the time of the collapse, of whom150,000 were British, the company told CNN.
托马斯库克公司告诉美国有线新闻网说，公司倒闭时，大约有 60 万名客户在旅行途中，
其中 15 万是英国人。
The British Department for Transport and Civil Aviation Authority prepared plans, under thecode name "Operation Matterhorn," to repatriate stranded British passengers. According tothe British aviation authority, those rescue flights would take place until October 6, leading tothe possibility that travelers could be delayed for up to two weeks.
英国交通部和民航局制定了代号为“马特洪恩行动”的计划，将滞留的英国乘客送回国。英国民航局表示，这些救援航班将持续运行到 10 月 6 日，这可能会导致乘客被延误至多两周。
Initial rescue flights seemed poised to begin immediately, with stranded passengers postingon Twitter that they were being delayed only a few hours as they awaited chartered flights.
第一批救援航班似乎很快就起飞了，被困乘客发推文称，他们在等待包机时，只被延误
了几个小时。
The scale of the task has reports calling it the largest peacetime repatriation effort in Britishhistory, including the operation the government carried out when Monarch Airlines collapsed in2017.
有报道称，这是英国历史上规模最大的和平时期遣送行动，比 2017 年君主航空公司倒
闭时实施的政府行动规模更大。
Costs of the flights were expected to be covered by the ATOL, or Air Travel Organiser's License, protection plan, a fund that provides for repatriation of British travelers if an airline ceasesoperations.
这些航班的费用预计将由 ATOL(航空旅行组织者许可证)保护计划承担。如果一家航空公司停止运营，该基金将为英国游客提供遣送服务。
Airplanes from British Airways and easyJet would be among those transporting strandedpassengers home, according to The Guardian, as well as chartered planes from leasingcompanies and other airlines. Thomas Cook Airlines' destinations included parts of mainlandEurope, Africa, the US, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Airplanes were being flown to thosedestinations on Sunday night, according to the BBC.
据《卫报》报道，英国航空公司和易捷航空公司的飞机，以及租赁公司和其他航空公司的包机，都将参与运送被困乘客返回英国。托马斯库克航空公司的目的地包括欧洲大陆部分地区、非洲、美国、加勒比海地区和中东。据英国广播公司报道，上周日晚上，救援飞机被派往这些目的地。
The company was still selling tickets until Sunday night in the UK.
直到上周日晚上，该公司还在英国售票。
One Plymouth, England-based traveler who had booked a vacation to the Greek island of Zakynthos for August 2020 told Business Insider that she saw Thomas Cook had charged hermore than £600 by direct debit on Sunday afternoon for the trip but that she was not due to becharged until Thursday. It was unclear whether she would be able to recoup the funds with the bankruptcy declaration.
一位来自英国普利茅斯的旅行者在托马斯库克公司预订了 2020 年 8 月去希腊扎金索斯岛度假的行程，她告诉商业内幕网说，她发现该公司在上周日下午直接扣款了 600 多英镑(约合人民币 5310 元)，而她本应在本周四再支付这笔款项。目前还不清楚她是否能够通过破产声明要回这笔钱。
Thomas Cook, as well as a union representing some of its 9,000 UK employees, had sought anemergency funding plan from the British government. Government sources, however, "hadquestioned the financial wisdom of stepping in to save the company," according to the BBC. Thecompany employs 21,000 globally.
托马斯库克以及代表其 9000 名英国雇员中部分员工的工会已向英国政府寻求一项紧急融资计划。然而，据英国广播公司报道，政府消息人士“对介入拯救该公司的想法提出了质疑”。该公司在全球拥有 2.1 万名员工。
While Thomas Cook managed to recover from a risk of insolvency in 2011,it continued to beheld back by lingering debts. It also suffered by lower demandover the past two summer travelseasons, as major heat waves led manyBritons to stay home. Brexit uncertainties and a weakpound also contributed, according to The Telegraph.
尽管托马斯库克在2011年成功地从破产风险中复苏，但它仍受到挥之不去的债务拖累。在过去的两个夏季旅游季节里，由于猛烈的热浪导致许多英国人呆在家里，公司也受到旅游需求下降的影响。据《每日电讯报》报道，英国脱欧的不确定性和英镑疲软也起到了推波助澜的作用。
Text8考研英语时事阅读：太空旅馆将于 2025 年建成
It's 50 years since man first stepped on the moon, and we're still harboring dreams of escapinglife on Earth for the mysteries of space.
距离人类第一次登上月球已经 50 年了，而我们仍然怀揣着逃离地球的梦想，去探索神秘的太空。
If a career as an astronaut isn't for you, perhaps the promise of a sojourn in a space hotelmight be appealing.
如果你不适合当宇航员，也许在太空旅馆住一段时间会很有吸引力。
Californian company The Gateway Foundation has released plans for the Von Braun Station, acruise ship-style hotel floating among the stars.
美国加州盖特韦基金会公布了冯·布劳恩太空旅馆的建设计划，这是一家漂浮在群星之间的游轮风格的酒店。
The aim is to get the hotel off the ground by 2025 and make it fully operational for travel by2027. 这家太空旅馆将在 2025 年前建成，并在 2027 年前全面投入运营。
According to digitally rendered video and images released by the Gateway Foundation, thestation resembles a rotating wheel, comprised of 24 modules, orbiting the Earth.
根据盖特韦基金会发布的数字渲染视频和图像，冯·布劳恩太空旅馆外形酷似一个旋转的轮子，由 24 个模块组成，环绕地球运行。
Tim Alatorre, senior design architect at the Gateway Foundation, says the rotating wheelwould create a simulated gravity.
盖特韦基金会的高级设计建筑师蒂姆·阿拉托雷说，太空旅馆会产生模拟重力。
"The station rotates, pushing the contents of the station out to the perimeter of the station, much in the way that you can spin a bucket of water --the water pushes out into the bucketand stays in place," he tells CNN Travel.
他告诉美国有线新闻网旅游频道说：“太空旅馆会旋转，把其中的物品推到外围，就像你旋转一桶水一样——水会被推到桶里，并保持原位。”
The Gateway Foundation's hotel design is named for Wernher von Braun, an aerospace engineerwho pioneered rocket technology, first in Germany and later in the United States.
酒店设计是以航空航天工程师沃纳·冯·布劳恩的名字命名的。布劳恩先后成为德国和
美国的火箭技术先驱。
"The basic physics of the station haven't changed since the 1950s, the way the station rotates," says Alatorre.
阿拉托雷说：“自从 20 世纪 50 年代以来，空间站的基本物理结构和旋转方式从未改变。”
The main difference is the modern materials -- new metal alloys, carbon composites, 3Dprinting and launch pad technology that, says Alatorre, make a space hotel more probable inour current era. 他说，主要的不同之处在于现代材料——新的金属合金、碳复合材料、3D 打印和发射台技术，使太空旅馆在当今更可能实现。
Space tourism is an expensive game -- Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic plans to launchpassengers into sub-orbital space at the hefty sum of $250,000 per person, per trip.
太空旅行是昂贵的游戏——理查德·布兰森的维珍银河计划以每人每次 25 万美元(约合人民币 177 万元)的高价将乘客送入亚轨道空间。
Meanwhile, Aurora Station says a stay in its space hotel will cost an eyewatering $9.5 million.
与此同时，奥罗拉空间站表示，在其太空旅馆住宿将耗资 950 万美元。
Price wise, in the early phases the Von Braun hotel will also be catering to those with dollars tospend, but the foundation is hoping to make it equivalent to "a trip on a cruise or a trip toDisneyland."
就价格而言，在早期阶段，冯·布劳恩太空旅馆也将为富有的顾客提供服务，但该基金会希望，它能等同于“一次游轮之旅或迪士尼乐园之旅”。
Aurora Station aims to sleep just 12, whereas the Von Braun Station will sleep 352 people witha maximum capacity of 450.
奥罗拉空间站的目标仅为容纳 12 人，而冯·布劳恩太空旅馆将容纳 352 人，最大接待能力为 450 人。
So what will Von Braun Station be like inside?
那么冯·布劳恩太空旅馆里面会是什么样子呢?
Alatorre says the hotel's aesthetic was a direct response to the Stanley Kubrick movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" -- just maybe not in the way you might think.
阿拉托雷说，酒店的美学是对斯坦利·库布里克的电影《2001 太空漫游》的直接回应——只是可能不是你想象的那样。
"I think the goal of Stanley Kubrick was to highlight the divide between technology andhumanity and so, purposefully, he made the stations and the ships very sterile and clean andalien."
他说：“我认为斯坦利·库布里克的目标是突出科技与人类之间的鸿沟，因此，他有意地让空间站和飞船变得乏味、干净和陌生。
Instead, Alatorre wanted to bring a slice of earth to space, to avoid a laboratorial, overly StarTrek-esque feel.
相反，阿拉托雷想要把地球的部分装饰带到太空中，以避免实验室式的，过度星际旅行式的感觉。
On board, there'll be warm suites with carpets and stylish monochrome touches and chic barsthat wouldn't look out of place back on Earth, just with star-gazing views.
太空旅馆中将会有温暖的套间，铺着地毯，点缀着时尚的纯色装饰，还有时髦的酒吧，这些酒吧在地球上看起来也不会显得格格不入，区别是太空酒吧可以观星。
There will also be plenty of fun recreational activities for guest to enjoy, says Alatorre.
阿拉托雷说，酒店还将为客人提供许多有趣的娱乐活动。
"We're going to have a number of different recreation activities and games that'll highlight thefact that you're able to do things that you can't do on Earth," he says. "Because of theweightlessness and the reduced gravity, you'll be able to jump higher, be able to lift things, beable to run in ways that you can't on Earth."
他说：“太空旅馆中将有许多不同的娱乐活动和游戏，重点是，你可以做一些在地球上做不到的事情。由于失重和重力降低，你将能够跳得更高，能够举起重物，跑起来也和地球上不一样。”
If it all sounds like a space-age gimmick, Alatorre is emphatic that the concept will havewidespread, enduring appeal.
如果这一切听起来像太空时代的噱头，阿拉托雷强调，这个概念将具有广泛、持久的吸引力。
"People will want to go and experience this just because it's a cool new thing and they've neverdone it before," he admits.
他承认：“人们会想去体验一下，因为这是很酷的新事物，从未体验过。”
"But our goal -- the overall goal of the Gateway Foundation -- is to create a starship culturewhere people are going to space, and living in space, and working in space and they want to bein space. And we believe that there's a demand for that."
“但盖特韦基金会的总体目标是创造一种星际飞船文化，让人们去太空，在太空生活，在太空工作，他们想要进入太空。我们相信这是有需求的。”
The Gateway Foundation also intends the space station to be used for research purposes, aswell as asteroid mining.
盖特韦基金会还打算将空间站用于研究目的，以及小行星采矿。
Given the design is still exactly that -- just a design -- there are some questions that remainunanswered about how the space hotel will function in actuality.
鉴于该方案仍然在设计中，关于太空旅馆将如何实际运作，仍有一些疑问有待解答。
For example, it's been suggested that living in low gravity for an extended period of time isdamaging to the human body. While vacationers will probably only visit the hotel for a fewweeks, staff will plan to be there for six months to a year.
例如，有人认为长时间生活在低重力环境中对人体有害。虽然度假者可能只会在太空旅馆停留几周，但员工将在那里工作 6 个月至一年。
They'll adjust schedules as needed, says Alatorre, but right now, the foundation thinks thisproposition would be "perfectly safe."
阿拉托雷说，他们会根据需要调整日程，但是现在，基金会认为这个提议是“完全安全的”。
There's also the sustainability question, as people look for more eco-friendly vacations, surelygoing to space is not the solution?
可持续发展也是个问题。人们在寻求更环保的假期，去太空肯定做不到?
Alatorre points to SpaceX's Raptor engine, which uses methane instead of petroleum-basedfuel, suggesting "eco-friendly" rocket designs are the future.
阿拉托雷指出，SpaceX 的猛禽发动机使用甲烷代替石油燃料，这表明“环保”火箭设计是未来的发展方向。
"On the station itself, it's going to be about the most environmentally friendly vacation you'llever have. Because we're recycling everything," says Alatorre.
“就太空旅馆本身而言，这将是你度过的最环保的假期。因为我们会回收利用所有的物品，”他说。
"There's no amount of water or trash or waste that is going to be discarded, everything will berecycled, reused, stored, converted to some other form."
“没有任何水、垃圾或废物会被丢弃，所有的东西都会被回收、再利用、储存，并转换成其他物品。
Terrestrial construction on the Gateway Foundation's project is set to begin October 1, 2019.
该项目的地面建设将于 2019 年 10 月 1 日开始。
Text1考研英语双语阅读:支付方式又出新招
Forget the titanium Apple Card — Amazon's latest payment method uses
flesh and blood.
苹果公司的 Apple Card 钛金卡可以收起来了，亚马逊的最新支付方式只要用户伸手就可以。
The e-tailing giant's engineers are quietly testing scanners that can identify an individualhuman hand as a way to ring up a store purchase, with the goal of rolling them out at itsWhole Foods supermarket chain in the coming months, The Post has learned.
据《纽约邮报》报道，这家电商巨头的工程师正在默默测试可以辨识手部的扫描仪用来结账，打算几个月后在旗下的全食连锁超市推出。
Employees at Amazon's New York offices are serving as guinea pigs for the biometrictechnology, using it at a handful of vending machines to buy such items as sodas, chips, granola bars and phone chargers, according to sources briefed on the plans.
据消息人士透露，亚马逊纽约办公室的员工正在试用这种生物识别技术，在少数几台自动售货机上使用该技术购买汽水、薯条、格兰诺拉燕麦棒和手机充电器等商品。
The high-tech sensors are different from fingerprint scanners found on devices like the iPhoneand don't require users to physically touch their hands to the scanning surface.
这种高科技传感器不同于 iPhone 手机等装置上的指纹扫描仪，不需要使用者将手碰触到扫描仪表面。
Instead, they use computer vision and depth geometry to process and identify the shape andsize of each hand they scan before charging a credit card on file.
扫描仪使用计算机视觉和深度几何学技术，处理和辨识扫描到的每双手的形状和大小，而后进行信用卡付款。
The system, code-named "Orville," will allow customers with Amazon Prime accounts to scantheir hands at the store and link them to their credit or debit card.
这套系统代号为“奥维尔”，亚马逊 Prime 会员顾客可以在门店通过该系统扫描自己的手，并将信息与信用卡或借记卡绑定。
It's accurate to within one ten-thousandth of 1%, but Amazon engineers are scrambling toimprove it to a millionth of 1% ahead of its launch, the source said.
据消息人士透露，这一系统已精准到出错率不到百万分之一，但亚马逊的工程师们正努
力在正式推出之前，将出错率降至亿分之一。
Amazon hopes to introduce the tech to a handful of its Whole Foods stores by the beginning of next year and to eventually expand the super-fast checkout tech to all US locations. The paceof the rollout will depend on how quickly Whole Foods is able to install it and train employees onhow to use it, sources said
消息人士还透露说，亚马逊希望在明年初之前能在一些全食超市引进这项技术，并希望最终将这一快速结账技术推广到所有美国门店。技术推开的进度将取决于全食超市安装系统的速度，以及培训员工使用系统的时间。
"We don't comment on rumors or speculation," an Amazon spokesperson said.
亚马逊一位发言人表示：“我们不对谣言或猜测发表评论。” While a regular card transaction typically takes between three and four seconds, Amazon'snew technology can process the charge in less than 300 milliseconds, a person familiar with theproject said.
一位知情人士表示，普通的银行卡交易通常需要 3 至 4 秒的时间，而亚马逊的新技术可以在不到 300 毫秒的时间内处理完交易。
"Retailers have always been interested in faster checkout," Majd Maksad, founder and CEO of Status Money, a personal finance site, told The Post. "You only have to walk into Whole Foods tosee the massive lines of people waiting to check out. It's a massive friction point."
个人理财网站“金钱地位”的创始人兼首席执行官马吉德·马卡萨德在接受《纽约邮报》
采访时说：“零售商一直对加快结账速度很感兴趣。你只要走进全食超市，就会看到人们排
着长队等着结账，很容易发生摩擦。”
If successful, the technology also could help encourage consumers to spend more when theyvisit Whole Foods, he said.
他说，如果能成功的话，这项技术还可以鼓励消费者在全食超市购物时多花点钱。
"People tend to spend more when they don't have the experience of touching somethingtangible like money," Maksad said. "The utility of money becomes more ephemeral."
马卡萨德说：“当人们没有实实在在地花出纸币时，他们往往会花更多的钱。金钱的效
用变得更加短暂。”
At Amazon's budding chain of "Go" convenience stores that launched last year, customers usea phone app to check in at a turnstile. They can then fill their bags and carry them out withoutever passing a register thanks to computer vision and an array of sensors all over the store.
在亚马逊去年推出的新兴 Go 连锁便利店中，顾客进入门店时使用一款手机应用程序在闸门处刷一下，买完东西以后不用到收银台结账，打包就可以走 了。因为店里安装了计算机视觉设备以及无处不在的传感器。
With the new, hand-based tech, shoppers won't even have to bring their phones. Nevertheless, experts say it's unclear whether customers will be enthusiastic about scanning their hands atWhole Foods.
有了这种扫描手部的新技术，顾客甚至不用带手机。不过专家表示，目前还不清楚消费者是否会对全食超市的手部扫描感兴趣。
Text2考研英语时事阅读：面试机器人
A robot has hired a human being for the first time in history as an AI was left to do jobinterviews. 人工智能被应用于工作面试，有史以来第一次，一个机器人聘用了一名人类。
Robotic head Tengai has been commissioned to carry out recruitment in the Upplands BroMunicipality, Sweden.
首席机器人腾艾被委托在瑞典乌普兰斯布罗市进行招聘。
Tengai resembles a head on a stick, with a friendly looking face beamed onto a screen whichwraps around his plastic skull.
腾艾就像一颗长在木棒上的头，他的塑料脑袋上有一块屏幕，屏幕上展现着一张友好的
脸。
The robot was developed by recruitment company TNG together with the tech firm FurhatRobotics.
这款机器人是由招聘公司 TNG 和科技公司 Furhat 机器人公司共同研发的。
He is reported to have hired a man called Anders Ornhed, from Jarfalla.
据报道，他从耶尔费拉聘请了一位名叫安德斯·奥恩赫德的男子。
Anders has the honour of becoming the first person ever to hired by an AI.
安德斯有幸成为史上第一位被人工智能聘用的人。
Swedish radio reported Anders got through the interview process with Tengai.
据瑞典之声报道，安德斯顺利通过了腾艾的面试。
He was given the job as digital coordinator at the municipality office.
他被任命为市政办公室的数字协调员。
Tengai is boasted to be "bias free".
人们称赞腾艾“没有偏见”。
The robot is not affected by the jobseeker's age, gender of ethnicity – he just wants the bestperson for the job.
机器人不受求职者年龄、性别或种族的影响，他只想找到最适合这份工作的人选。
Anders said: "It's very different from being interviewed by a human being.
安德斯表示：“这与接受人类的面试十分不同。
"For example, you do not get any confirmation whether you have answered enough."
“例如，关于你是否充分回答了问题，你并不会得到任何确认。”
Tengai was designed to "challenge old stereotypes" and help to eliminate humanities"subconscious prejudices".
设计腾艾的目的在于“挑战陈规旧制”，以消除人类“潜意识中的偏见”。
TNG bosses claim the robot will create "business value, increased competitiveness anddiversity in the workplace".
TNG 经理表示，机器人将“在职场上”创造“商业价值、提高竞争力并增加多样性”。
Previously, CEO Asa Edman Kallstromer said: "We humans often try to find people who havethe same interests and are like ourselves.
阿萨·艾德曼·科尔斯托默总裁曾表示：“我们人类往往尝试去找与自己有着相同爱好，
并与自己相像的人。
"This is often done through private questions that get us emotionally
involved. “这往往会通过那些让我们投入感情的私人问题来实现。”
"The robot never asks such questions and never gets emotional." “而机器人从不会问这样的问题，也不会变得情绪化。”
Furhat Robotics advert features a woman with a hijab being turned down by three recruitmentmanagers before being given a job by Tengai.
在 Furhat 机器人的广告中，一名带着头巾的女士被三位招聘经理拒绝了，但之后她被腾艾录用了。
Text3考研英语双语阅读:用中餐诱哄想自杀的男子
A Chinese food craving is a powerful thing — just ask Officer Jason Inacio of the Newark PoliceDepartment.
对中国食物的渴求是一件很强大的事——只管问问纽瓦克警察局的杰森·伊纳西奥警官。
He was able to use a simple offer of Chinese takeout to help coax a man out of his apartmentbedroom, where he was reportedly threatening to cut his own throat with a knife on Saturday.
他用一份中餐外卖就把一名男子诱哄出他公寓的卧室，而据报道，这名男子周六曾扬言要用刀割喉。
"He said he was hungry," Inacio told NJ.com. "And wanted Chinese food."
“他说他饿了，想吃中餐。”伊纳西奥告诉新泽西地方新闻。
Cops had been negotiating with the 38-year-old man for roughly 20 minutes before Inaciocame up with the idea to grab him some takeout.
警察与这名 38 岁的男子沟通了约 20 分钟，之后伊纳西奥想到了给他拿点外卖的办法。
"We gave someone $20 and I told him, 'I'll let you eat on the way to the hospital,'" Inaciorecalled. "We just wanted to figure out where he was coming from and reassure him. The onlyreason we're there is to help him and try to comfort him."
“我们给了某人 20 美元，并且我告诉他，‘我会让你在去医院的路上吃东西的，’”伊纳西奥回忆道。“我们只是想了解他来自哪里，并打消他的疑虑。我们去那儿的唯一原因
就是要帮助他并试着安慰他。”
A family member reportedly grabbed the food — described as "a hearty" chicken and broccolibowl — and delivered it to the man.
据报道，一位家庭成员拿了一碗“丰盛的”西兰花炒鸡肉，给了这名男子。
"Look, you see it right there," Inacio can be heard saying on video captured through hisbodycam, as he shows the man a bag of food. "I promised you that, right? So come on…I'll letyou eat it on the way."
从伊纳西奥的执法记录仪上拍摄的一段视频中可以听到他说，“你看，它就在那儿，”他向那名男子展示了那袋食物，“我答应过你，对吧?所以，来吧……我会让你在路上吃的。”
The man eventually agreed to drop the knife and was transported to a local hospital byambulance soon after.
这名男子最终同意放下刀，并乘坐之后到达的救护车去了当地医院。
"I like to always keep my promises," Inacio said. "If I promise something, I want to followthrough with my promise. And in this case, I promised him the Chinese food if he came withus."
“我愿意一直信守承诺，”伊纳西奥说道。“如果我做出了承诺，我就会信守承诺。这次我承诺他，如果他跟我们走，我就让他吃中餐。”
Text4考研英语时事阅读："量子霸权"
According to a report in the Financial Times, a team of researchers from Google led by JohnMartinis have demonstrated quantum supremacy for the first time.
《英国金融时报》的一篇报告称，John Martinis 带领的一个 Google 研究团队首次证明了量子霸权。
This is the point at which a quantum computer is shown to be capable of performing a taskthat's beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional supercomputer.
当时发现一台量子计算机能完成最 强大的传统超 级计算机都不能完成的任务。
The claim appeared in a paper that was posted on a NASA website, but the publication wasthen taken down. Google did not respond to a request for comment from MIT TechnologyReview.
这一声明出现在 NASA 网站上发表的一篇论文中，但随后被删除了。《麻省理工科技评论》请求 Google 对此作出评论，但未得到回应。
Google struck an agreement last year to use supercomputers available to NASA asbenchmarks for its supremacy experiments.
去年 Google 决定将 NASA 可用的超 级计算机作为霸权实验的标杆。
According to the Financial Times report, the paper said that Google's quantum processor wasable to perform a calculation in three minutes and 20 seconds that would take today's mostadvanced supercomputer, known as Summit, around 10,000 years.
据《英国金融时报》报道，该论文称 Google 的量子处理器能在3分20秒内完成现在最先进的超级计算机 Summit 一万年才能完成的计算。
In the paper, the researchers said that, to their knowledge, the experiment "marks the firstcomputation that can only be performed on a quantum processor."
该论文中研究人员称，据他们所知这一实验“标志着第一个只能在量子处理器上进行的计算”。
Quantum machines are so powerful because they harness quantum bits, or qubits. Unlikeclassicalbits, which represent either a 1 or a 0, qubits can be in a kind of combination of bothat the same time.
量子计算机如此强大是因为他们利用了量子比特或量子位。经典的二进制只代表1或0，
而量子位不一样，可以同时是两者的一种组合。
Thanks to other quantum phenomena, which are described in our explainer here, quantumcomputers can crunch large amounts of data in parallel that conventional machines have towork through sequentially.
多亏了其他我们在解释中描述过的量子现象，量子计算机可以并行运算大量数据，而传
统计算机只能按顺序进行运算。
Scientists have been working for years to demonstrate that the machines can definitivelyoutperform conventional ones.
科学家已研究多年，想要证明量子计算机绝对优于传统计算机。考研英语双语阅读 : 2020，快手计划在美国上市
Chinese startup Kuaishou is considering to a U.S. initial public offering to bankroll itsexpansion in short videos and fend off competition from TikTok-owner ByteDance Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.
据知情人士透露，中国初创公司快手公司正考虑赴美上市，为其短视频的业务拓展提供资金并抵御来自抖音母公司字节跳动的竞争。
The company, backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., plans to list next year, the people said, requesting not to be named because the matter is private.
因为这件事仍然保密，所以知情人士匿名透露，腾讯控股的这家公司计划明年上市。
One person said Kuaishou also weighed the option of going public this year. The video startupis raising more than $1 billion at a $25 billion valuation in a pre-IPO round mostly from Tencent, one of the people said.
一个人说快手也考虑了今年上市。还有一个人说这家视频初创公司融资超过 10 亿美元，
本轮 Pre-IPO 估值达到 250 亿美元，融资主要来自腾讯。
Kuaishou is an important part of Chinese social media giant Tencent's strategy to competeagainst ByteDance, now the world ’ s most valuable startup.
快手是中国社交巨头腾讯公司与字节跳动公司竞争的一张王牌，字节跳动现在是世界最
有价值的初创公司。
Tencent has devoted a lot of resources toward building a library of short and mini videoofferings -- key to retaining user attention and boosting advertising revenue -- but has yet tocatch its rival. 腾讯将大量资源投入到建立一个简短和迷你视频库中，这是保持用户关注并增加广告收
入的主要手段，但还是没有赶上竞争对手。
"Tencent's biggest enemy is ByteDance right now," said David Dai, a Hong Kong-based analystat Bernstein. "Tencent hasn't been very successful in short videos in the past, so resorting toinvesting in other companies instead is its best option."
香港 Bernstein 投资公司的分析师 David Dai 说：“腾讯目前的劲敌是字节跳动，腾讯过去在短视频领域不是非常成功，所以通过投资其他公司来翻身是最好的选择。”
U.S.-listed shares of some of Kuaishou's competitors fell. Momo Inc. Fell 2.8%, the most inmore than a week, while DouYu International Holdings Ltd. fell 1.9%, the most in about amonth. Both under-performed the Nasdaq, which rose 0.3%.
在美国上市的部分快手的竞争对手股价下跌。陌陌公司下跌 2.8%，是一周多的时间内
下跌最多的;斗鱼国际控股有限公司下跌 1.9%，是约一个月时间内下跌最多的。两家公司的
表现都不及上涨了 0.3%的纳斯达克指数。
Text5考研英语时事阅读：网络欺凌
One in three young people in 30 countries said they have been a victim of online bullying, withone in five reporting having skipped school due to
cyberbullying and violence, a new poll saidlast Wednesday. 上周三发布的最新民意调查指出，在 30 个国家中，有 1/3 的年轻人表示自己是网络欺
凌的受害者，1/5 的年轻人称曾因网络欺凌和暴力逃学。
Speaking out anonymously through the youth engagement tool U-Report, almost three-quarters of young people also said social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchatand Twitter, are the most common place for online bullying.
受访者通过青少年交流工具 U-Report 匿名发表意见，近 3/4 的年轻人还表示，脸书、
Instagram、Snapchat、推特等社交网络是网络欺凌最常见的地方。
More than 170,000 U-Reporters aged 13-24 years old participated in the poll released by UNChildren's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN special representative of the secretary-general onviolence against children, including young people from 30 countries in Europe, Asia, SouthAmerica and Africa.
超过 17 万年龄在 13-24 岁的 U-Report 用户参加了这项由联合国儿童基金会和联合
国秘书长关于儿童暴力问题特别代表进行的民调，调查对象是来自欧洲、亚洲、南美和非洲
30 个国家的年轻人。
"Connected classrooms mean school no longer ends once a student leaves class, and, unfortunately, neither does schoolyard bullying," said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.
联合国儿童基金会执行主任亨丽埃塔·福尔表示：“联动的教室意味着，校园生活不再在学生离开教室时就结束，且不幸的是，校园欺凌也是如此。”
"Improving young people's education experience means accounting for the
environment theyencounter online as well as offline."
“改善年轻人的教育经历，意味着要同时考量他们在线上和线下遭遇的环境。”
According to the poll, some 32 percent of the young people believe governments should beresponsible for ending cyberbullying, 31 percent said young people and 29 percent said internetcompanies.
该民意调查显示，约 32%的年轻人认为政府应该对结束网络欺凌负责，31%的人表示应是年轻人自己，29%的人表示应是互联网公司。
The poll results challenge the notion that cyberbullying among classmates is a uniquely high-income issue. 34 percent of respondents in sub-Saharan Africa said they had been a victim ofonline bullying.
调查结果对网络欺凌是高收入国家特有的问题的观点提出了质疑。撒哈拉以南非洲34%的受访者表示，他们是网络欺凌的受害者。
Some 39 percent said they knew about private online groups inside the school communitywhere children share information about peers for the purpose of bullying.
约 39%的人表示，他们知道一些年轻人在学校社区内的私人在线网络中为了欺负别人
而分享同龄人的信息。
Text6考研英语时事阅读：这个面霜有毒
A Sacramento woman went to the emergency room in July with numbness in her hands andfeet, slurred speech and trouble walking.
七月份，萨克拉门托的一名女子因手脚发麻、口齿不清且走路困难而去了急诊室。
The 47-year-old mother of five wasn't having a stroke or heart attack. She was suffering frommercury poisoning from a tainted anti-wrinkle cream imported from Mexico, KCRA-TVreported.
这名 47 岁有 5 个孩子的母亲并没有中风或心脏病发作。据 KCRA-TV 报道，她因使
用了从墨西哥进口的被污染的抗皱面霜而汞中毒。
She has been in the hospital since then, according to her son, who told KCRA he wished toremain unidentified. His mother, who also hasn't been identified, was initially able torespond to verbal commands before she entered her semi-comatose state.
从那时起她就一直在医院里，她的儿子告诉 KCRA，但他表示不希望表明身份，而他
母亲的身份也未被证实。在她进入半昏迷状态之前，她最初还能对口头指令做出反应。
Olivia Kasirye, the public health officer for the Sacramento County Department of HealthServices, told CBS Sacramento that the woman's cream contained methylmercury, a verytoxic type of mercury.
萨克拉门托县卫生服务部门公共卫生官员奥利维亚·卡西尔耶告诉哥伦比亚广播公司萨
克拉门托分公司，这位女士的面霜中含有甲基汞，这是一种毒性很高的汞。
This is the first time a methylmercury poisoning from face cream has occurred in the UnitedStates, the department said in a statement.
该部门在一份声明中表示，这是美国首次出现由面霜引起的甲基汞中毒。
Kasirye is urging the public to immediately discontinue use of similar skin creams imported fromMexico because of how dangerous methylmercury is for adults and children.
卡希尔耶敦促公众立即停止使用从墨西哥进口的类似护肤霜，因为甲基汞对成人和儿童
都是非常危险的。
"We don't know whether this was an intentional change or whether there was a mistake in theperson who was adding the mercury," she said, telling the station that there's an informalnetwork of suppliers who bring the altered skin creams into the country.
“我们不知道这是故意更换的，还是添加汞的人犯了错，”她说道。她告诉电视台，有一个非正式的供应商网络把被改动的护肤霜带入了美国。
The most common way that people are exposed to methylmercury is through eating fish andshellfish that contain the toxin, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
美国环境保护局表示，人们接触甲基汞最常见的方式是食用含有这种毒素的鱼类和贝类。
Skin exposure to methylmercury can affect the central and peripheral systems, withsymptoms including tremors, memory loss and cognitive and motor dysfunction, according tothe World Health Organization.
世界卫生组织称，皮肤接触到甲基汞会影响中枢和外周系统，引起震颤、记忆丧失、认
知和运动功能障碍等症状。
The average amount of mercury in blood is up to about 5 micrograms per liter as a result ofmercury that is likely to be in someone's diet, according to the New York State Department of Health. The woman had 2,630 micrograms per liter in her blood, according to KCRA.
纽约州卫生部门表示，由于人们饮食中可能含有汞，所以血液中汞的平均含量可达每升5微克，而据 KCRA 报道，这名女子血液中的汞含量为每升 2630 微克。
考研英语时事阅读：华为 5G 基站出货量排名世界首位
Huawei Technologies Co Ltd said last Tuesday that it has shipped more than 200,000 5G basestations worldwide, putting it in a leading role with other global vendors in the superfasttechnology despite all the restrictions it faces from the United States.
华为技术有限公司上周二表示，尽管面临来自美国的种种限制，但是该公司已经在全球范围内供货 20 多万个 5G 基站，在 5G 超高速网络技术领域，华为仍牢牢占据全球供应商领头羊地位。
William Xu, Huawei's director of the board and president of the institute of strategicresearch, said that the company has had more than 200,000 5G base stations in shipment, which marked a steady step forward compared with its earlier announcement of 150,000 base stations in late June.
华为董事会董事兼战略研究所所长徐文伟表示，华为公司已经有超过 20 万个 5G 基站交付使用，与 6 月底宣布的 15 万个基站相比，标志着该公司的稳步前进。
Xu also noted that the firm has secured over 50 commercial contracts for 5G with carriersglobally, among which 28 contracts are from Europe, 11 from the Middle East, six from theAsia-Pacific region, four from the Americas, and one from Africa.
徐文伟还指出，华为公司已经与全球运营商签订了 50 多份 5G 商业合同，其中 28 份
来自欧洲，11 份来自中东，6 份来自亚太地区，4 份来自美洲，1 份来自非洲。
Even though he did not disclose the exact total number, the figure is overwhelmingcompared with that of major telecom equipment makers.
尽管他没有透露确切的总数，但与其他主要电信设备制造商相比，这一数字是绝对领先的。
Finland's Nokia said in July that it has obtained 45 commercial orders while the latest publicdata showed that Swedish telecom manufacturer Ericsson has got .
芬兰诺基亚公司今年 7 月表示，已获得 45 个商业订单，而最新的公开数据显示，瑞典电信制造商爱立信获得了 24 个订单。
Industry insiders said the move again shows unaffected confidence among foreign telecomcompanies and consumers and also demonstrates Huawei's leading prowess in 5G despite USrestrictions.
业内人士表示，此举再次显示出外国电信公司和消费者信心未受影响，也表明尽管受到
美国限制，华为在 5G 领域依然拥有强大的领先实力。
Text7考研英语时事阅读：旅游巨头公司破产
Thomas Cook, a 178-year-old British travel company and airline, declared bankruptcy earlyMonday morning, suspending operations and leaving hundreds of thousands of tourists strandedaround the world.
拥有 178 年历史的英国旅游及航空公司托马斯库克本周一(9月23日)凌晨宣布破产，暂停运营，导致数十万游客滞留在世界各地。
The travel company operates its own airline, with a fleet of nearly 50 medium- and long-rangejets, and owns several smaller airlines and subsidiaries, including the German carrier Condor. Thomas Cook still had several flights in the air as of Sunday night but was expected to ceaseoperations once they landed at their destinations.
这家旅游公司旗下的航空公司有近 50 架中远程喷气式飞机，并拥有数家规模较小的航空公司和子公司，其中包括德国秃鹰航空。截至上周日晚间，托马斯库克仍有几架航班在空中飞行，但预计一旦飞机抵达目的地，就会停飞。
Condor posted a message to its site late Sunday night saying that it was still operating but thatit was unclear whether that would change. Condor's scheduled Monday-morning flightsappeared to be operating normally.
秃鹰航空周日晚间在其网站上发布消息称，公司仍在运营，但尚不清楚是否会有变化。秃鹰航空本周一上午的预定航班似乎运行正常。
About 600,000 Thomas Cook customers were traveling at the time of the collapse, of whom150,000 were British, the company told CNN.
托马斯库克公司告诉美国有线新闻网说，公司倒闭时，大约有 60 万名客户在旅行途中，
其中 15 万是英国人。
The British Department for Transport and Civil Aviation Authority prepared plans, under thecode name "Operation Matterhorn," to repatriate stranded British passengers. According tothe British aviation authority, those rescue flights would take place until October 6, leading tothe possibility that travelers could be delayed for up to two weeks.
英国交通部和民航局制定了代号为“马特洪恩行动”的计划，将滞留的英国乘客送回国。英国民航局表示，这些救援航班将持续运行到 10 月 6 日，这可能会导致乘客被延误至多两周。
Initial rescue flights seemed poised to begin immediately, with stranded passengers postingon Twitter that they were being delayed only a few hours as they awaited chartered flights.
第一批救援航班似乎很快就起飞了，被困乘客发推文称，他们在等待包机时，只被延误
了几个小时。
The scale of the task has reports calling it the largest peacetime repatriation effort in Britishhistory, including the operation the government carried out when Monarch Airlines collapsed in2017.
有报道称，这是英国历史上规模最大的和平时期遣送行动，比 2017 年君主航空公司倒
闭时实施的政府行动规模更大。
Costs of the flights were expected to be covered by the ATOL, or Air Travel Organiser's License, protection plan, a fund that provides for repatriation of British travelers if an airline ceasesoperations.
这些航班的费用预计将由 ATOL(航空旅行组织者许可证)保护计划承担。如果一家航空公司停止运营，该基金将为英国游客提供遣送服务。
Airplanes from British Airways and easyJet would be among those transporting strandedpassengers home, according to The Guardian, as well as chartered planes from leasingcompanies and other airlines. Thomas Cook Airlines' destinations included parts of mainlandEurope, Africa, the US, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Airplanes were being flown to thosedestinations on Sunday night, according to the BBC.
据《卫报》报道，英国航空公司和易捷航空公司的飞机，以及租赁公司和其他航空公司的包机，都将参与运送被困乘客返回英国。托马斯库克航空公司的目的地包括欧洲大陆部分地区、非洲、美国、加勒比海地区和中东。据英国广播公司报道，上周日晚上，救援飞机被派往这些目的地。
The company was still selling tickets until Sunday night in the UK.
直到上周日晚上，该公司还在英国售票。
One Plymouth, England-based traveler who had booked a vacation to the Greek island of Zakynthos for August 2020 told Business Insider that she saw Thomas Cook had charged hermore than £600 by direct debit on Sunday afternoon for the trip but that she was not due to becharged until Thursday. It was unclear whether she would be able to recoup the funds with the bankruptcy declaration.
一位来自英国普利茅斯的旅行者在托马斯库克公司预订了 2020 年 8 月去希腊扎金索斯岛度假的行程，她告诉商业内幕网说，她发现该公司在上周日下午直接扣款了 600 多英镑(约合人民币 5310 元)，而她本应在本周四再支付这笔款项。目前还不清楚她是否能够通过破产声明要回这笔钱。
Thomas Cook, as well as a union representing some of its 9,000 UK employees, had sought anemergency funding plan from the British government. Government sources, however, "hadquestioned the financial wisdom of stepping in to save the company," according to the BBC. Thecompany employs 21,000 globally.
托马斯库克以及代表其 9000 名英国雇员中部分员工的工会已向英国政府寻求一项紧急融资计划。然而，据英国广播公司报道，政府消息人士“对介入拯救该公司的想法提出了质疑”。该公司在全球拥有 2.1 万名员工。
While Thomas Cook managed to recover from a risk of insolvency in 2011,it continued to beheld back by lingering debts. It also suffered by lower demandover the past two summer travelseasons, as major heat waves led manyBritons to stay home. Brexit uncertainties and a weakpound also contributed, according to The Telegraph.
尽管托马斯库克在2011年成功地从破产风险中复苏，但它仍受到挥之不去的债务拖累。在过去的两个夏季旅游季节里，由于猛烈的热浪导致许多英国人呆在家里，公司也受到旅游需求下降的影响。据《每日电讯报》报道，英国脱欧的不确定性和英镑疲软也起到了推波助澜的作用。
Text8考研英语时事阅读：太空旅馆将于 2025 年建成
It's 50 years since man first stepped on the moon, and we're still harboring dreams of escapinglife on Earth for the mysteries of space.
距离人类第一次登上月球已经 50 年了，而我们仍然怀揣着逃离地球的梦想，去探索神秘的太空。
If a career as an astronaut isn't for you, perhaps the promise of a sojourn in a space hotelmight be appealing.
如果你不适合当宇航员，也许在太空旅馆住一段时间会很有吸引力。
Californian company The Gateway Foundation has released plans for the Von Braun Station, acruise ship-style hotel floating among the stars.
美国加州盖特韦基金会公布了冯·布劳恩太空旅馆的建设计划，这是一家漂浮在群星之间的游轮风格的酒店。
The aim is to get the hotel off the ground by 2025 and make it fully operational for travel by2027. 这家太空旅馆将在 2025 年前建成，并在 2027 年前全面投入运营。
According to digitally rendered video and images released by the Gateway Foundation, thestation resembles a rotating wheel, comprised of 24 modules, orbiting the Earth.
根据盖特韦基金会发布的数字渲染视频和图像，冯·布劳恩太空旅馆外形酷似一个旋转的轮子，由 24 个模块组成，环绕地球运行。
Tim Alatorre, senior design architect at the Gateway Foundation, says the rotating wheelwould create a simulated gravity.
盖特韦基金会的高级设计建筑师蒂姆·阿拉托雷说，太空旅馆会产生模拟重力。
"The station rotates, pushing the contents of the station out to the perimeter of the station, much in the way that you can spin a bucket of water --the water pushes out into the bucketand stays in place," he tells CNN Travel.
他告诉美国有线新闻网旅游频道说：“太空旅馆会旋转，把其中的物品推到外围，就像你旋转一桶水一样——水会被推到桶里，并保持原位。”
The Gateway Foundation's hotel design is named for Wernher von Braun, an aerospace engineerwho pioneered rocket technology, first in Germany and later in the United States.
酒店设计是以航空航天工程师沃纳·冯·布劳恩的名字命名的。布劳恩先后成为德国和
美国的火箭技术先驱。
"The basic physics of the station haven't changed since the 1950s, the way the station rotates," says Alatorre.
阿拉托雷说：“自从 20 世纪 50 年代以来，空间站的基本物理结构和旋转方式从未改变。”
The main difference is the modern materials -- new metal alloys, carbon composites, 3Dprinting and launch pad technology that, says Alatorre, make a space hotel more probable inour current era. 他说，主要的不同之处在于现代材料——新的金属合金、碳复合材料、3D 打印和发射台技术，使太空旅馆在当今更可能实现。
Space tourism is an expensive game -- Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic plans to launchpassengers into sub-orbital space at the hefty sum of $250,000 per person, per trip.
太空旅行是昂贵的游戏——理查德·布兰森的维珍银河计划以每人每次 25 万美元(约合人民币 177 万元)的高价将乘客送入亚轨道空间。
Meanwhile, Aurora Station says a stay in its space hotel will cost an eyewatering $9.5 million.
与此同时，奥罗拉空间站表示，在其太空旅馆住宿将耗资 950 万美元。
Price wise, in the early phases the Von Braun hotel will also be catering to those with dollars tospend, but the foundation is hoping to make it equivalent to "a trip on a cruise or a trip toDisneyland."
就价格而言，在早期阶段，冯·布劳恩太空旅馆也将为富有的顾客提供服务，但该基金会希望，它能等同于“一次游轮之旅或迪士尼乐园之旅”。
Aurora Station aims to sleep just 12, whereas the Von Braun Station will sleep 352 people witha maximum capacity of 450.
奥罗拉空间站的目标仅为容纳 12 人，而冯·布劳恩太空旅馆将容纳 352 人，最大接待能力为 450 人。
So what will Von Braun Station be like inside?
那么冯·布劳恩太空旅馆里面会是什么样子呢?
Alatorre says the hotel's aesthetic was a direct response to the Stanley Kubrick movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" -- just maybe not in the way you might think.
阿拉托雷说，酒店的美学是对斯坦利·库布里克的电影《2001 太空漫游》的直接回应——只是可能不是你想象的那样。
"I think the goal of Stanley Kubrick was to highlight the divide between technology andhumanity and so, purposefully, he made the stations and the ships very sterile and clean andalien."
他说：“我认为斯坦利·库布里克的目标是突出科技与人类之间的鸿沟，因此，他有意地让空间站和飞船变得乏味、干净和陌生。
Instead, Alatorre wanted to bring a slice of earth to space, to avoid a laboratorial, overly StarTrek-esque feel.
相反，阿拉托雷想要把地球的部分装饰带到太空中，以避免实验室式的，过度星际旅行式的感觉。
On board, there'll be warm suites with carpets and stylish monochrome touches and chic barsthat wouldn't look out of place back on Earth, just with star-gazing views.
太空旅馆中将会有温暖的套间，铺着地毯，点缀着时尚的纯色装饰，还有时髦的酒吧，这些酒吧在地球上看起来也不会显得格格不入，区别是太空酒吧可以观星。
There will also be plenty of fun recreational activities for guest to enjoy, says Alatorre.
阿拉托雷说，酒店还将为客人提供许多有趣的娱乐活动。
"We're going to have a number of different recreation activities and games that'll highlight thefact that you're able to do things that you can't do on Earth," he says. "Because of theweightlessness and the reduced gravity, you'll be able to jump higher, be able to lift things, beable to run in ways that you can't on Earth."
他说：“太空旅馆中将有许多不同的娱乐活动和游戏，重点是，你可以做一些在地球上做不到的事情。由于失重和重力降低，你将能够跳得更高，能够举起重物，跑起来也和地球上不一样。”
If it all sounds like a space-age gimmick, Alatorre is emphatic that the concept will havewidespread, enduring appeal.
如果这一切听起来像太空时代的噱头，阿拉托雷强调，这个概念将具有广泛、持久的吸引力。
"People will want to go and experience this just because it's a cool new thing and they've neverdone it before," he admits.
他承认：“人们会想去体验一下，因为这是很酷的新事物，从未体验过。”
"But our goal -- the overall goal of the Gateway Foundation -- is to create a starship culturewhere people are going to space, and living in space, and working in space and they want to bein space. And we believe that there's a demand for that."
“但盖特韦基金会的总体目标是创造一种星际飞船文化，让人们去太空，在太空生活，在太空工作，他们想要进入太空。我们相信这是有需求的。”
The Gateway Foundation also intends the space station to be used for research purposes, aswell as asteroid mining.
盖特韦基金会还打算将空间站用于研究目的，以及小行星采矿。
Given the design is still exactly that -- just a design -- there are some questions that remainunanswered about how the space hotel will function in actuality.
鉴于该方案仍然在设计中，关于太空旅馆将如何实际运作，仍有一些疑问有待解答。
For example, it's been suggested that living in low gravity for an extended period of time isdamaging to the human body. While vacationers will probably only visit the hotel for a fewweeks, staff will plan to be there for six months to a year.
例如，有人认为长时间生活在低重力环境中对人体有害。虽然度假者可能只会在太空旅馆停留几周，但员工将在那里工作 6 个月至一年。
They'll adjust schedules as needed, says Alatorre, but right now, the foundation thinks thisproposition would be "perfectly safe."
阿拉托雷说，他们会根据需要调整日程，但是现在，基金会认为这个提议是“完全安全的”。
There's also the sustainability question, as people look for more eco-friendly vacations, surelygoing to space is not the solution?
可持续发展也是个问题。人们在寻求更环保的假期，去太空肯定做不到?
Alatorre points to SpaceX's Raptor engine, which uses methane instead of petroleum-basedfuel, suggesting "eco-friendly" rocket designs are the future.
阿拉托雷指出，SpaceX 的猛禽发动机使用甲烷代替石油燃料，这表明“环保”火箭设计是未来的发展方向。
"On the station itself, it's going to be about the most environmentally friendly vacation you'llever have. Because we're recycling everything," says Alatorre.
“就太空旅馆本身而言，这将是你度过的最环保的假期。因为我们会回收利用所有的物品，”他说。
"There's no amount of water or trash or waste that is going to be discarded, everything will berecycled, reused, stored, converted to some other form."
“没有任何水、垃圾或废物会被丢弃，所有的东西都会被回收、再利用、储存，并转换成其他物品。
Terrestrial construction on the Gateway Foundation's project is set to begin October 1, 2019.
该项目的地面建设将于 2019 年 10 月 1 日开始。
Text1考研英语双语阅读:支付方式又出新招
Forget the titanium Apple Card — Amazon's latest payment method uses
flesh and blood.
苹果公司的 Apple Card 钛金卡可以收起来了，亚马逊的最新支付方式只要用户伸手就可以。
The e-tailing giant's engineers are quietly testing scanners that can identify an individualhuman hand as a way to ring up a store purchase, with the goal of rolling them out at itsWhole Foods supermarket chain in the coming months, The Post has learned.
据《纽约邮报》报道，这家电商巨头的工程师正在默默测试可以辨识手部的扫描仪用来结账，打算几个月后在旗下的全食连锁超市推出。
Employees at Amazon's New York offices are serving as guinea pigs for the biometrictechnology, using it at a handful of vending machines to buy such items as sodas, chips, granola bars and phone chargers, according to sources briefed on the plans.
据消息人士透露，亚马逊纽约办公室的员工正在试用这种生物识别技术，在少数几台自动售货机上使用该技术购买汽水、薯条、格兰诺拉燕麦棒和手机充电器等商品。
The high-tech sensors are different from fingerprint scanners found on devices like the iPhoneand don't require users to physically touch their hands to the scanning surface.
这种高科技传感器不同于 iPhone 手机等装置上的指纹扫描仪，不需要使用者将手碰触到扫描仪表面。
Instead, they use computer vision and depth geometry to process and identify the shape andsize of each hand they scan before charging a credit card on file.
扫描仪使用计算机视觉和深度几何学技术，处理和辨识扫描到的每双手的形状和大小，而后进行信用卡付款。
The system, code-named "Orville," will allow customers with Amazon Prime accounts to scantheir hands at the store and link them to their credit or debit card.
这套系统代号为“奥维尔”，亚马逊 Prime 会员顾客可以在门店通过该系统扫描自己的手，并将信息与信用卡或借记卡绑定。
It's accurate to within one ten-thousandth of 1%, but Amazon engineers are scrambling toimprove it to a millionth of 1% ahead of its launch, the source said.
据消息人士透露，这一系统已精准到出错率不到百万分之一，但亚马逊的工程师们正努
力在正式推出之前，将出错率降至亿分之一。
Amazon hopes to introduce the tech to a handful of its Whole Foods stores by the beginning of next year and to eventually expand the super-fast checkout tech to all US locations. The paceof the rollout will depend on how quickly Whole Foods is able to install it and train employees onhow to use it, sources said
消息人士还透露说，亚马逊希望在明年初之前能在一些全食超市引进这项技术，并希望最终将这一快速结账技术推广到所有美国门店。技术推开的进度将取决于全食超市安装系统的速度，以及培训员工使用系统的时间。
"We don't comment on rumors or speculation," an Amazon spokesperson said.
亚马逊一位发言人表示：“我们不对谣言或猜测发表评论。” While a regular card transaction typically takes between three and four seconds, Amazon'snew technology can process the charge in less than 300 milliseconds, a person familiar with theproject said.
一位知情人士表示，普通的银行卡交易通常需要 3 至 4 秒的时间，而亚马逊的新技术可以在不到 300 毫秒的时间内处理完交易。
"Retailers have always been interested in faster checkout," Majd Maksad, founder and CEO of Status Money, a personal finance site, told The Post. "You only have to walk into Whole Foods tosee the massive lines of people waiting to check out. It's a massive friction point."
个人理财网站“金钱地位”的创始人兼首席执行官马吉德·马卡萨德在接受《纽约邮报》
采访时说：“零售商一直对加快结账速度很感兴趣。你只要走进全食超市，就会看到人们排
着长队等着结账，很容易发生摩擦。”
If successful, the technology also could help encourage consumers to spend more when theyvisit Whole Foods, he said.
他说，如果能成功的话，这项技术还可以鼓励消费者在全食超市购物时多花点钱。
"People tend to spend more when they don't have the experience of touching somethingtangible like money," Maksad said. "The utility of money becomes more ephemeral."
马卡萨德说：“当人们没有实实在在地花出纸币时，他们往往会花更多的钱。金钱的效
用变得更加短暂。”
At Amazon's budding chain of "Go" convenience stores that launched last year, customers usea phone app to check in at a turnstile. They can then fill their bags and carry them out withoutever passing a register thanks to computer vision and an array of sensors all over the store.
在亚马逊去年推出的新兴 Go 连锁便利店中，顾客进入门店时使用一款手机应用程序在闸门处刷一下，买完东西以后不用到收银台结账，打包就可以走 了。因为店里安装了计算机视觉设备以及无处不在的传感器。
With the new, hand-based tech, shoppers won't even have to bring their phones. Nevertheless, experts say it's unclear whether customers will be enthusiastic about scanning their hands atWhole Foods.
有了这种扫描手部的新技术，顾客甚至不用带手机。不过专家表示，目前还不清楚消费者是否会对全食超市的手部扫描感兴趣。
Text2考研英语时事阅读：面试机器人
A robot has hired a human being for the first time in history as an AI was left to do jobinterviews. 人工智能被应用于工作面试，有史以来第一次，一个机器人聘用了一名人类。
Robotic head Tengai has been commissioned to carry out recruitment in the Upplands BroMunicipality, Sweden.
首席机器人腾艾被委托在瑞典乌普兰斯布罗市进行招聘。
Tengai resembles a head on a stick, with a friendly looking face beamed onto a screen whichwraps around his plastic skull.
腾艾就像一颗长在木棒上的头，他的塑料脑袋上有一块屏幕，屏幕上展现着一张友好的
脸。
The robot was developed by recruitment company TNG together with the tech firm FurhatRobotics.
这款机器人是由招聘公司 TNG 和科技公司 Furhat 机器人公司共同研发的。
He is reported to have hired a man called Anders Ornhed, from Jarfalla.
据报道，他从耶尔费拉聘请了一位名叫安德斯·奥恩赫德的男子。
Anders has the honour of becoming the first person ever to hired by an AI.
安德斯有幸成为史上第一位被人工智能聘用的人。
Swedish radio reported Anders got through the interview process with Tengai.
据瑞典之声报道，安德斯顺利通过了腾艾的面试。
He was given the job as digital coordinator at the municipality office.
他被任命为市政办公室的数字协调员。
Tengai is boasted to be "bias free".
人们称赞腾艾“没有偏见”。
The robot is not affected by the jobseeker's age, gender of ethnicity – he just wants the bestperson for the job.
机器人不受求职者年龄、性别或种族的影响，他只想找到最适合这份工作的人选。
Anders said: "It's very different from being interviewed by a human being.
安德斯表示：“这与接受人类的面试十分不同。
"For example, you do not get any confirmation whether you have answered enough."
“例如，关于你是否充分回答了问题，你并不会得到任何确认。”
Tengai was designed to "challenge old stereotypes" and help to eliminate humanities"subconscious prejudices".
设计腾艾的目的在于“挑战陈规旧制”，以消除人类“潜意识中的偏见”。
TNG bosses claim the robot will create "business value, increased competitiveness anddiversity in the workplace".
TNG 经理表示，机器人将“在职场上”创造“商业价值、提高竞争力并增加多样性”。
Previously, CEO Asa Edman Kallstromer said: "We humans often try to find people who havethe same interests and are like ourselves.
阿萨·艾德曼·科尔斯托默总裁曾表示：“我们人类往往尝试去找与自己有着相同爱好，
并与自己相像的人。
"This is often done through private questions that get us emotionally
involved. “这往往会通过那些让我们投入感情的私人问题来实现。”
"The robot never asks such questions and never gets emotional." “而机器人从不会问这样的问题，也不会变得情绪化。”
Furhat Robotics advert features a woman with a hijab being turned down by three recruitmentmanagers before being given a job by Tengai.
在 Furhat 机器人的广告中，一名带着头巾的女士被三位招聘经理拒绝了，但之后她被腾艾录用了。
Text3考研英语双语阅读:用中餐诱哄想自杀的男子
A Chinese food craving is a powerful thing — just ask Officer Jason Inacio of the Newark PoliceDepartment.
对中国食物的渴求是一件很强大的事——只管问问纽瓦克警察局的杰森·伊纳西奥警官。
He was able to use a simple offer of Chinese takeout to help coax a man out of his apartmentbedroom, where he was reportedly threatening to cut his own throat with a knife on Saturday.
他用一份中餐外卖就把一名男子诱哄出他公寓的卧室，而据报道，这名男子周六曾扬言要用刀割喉。
"He said he was hungry," Inacio told NJ.com. "And wanted Chinese food."
“他说他饿了，想吃中餐。”伊纳西奥告诉新泽西地方新闻。
Cops had been negotiating with the 38-year-old man for roughly 20 minutes before Inaciocame up with the idea to grab him some takeout.
警察与这名 38 岁的男子沟通了约 20 分钟，之后伊纳西奥想到了给他拿点外卖的办法。
"We gave someone $20 and I told him, 'I'll let you eat on the way to the hospital,'" Inaciorecalled. "We just wanted to figure out where he was coming from and reassure him. The onlyreason we're there is to help him and try to comfort him."
“我们给了某人 20 美元，并且我告诉他，‘我会让你在去医院的路上吃东西的，’”伊纳西奥回忆道。“我们只是想了解他来自哪里，并打消他的疑虑。我们去那儿的唯一原因
就是要帮助他并试着安慰他。”
A family member reportedly grabbed the food — described as "a hearty" chicken and broccolibowl — and delivered it to the man.
据报道，一位家庭成员拿了一碗“丰盛的”西兰花炒鸡肉，给了这名男子。
"Look, you see it right there," Inacio can be heard saying on video captured through hisbodycam, as he shows the man a bag of food. "I promised you that, right? So come on…I'll letyou eat it on the way."
从伊纳西奥的执法记录仪上拍摄的一段视频中可以听到他说，“你看，它就在那儿，”他向那名男子展示了那袋食物，“我答应过你，对吧?所以，来吧……我会让你在路上吃的。”
The man eventually agreed to drop the knife and was transported to a local hospital byambulance soon after.
这名男子最终同意放下刀，并乘坐之后到达的救护车去了当地医院。
"I like to always keep my promises," Inacio said. "If I promise something, I want to followthrough with my promise. And in this case, I promised him the Chinese food if he came withus."
“我愿意一直信守承诺，”伊纳西奥说道。“如果我做出了承诺，我就会信守承诺。这次我承诺他，如果他跟我们走，我就让他吃中餐。”
Text4考研英语时事阅读："量子霸权"
According to a report in the Financial Times, a team of researchers from Google led by JohnMartinis have demonstrated quantum supremacy for the first time.
《英国金融时报》的一篇报告称，John Martinis 带领的一个 Google 研究团队首次证明了量子霸权。
This is the point at which a quantum computer is shown to be capable of performing a taskthat's beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional supercomputer.
当时发现一台量子计算机能完成最 强大的传统超 级计算机都不能完成的任务。
The claim appeared in a paper that was posted on a NASA website, but the publication wasthen taken down. Google did not respond to a request for comment from MIT TechnologyReview.
这一声明出现在 NASA 网站上发表的一篇论文中，但随后被删除了。《麻省理工科技评论》请求 Google 对此作出评论，但未得到回应。
Google struck an agreement last year to use supercomputers available to NASA asbenchmarks for its supremacy experiments.
去年 Google 决定将 NASA 可用的超 级计算机作为霸权实验的标杆。
According to the Financial Times report, the paper said that Google's quantum processor wasable to perform a calculation in three minutes and 20 seconds that would take today's mostadvanced supercomputer, known as Summit, around 10,000 years.
据《英国金融时报》报道，该论文称 Google 的量子处理器能在3分20秒内完成现在最先进的超级计算机 Summit 一万年才能完成的计算。
In the paper, the researchers said that, to their knowledge, the experiment "marks the firstcomputation that can only be performed on a quantum processor."
该论文中研究人员称，据他们所知这一实验“标志着第一个只能在量子处理器上进行的计算”。
Quantum machines are so powerful because they harness quantum bits, or qubits. Unlikeclassicalbits, which represent either a 1 or a 0, qubits can be in a kind of combination of bothat the same time.
量子计算机如此强大是因为他们利用了量子比特或量子位。经典的二进制只代表1或0，
而量子位不一样，可以同时是两者的一种组合。
Thanks to other quantum phenomena, which are described in our explainer here, quantumcomputers can crunch large amounts of data in parallel that conventional machines have towork through sequentially.
多亏了其他我们在解释中描述过的量子现象，量子计算机可以并行运算大量数据，而传
统计算机只能按顺序进行运算。
Scientists have been working for years to demonstrate that the machines can definitivelyoutperform conventional ones.
科学家已研究多年，想要证明量子计算机绝对优于传统计算机。考研英语双语阅读 : 2020，快手计划在美国上市
Chinese startup Kuaishou is considering to a U.S. initial public offering to bankroll itsexpansion in short videos and fend off competition from TikTok-owner ByteDance Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.
据知情人士透露，中国初创公司快手公司正考虑赴美上市，为其短视频的业务拓展提供资金并抵御来自抖音母公司字节跳动的竞争。
The company, backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., plans to list next year, the people said, requesting not to be named because the matter is private.
因为这件事仍然保密，所以知情人士匿名透露，腾讯控股的这家公司计划明年上市。
One person said Kuaishou also weighed the option of going public this year. The video startupis raising more than $1 billion at a $25 billion valuation in a pre-IPO round mostly from Tencent, one of the people said.
一个人说快手也考虑了今年上市。还有一个人说这家视频初创公司融资超过 10 亿美元，
本轮 Pre-IPO 估值达到 250 亿美元，融资主要来自腾讯。
Kuaishou is an important part of Chinese social media giant Tencent's strategy to competeagainst ByteDance, now the world ’ s most valuable startup.
快手是中国社交巨头腾讯公司与字节跳动公司竞争的一张王牌，字节跳动现在是世界最
有价值的初创公司。
Tencent has devoted a lot of resources toward building a library of short and mini videoofferings -- key to retaining user attention and boosting advertising revenue -- but has yet tocatch its rival. 腾讯将大量资源投入到建立一个简短和迷你视频库中，这是保持用户关注并增加广告收
入的主要手段，但还是没有赶上竞争对手。
"Tencent's biggest enemy is ByteDance right now," said David Dai, a Hong Kong-based analystat Bernstein. "Tencent hasn't been very successful in short videos in the past, so resorting toinvesting in other companies instead is its best option."
香港 Bernstein 投资公司的分析师 David Dai 说：“腾讯目前的劲敌是字节跳动，腾讯过去在短视频领域不是非常成功，所以通过投资其他公司来翻身是最好的选择。”
U.S.-listed shares of some of Kuaishou's competitors fell. Momo Inc. Fell 2.8%, the most inmore than a week, while DouYu International Holdings Ltd. fell 1.9%, the most in about amonth. Both under-performed the Nasdaq, which rose 0.3%.
在美国上市的部分快手的竞争对手股价下跌。陌陌公司下跌 2.8%，是一周多的时间内
下跌最多的;斗鱼国际控股有限公司下跌 1.9%，是约一个月时间内下跌最多的。两家公司的
表现都不及上涨了 0.3%的纳斯达克指数。
Text5考研英语时事阅读：网络欺凌
One in three young people in 30 countries said they have been a victim of online bullying, withone in five reporting having skipped school due to
cyberbullying and violence, a new poll saidlast Wednesday. 上周三发布的最新民意调查指出，在 30 个国家中，有 1/3 的年轻人表示自己是网络欺
凌的受害者，1/5 的年轻人称曾因网络欺凌和暴力逃学。
Speaking out anonymously through the youth engagement tool U-Report, almost three-quarters of young people also said social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchatand Twitter, are the most common place for online bullying.
受访者通过青少年交流工具 U-Report 匿名发表意见，近 3/4 的年轻人还表示，脸书、
Instagram、Snapchat、推特等社交网络是网络欺凌最常见的地方。
More than 170,000 U-Reporters aged 13-24 years old participated in the poll released by UNChildren's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN special representative of the secretary-general onviolence against children, including young people from 30 countries in Europe, Asia, SouthAmerica and Africa.
超过 17 万年龄在 13-24 岁的 U-Report 用户参加了这项由联合国儿童基金会和联合
国秘书长关于儿童暴力问题特别代表进行的民调，调查对象是来自欧洲、亚洲、南美和非洲
30 个国家的年轻人。
"Connected classrooms mean school no longer ends once a student leaves class, and, unfortunately, neither does schoolyard bullying," said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.
联合国儿童基金会执行主任亨丽埃塔·福尔表示：“联动的教室意味着，校园生活不再在学生离开教室时就结束，且不幸的是，校园欺凌也是如此。”
"Improving young people's education experience means accounting for the
environment theyencounter online as well as offline."
“改善年轻人的教育经历，意味着要同时考量他们在线上和线下遭遇的环境。”
According to the poll, some 32 percent of the young people believe governments should beresponsible for ending cyberbullying, 31 percent said young people and 29 percent said internetcompanies.
该民意调查显示，约 32%的年轻人认为政府应该对结束网络欺凌负责，31%的人表示应是年轻人自己，29%的人表示应是互联网公司。
The poll results challenge the notion that cyberbullying among classmates is a uniquely high-income issue. 34 percent of respondents in sub-Saharan Africa said they had been a victim ofonline bullying.
调查结果对网络欺凌是高收入国家特有的问题的观点提出了质疑。撒哈拉以南非洲34%的受访者表示，他们是网络欺凌的受害者。
Some 39 percent said they knew about private online groups inside the school communitywhere children share information about peers for the purpose of bullying.
约 39%的人表示，他们知道一些年轻人在学校社区内的私人在线网络中为了欺负别人
而分享同龄人的信息。
Text6考研英语时事阅读：这个面霜有毒
A Sacramento woman went to the emergency room in July with numbness in her hands andfeet, slurred speech and trouble walking.
七月份，萨克拉门托的一名女子因手脚发麻、口齿不清且走路困难而去了急诊室。
The 47-year-old mother of five wasn't having a stroke or heart attack. She was suffering frommercury poisoning from a tainted anti-wrinkle cream imported from Mexico, KCRA-TVreported.
这名 47 岁有 5 个孩子的母亲并没有中风或心脏病发作。据 KCRA-TV 报道，她因使
用了从墨西哥进口的被污染的抗皱面霜而汞中毒。
She has been in the hospital since then, according to her son, who told KCRA he wished toremain unidentified. His mother, who also hasn't been identified, was initially able torespond to verbal commands before she entered her semi-comatose state.
从那时起她就一直在医院里，她的儿子告诉 KCRA，但他表示不希望表明身份，而他
母亲的身份也未被证实。在她进入半昏迷状态之前，她最初还能对口头指令做出反应。
Olivia Kasirye, the public health officer for the Sacramento County Department of HealthServices, told CBS Sacramento that the woman's cream contained methylmercury, a verytoxic type of mercury.
萨克拉门托县卫生服务部门公共卫生官员奥利维亚·卡西尔耶告诉哥伦比亚广播公司萨
克拉门托分公司，这位女士的面霜中含有甲基汞，这是一种毒性很高的汞。
This is the first time a methylmercury poisoning from face cream has occurred in the UnitedStates, the department said in a statement.
该部门在一份声明中表示，这是美国首次出现由面霜引起的甲基汞中毒。
Kasirye is urging the public to immediately discontinue use of similar skin creams imported fromMexico because of how dangerous methylmercury is for adults and children.
卡希尔耶敦促公众立即停止使用从墨西哥进口的类似护肤霜，因为甲基汞对成人和儿童
都是非常危险的。
"We don't know whether this was an intentional change or whether there was a mistake in theperson who was adding the mercury," she said, telling the station that there's an informalnetwork of suppliers who bring the altered skin creams into the country.
“我们不知道这是故意更换的，还是添加汞的人犯了错，”她说道。她告诉电视台，有一个非正式的供应商网络把被改动的护肤霜带入了美国。
The most common way that people are exposed to methylmercury is through eating fish andshellfish that contain the toxin, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
美国环境保护局表示，人们接触甲基汞最常见的方式是食用含有这种毒素的鱼类和贝类。
Skin exposure to methylmercury can affect the central and peripheral systems, withsymptoms including tremors, memory loss and cognitive and motor dysfunction, according tothe World Health Organization.
世界卫生组织称，皮肤接触到甲基汞会影响中枢和外周系统，引起震颤、记忆丧失、认
知和运动功能障碍等症状。
The average amount of mercury in blood is up to about 5 micrograms per liter as a result ofmercury that is likely to be in someone's diet, according to the New York State Department of Health. The woman had 2,630 micrograms per liter in her blood, according to KCRA.
纽约州卫生部门表示，由于人们饮食中可能含有汞，所以血液中汞的平均含量可达每升5微克，而据 KCRA 报道，这名女子血液中的汞含量为每升 2630 微克。
考研英语时事阅读：华为 5G 基站出货量排名世界首位
Huawei Technologies Co Ltd said last Tuesday that it has shipped more than 200,000 5G basestations worldwide, putting it in a leading role with other global vendors in the superfasttechnology despite all the restrictions it faces from the United States.
华为技术有限公司上周二表示，尽管面临来自美国的种种限制，但是该公司已经在全球范围内供货 20 多万个 5G 基站，在 5G 超高速网络技术领域，华为仍牢牢占据全球供应商领头羊地位。
William Xu, Huawei's director of the board and president of the institute of strategicresearch, said that the company has had more than 200,000 5G base stations in shipment, which marked a steady step forward compared with its earlier announcement of 150,000 base stations in late June.
华为董事会董事兼战略研究所所长徐文伟表示，华为公司已经有超过 20 万个 5G 基站交付使用，与 6 月底宣布的 15 万个基站相比，标志着该公司的稳步前进。
Xu also noted that the firm has secured over 50 commercial contracts for 5G with carriersglobally, among which 28 contracts are from Europe, 11 from the Middle East, six from theAsia-Pacific region, four from the Americas, and one from Africa.
徐文伟还指出，华为公司已经与全球运营商签订了 50 多份 5G 商业合同，其中 28 份
来自欧洲，11 份来自中东，6 份来自亚太地区，4 份来自美洲，1 份来自非洲。
Even though he did not disclose the exact total number, the figure is overwhelmingcompared with that of major telecom equipment makers.
尽管他没有透露确切的总数，但与其他主要电信设备制造商相比，这一数字是绝对领先的。
Finland's Nokia said in July that it has obtained 45 commercial orders while the latest publicdata showed that Swedish telecom manufacturer Ericsson has got .
芬兰诺基亚公司今年 7 月表示，已获得 45 个商业订单，而最新的公开数据显示，瑞典电信制造商爱立信获得了 24 个订单。
Industry insiders said the move again shows unaffected confidence among foreign telecomcompanies and consumers and also demonstrates Huawei's leading prowess in 5G despite USrestrictions.
业内人士表示，此举再次显示出外国电信公司和消费者信心未受影响，也表明尽管受到
美国限制，华为在 5G 领域依然拥有强大的领先实力。
Text7考研英语时事阅读：旅游巨头公司破产
Thomas Cook, a 178-year-old British travel company and airline, declared bankruptcy earlyMonday morning, suspending operations and leaving hundreds of thousands of tourists strandedaround the world.
拥有 178 年历史的英国旅游及航空公司托马斯库克本周一(9月23日)凌晨宣布破产，暂停运营，导致数十万游客滞留在世界各地。
The travel company operates its own airline, with a fleet of nearly 50 medium- and long-rangejets, and owns several smaller airlines and subsidiaries, including the German carrier Condor. Thomas Cook still had several flights in the air as of Sunday night but was expected to ceaseoperations once they landed at their destinations.
这家旅游公司旗下的航空公司有近 50 架中远程喷气式飞机，并拥有数家规模较小的航空公司和子公司，其中包括德国秃鹰航空。截至上周日晚间，托马斯库克仍有几架航班在空中飞行，但预计一旦飞机抵达目的地，就会停飞。
Condor posted a message to its site late Sunday night saying that it was still operating but thatit was unclear whether that would change. Condor's scheduled Monday-morning flightsappeared to be operating normally.
秃鹰航空周日晚间在其网站上发布消息称，公司仍在运营，但尚不清楚是否会有变化。秃鹰航空本周一上午的预定航班似乎运行正常。
About 600,000 Thomas Cook customers were traveling at the time of the collapse, of whom150,000 were British, the company told CNN.
托马斯库克公司告诉美国有线新闻网说，公司倒闭时，大约有 60 万名客户在旅行途中，
其中 15 万是英国人。
The British Department for Transport and Civil Aviation Authority prepared plans, under thecode name "Operation Matterhorn," to repatriate stranded British passengers. According tothe British aviation authority, those rescue flights would take place until October 6, leading tothe possibility that travelers could be delayed for up to two weeks.
英国交通部和民航局制定了代号为“马特洪恩行动”的计划，将滞留的英国乘客送回国。英国民航局表示，这些救援航班将持续运行到 10 月 6 日，这可能会导致乘客被延误至多两周。
Initial rescue flights seemed poised to begin immediately, with stranded passengers postingon Twitter that they were being delayed only a few hours as they awaited chartered flights.
第一批救援航班似乎很快就起飞了，被困乘客发推文称，他们在等待包机时，只被延误
了几个小时。
The scale of the task has reports calling it the largest peacetime repatriation effort in Britishhistory, including the operation the government carried out when Monarch Airlines collapsed in2017.
有报道称，这是英国历史上规模最大的和平时期遣送行动，比 2017 年君主航空公司倒
闭时实施的政府行动规模更大。
Costs of the flights were expected to be covered by the ATOL, or Air Travel Organiser's License, protection plan, a fund that provides for repatriation of British travelers if an airline ceasesoperations.
这些航班的费用预计将由 ATOL(航空旅行组织者许可证)保护计划承担。如果一家航空公司停止运营，该基金将为英国游客提供遣送服务。
Airplanes from British Airways and easyJet would be among those transporting strandedpassengers home, according to The Guardian, as well as chartered planes from leasingcompanies and other airlines. Thomas Cook Airlines' destinations included parts of mainlandEurope, Africa, the US, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Airplanes were being flown to thosedestinations on Sunday night, according to the BBC.
据《卫报》报道，英国航空公司和易捷航空公司的飞机，以及租赁公司和其他航空公司的包机，都将参与运送被困乘客返回英国。托马斯库克航空公司的目的地包括欧洲大陆部分地区、非洲、美国、加勒比海地区和中东。据英国广播公司报道，上周日晚上，救援飞机被派往这些目的地。
The company was still selling tickets until Sunday night in the UK.
直到上周日晚上，该公司还在英国售票。
One Plymouth, England-based traveler who had booked a vacation to the Greek island of Zakynthos for August 2020 told Business Insider that she saw Thomas Cook had charged hermore than £600 by direct debit on Sunday afternoon for the trip but that she was not due to becharged until Thursday. It was unclear whether she would be able to recoup the funds with the bankruptcy declaration.
一位来自英国普利茅斯的旅行者在托马斯库克公司预订了 2020 年 8 月去希腊扎金索斯岛度假的行程，她告诉商业内幕网说，她发现该公司在上周日下午直接扣款了 600 多英镑(约合人民币 5310 元)，而她本应在本周四再支付这笔款项。目前还不清楚她是否能够通过破产声明要回这笔钱。
Thomas Cook, as well as a union representing some of its 9,000 UK employees, had sought anemergency funding plan from the British government. Government sources, however, "hadquestioned the financial wisdom of stepping in to save the company," according to the BBC. Thecompany employs 21,000 globally.
托马斯库克以及代表其 9000 名英国雇员中部分员工的工会已向英国政府寻求一项紧急融资计划。然而，据英国广播公司报道，政府消息人士“对介入拯救该公司的想法提出了质疑”。该公司在全球拥有 2.1 万名员工。
While Thomas Cook managed to recover from a risk of insolvency in 2011,it continued to beheld back by lingering debts. It also suffered by lower demandover the past two summer travelseasons, as major heat waves led manyBritons to stay home. Brexit uncertainties and a weakpound also contributed, according to The Telegraph.
尽管托马斯库克在2011年成功地从破产风险中复苏，但它仍受到挥之不去的债务拖累。在过去的两个夏季旅游季节里，由于猛烈的热浪导致许多英国人呆在家里，公司也受到旅游需求下降的影响。据《每日电讯报》报道，英国脱欧的不确定性和英镑疲软也起到了推波助澜的作用。
Text8考研英语时事阅读：太空旅馆将于 2025 年建成
It's 50 years since man first stepped on the moon, and we're still harboring dreams of escapinglife on Earth for the mysteries of space.
距离人类第一次登上月球已经 50 年了，而我们仍然怀揣着逃离地球的梦想，去探索神秘的太空。
If a career as an astronaut isn't for you, perhaps the promise of a sojourn in a space hotelmight be appealing.
如果你不适合当宇航员，也许在太空旅馆住一段时间会很有吸引力。
Californian company The Gateway Foundation has released plans for the Von Braun Station, acruise ship-style hotel floating among the stars.
美国加州盖特韦基金会公布了冯·布劳恩太空旅馆的建设计划，这是一家漂浮在群星之间的游轮风格的酒店。
The aim is to get the hotel off the ground by 2025 and make it fully operational for travel by2027. 这家太空旅馆将在 2025 年前建成，并在 2027 年前全面投入运营。
According to digitally rendered video and images released by the Gateway Foundation, thestation resembles a rotating wheel, comprised of 24 modules, orbiting the Earth.
根据盖特韦基金会发布的数字渲染视频和图像，冯·布劳恩太空旅馆外形酷似一个旋转的轮子，由 24 个模块组成，环绕地球运行。
Tim Alatorre, senior design architect at the Gateway Foundation, says the rotating wheelwould create a simulated gravity.
盖特韦基金会的高级设计建筑师蒂姆·阿拉托雷说，太空旅馆会产生模拟重力。
"The station rotates, pushing the contents of the station out to the perimeter of the station, much in the way that you can spin a bucket of water --the water pushes out into the bucketand stays in place," he tells CNN Travel.
他告诉美国有线新闻网旅游频道说：“太空旅馆会旋转，把其中的物品推到外围，就像你旋转一桶水一样——水会被推到桶里，并保持原位。”
The Gateway Foundation's hotel design is named for Wernher von Braun, an aerospace engineerwho pioneered rocket technology, first in Germany and later in the United States.
酒店设计是以航空航天工程师沃纳·冯·布劳恩的名字命名的。布劳恩先后成为德国和
美国的火箭技术先驱。
"The basic physics of the station haven't changed since the 1950s, the way the station rotates," says Alatorre.
阿拉托雷说：“自从 20 世纪 50 年代以来，空间站的基本物理结构和旋转方式从未改变。”
The main difference is the modern materials -- new metal alloys, carbon composites, 3Dprinting and launch pad technology that, says Alatorre, make a space hotel more probable inour current era. 他说，主要的不同之处在于现代材料——新的金属合金、碳复合材料、3D 打印和发射台技术，使太空旅馆在当今更可能实现。
Space tourism is an expensive game -- Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic plans to launchpassengers into sub-orbital space at the hefty sum of $250,000 per person, per trip.
太空旅行是昂贵的游戏——理查德·布兰森的维珍银河计划以每人每次 25 万美元(约合人民币 177 万元)的高价将乘客送入亚轨道空间。
Meanwhile, Aurora Station says a stay in its space hotel will cost an eyewatering $9.5 million.
与此同时，奥罗拉空间站表示，在其太空旅馆住宿将耗资 950 万美元。
Price wise, in the early phases the Von Braun hotel will also be catering to those with dollars tospend, but the foundation is hoping to make it equivalent to "a trip on a cruise or a trip toDisneyland."
就价格而言，在早期阶段，冯·布劳恩太空旅馆也将为富有的顾客提供服务，但该基金会希望，它能等同于“一次游轮之旅或迪士尼乐园之旅”。
Aurora Station aims to sleep just 12, whereas the Von Braun Station will sleep 352 people witha maximum capacity of 450.
奥罗拉空间站的目标仅为容纳 12 人，而冯·布劳恩太空旅馆将容纳 352 人，最大接待能力为 450 人。
So what will Von Braun Station be like inside?
那么冯·布劳恩太空旅馆里面会是什么样子呢?
Alatorre says the hotel's aesthetic was a direct response to the Stanley Kubrick movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" -- just maybe not in the way you might think.
阿拉托雷说，酒店的美学是对斯坦利·库布里克的电影《2001 太空漫游》的直接回应——只是可能不是你想象的那样。
"I think the goal of Stanley Kubrick was to highlight the divide between technology andhumanity and so, purposefully, he made the stations and the ships very sterile and clean andalien."
他说：“我认为斯坦利·库布里克的目标是突出科技与人类之间的鸿沟，因此，他有意地让空间站和飞船变得乏味、干净和陌生。
Instead, Alatorre wanted to bring a slice of earth to space, to avoid a laboratorial, overly StarTrek-esque feel.
相反，阿拉托雷想要把地球的部分装饰带到太空中，以避免实验室式的，过度星际旅行式的感觉。
On board, there'll be warm suites with carpets and stylish monochrome touches and chic barsthat wouldn't look out of place back on Earth, just with star-gazing views.
太空旅馆中将会有温暖的套间，铺着地毯，点缀着时尚的纯色装饰，还有时髦的酒吧，这些酒吧在地球上看起来也不会显得格格不入，区别是太空酒吧可以观星。
There will also be plenty of fun recreational activities for guest to enjoy, says Alatorre.
阿拉托雷说，酒店还将为客人提供许多有趣的娱乐活动。
"We're going to have a number of different recreation activities and games that'll highlight thefact that you're able to do things that you can't do on Earth," he says. "Because of theweightlessness and the reduced gravity, you'll be able to jump higher, be able to lift things, beable to run in ways that you can't on Earth."
他说：“太空旅馆中将有许多不同的娱乐活动和游戏，重点是，你可以做一些在地球上做不到的事情。由于失重和重力降低，你将能够跳得更高，能够举起重物，跑起来也和地球上不一样。”
If it all sounds like a space-age gimmick, Alatorre is emphatic that the concept will havewidespread, enduring appeal.
如果这一切听起来像太空时代的噱头，阿拉托雷强调，这个概念将具有广泛、持久的吸引力。
"People will want to go and experience this just because it's a cool new thing and they've neverdone it before," he admits.
他承认：“人们会想去体验一下，因为这是很酷的新事物，从未体验过。”
"But our goal -- the overall goal of the Gateway Foundation -- is to create a starship culturewhere people are going to space, and living in space, and working in space and they want to bein space. And we believe that there's a demand for that."
“但盖特韦基金会的总体目标是创造一种星际飞船文化，让人们去太空，在太空生活，在太空工作，他们想要进入太空。我们相信这是有需求的。”
The Gateway Foundation also intends the space station to be used for research purposes, aswell as asteroid mining.
盖特韦基金会还打算将空间站用于研究目的，以及小行星采矿。
Given the design is still exactly that -- just a design -- there are some questions that remainunanswered about how the space hotel will function in actuality.
鉴于该方案仍然在设计中，关于太空旅馆将如何实际运作，仍有一些疑问有待解答。
For example, it's been suggested that living in low gravity for an extended period of time isdamaging to the human body. While vacationers will probably only visit the hotel for a fewweeks, staff will plan to be there for six months to a year.
例如，有人认为长时间生活在低重力环境中对人体有害。虽然度假者可能只会在太空旅馆停留几周，但员工将在那里工作 6 个月至一年。
They'll adjust schedules as needed, says Alatorre, but right now, the foundation thinks thisproposition would be "perfectly safe."
阿拉托雷说，他们会根据需要调整日程，但是现在，基金会认为这个提议是“完全安全的”。
There's also the sustainability question, as people look for more eco-friendly vacations, surelygoing to space is not the solution?
可持续发展也是个问题。人们在寻求更环保的假期，去太空肯定做不到?
Alatorre points to SpaceX's Raptor engine, which uses methane instead of petroleum-basedfuel, suggesting "eco-friendly" rocket designs are the future.
阿拉托雷指出，SpaceX 的猛禽发动机使用甲烷代替石油燃料，这表明“环保”火箭设计是未来的发展方向。
"On the station itself, it's going to be about the most environmentally friendly vacation you'llever have. Because we're recycling everything," says Alatorre.
“就太空旅馆本身而言，这将是你度过的最环保的假期。因为我们会回收利用所有的物品，”他说。
"There's no amount of water or trash or waste that is going to be discarded, everything will berecycled, reused, stored, converted to some other form."
“没有任何水、垃圾或废物会被丢弃，所有的东西都会被回收、再利用、储存，并转换成其他物品。
Terrestrial construction on the Gateway Foundation's project is set to begin October 1, 2019.
该项目的地面建设将于 2019 年 10 月 1 日开始。
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