Speaker see. Speaker do

看到，做到

Household electronics are undergoing a sensory makeover

家用電器正在經(jīng)歷感官革新

詞匯

Sensory/感官

Smart speakers, like Amazon Echo, Google Home and Apple HomePod, are spreading rapidly, and it is now common to hear people asking such assistants to provide weather forecasts or tra?c updates, or to play audiobooks or music from streaming services. But because a smart speaker can act only on what it hears, it has little understanding of objects and people in its vicinity, or what those people might be up to. Having such awareness might improve its performance—and might also let users communicate with these digital servants by deed as well as word. Several groups of researchers are therefore working on ways to extend smart speakers’ sensory ranges.

像Amazon Echo、谷歌Home和Apple HomePod這樣的智能音箱正在快速普及，現(xiàn)在經(jīng)常聽到人們要求這些助手提供天氣預(yù)報或交通信息，或者播放有聲讀物或流媒體音樂。但是，由于一臺智能音箱只能根據(jù)它所聽到的來行動，所以他對周圍的物體和人，或者那些人可能在做什么，幾乎一無所知。擁有這樣的意識可能會提高它的性能，也可能讓用戶通過行為和語言與這些數(shù)字侍者交流。因此，幾組研究人員正在研究如何擴大智能揚聲器的感官范圍。

詞匯

Vicinity/鄰近，附近；近處

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One such e?ort is led by Chris Harrison and Gierad Laput of Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On May 6th, at a conference in Glasgow, Dr Harrison and Mr Laput unveiled their proposal, which they call SurfaceSight, to give smart speakers vision as well as hearing. Their chosen tool is lidar, a system that works, like radar, by bouncing a beam of electromagnetic waves o? its surroundings and measuring how quickly those waves return. That information, run through appropriate software, builds up an image of what the beam is pointing at. If, as many radars do, a lidar then revolves, it can sweep the beam around to create a 360° picture of its surroundings.

賓夕法尼亞州匹茲堡卡內(nèi)基梅隆大學(xué)的克里斯·哈里森和吉拉德·拉普特領(lǐng)導(dǎo)了一項這樣的研究。5月6日，在格拉斯哥的一次會議上，哈里森博士和拉普特先生公布了他們的提議，他們稱之為“表層視覺”，旨在給智能揚聲器提供視覺和聽覺。他們選擇的工具是激光雷達(dá)，這是一個像雷達(dá)一樣工作的系統(tǒng)，通過將一束電磁波反射到周圍環(huán)境并測量這些電磁波返回的速度。通過適當(dāng)?shù)能浖幚磉@些信息，就可以建立光束指向的圖像。如果激光雷達(dá)能像許多雷達(dá)一樣旋轉(zhuǎn)，它就能掃過光束，形成周圍環(huán)境的360度圖像。

詞匯

Unveil/使公之于眾，揭開；揭幕

Lidar/激光雷達(dá)；激光定位器

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Dr Harrison and Mr Laput have ?tted such a system to an Amazon Echo speaker, permitting it to sense and identify nearby household objects and to recognise hand gestures—and, having been told what those gestures are intended to convey, to respond to them. At the moment, the lidar they use sweeps a six-millimetre-deep beam around the speaker’s base. It is thus able to see only things within that slice of space. This is a restriction on its e?ectiveness, but a deliberate one. The two researchers are sensitive to suggestions their system might be used to spy on its owner. Although widening its ?eld of view would undoubtedly increase its utility, giving it tunnel vision of this sort helps overcome such suspicions.

哈里森博士和拉普特先生已經(jīng)在亞馬遜的Echo揚聲器上安裝了這樣一個系統(tǒng)，使其能夠感知和識別附近的家居物品，識別手勢，并在被告知這些手勢的意圖后做出反應(yīng)。目前，他們使用的激光雷達(dá)在揚聲器底座周圍掃描6毫米深的光束。因此，它只能看到那片空間內(nèi)的東西。這是對其有效性的限制，但卻是經(jīng)過深思熟慮的。這兩名研究人員對他們的系統(tǒng)可能被用來監(jiān)視其主人的提議非常敏感。雖然擴大其視野無疑會增加其效用，但給它這種狹隘的視野有助于克服這種懷疑。

詞匯

Deliberate/故意的；深思熟慮的；從容的

Even with this restriction in place, however, the system’s machine-learning software can be trained to recognise objects as diverse as saucepans, cereal boxes, screwdrivers, bunches of carrots and smartphones. It can also be trained to respond to this information in useful ways. One experimental app, for example, employs it to recognise utensils and ingredients laid out on a preparation surface and to check everything needed is available to cook a particular dish. Another app recognises the owner’s smartphone and connects it automatically, via Bluetooth, to that individual’s music collection.

然而，即使有了這一限制，該系統(tǒng)的機器學(xué)習(xí)軟件也可以被訓(xùn)練來識別各種各樣的物體，比如燉鍋、麥片盒、螺絲刀、一捆捆胡蘿卜和智能手機。還可以訓(xùn)練它以有用的方式響應(yīng)這些信息。例如，一個實驗應(yīng)用程序使用它來識別擺放在準(zhǔn)備表面的餐具和配料，并檢查烹飪某道菜所需的一切。另一個應(yīng)用程序可以識別用戶的智能手機，并通過藍(lán)牙自動將其連接到用戶的音樂收藏中。

詞匯

Saucepans/燉鍋；深平底鍋

Screwdrivers/螺刀；螺絲批；螺絲起子

Utensil/餐具；[輕] 器具；炊具

Ingredients/材料；佐料

Gesture recognition is similarly useful. When running the music app, a user might swap between tracks by swiping his ?ngers over the surface the lidar is scanning. The user of a teleconferencing app might similarly advance through a PowerPoint presentation. And, though SurfaceSight’s laser beam cannot recognise particular people, it can be trained to sense how many of them are standing beside the surface it sits on—and which way they are facing. This means it could cajole those it deemed not to be paying attention to the aforementioned presentation (that is, those not facing inward) to follow things more avidly. Nor is the technology limited to smart speakers. It can, for example, be employed to control a thermostat.

手勢識別也同樣有用。當(dāng)運行這款音樂應(yīng)用程序時，用戶可以用手指在激光雷達(dá)掃描的表面滑動來切換歌曲。電話會議應(yīng)用程序的用戶也可以通過PowerPoint演示文稿進(jìn)行類似的演示。而且，雖然SurfaceSight的激光無法識別特定的人，但它可以通過訓(xùn)練來感知有多少人站在它所在的面前——以及他們面對的方向。這意味著它可以誘使那些它認(rèn)為沒有注意前人陳述的聽眾 (也就是說，那些沒有面朝演說者看的人)更積極地聽從演講。這項技術(shù)不僅限于智能音箱。例如，它可以用來控制恒溫器。

詞匯

Cajole/以甜言蜜語哄騙；勾引

Aforementioned/上述的；前面提及的

Thermostat/恒溫器；自動調(diào)溫器

Knock knock. Who’s there?

敲一敲，誰在那兒？

Dr Harrison and Mr Laput are not alone in making surfaces active. Swan Solutions of Houston, Texas, sells Knocki, an accelerometer which can be ?xed to a surface to detect the vibrations made by someone knocking on that surface. Di?erent devices—lamps or a television, say, as well as a smart speaker—can then be activated by anyone making the appropriate prearranged number of knocks.

哈里森博士和拉普特先生并不是唯一使表層活躍的人。德克薩斯州休斯頓的Swan Solutions公司銷售一種名為“敲一敲”的加速度計，它可以固定在一個表面上，探測到有人敲門時產(chǎn)生的震動。不同的設(shè)備，比如臺燈或電視機，包括一個智能揚聲器，都可以被任何預(yù)先安排好的敲擊聲激活。

詞匯

Vibration/震動

Other firms,too,are attempting to build devices that are more aware of their surroundings—for example, by boosting their ability to recognise sounds. Audio Analytic, a British maker of sound-recognition technology, has developed and ?led a patent on what it calls “brand soni?cation”. In this, distinctive noises characteristic of the use of a certain product, such as the pop made when removing the lid from a tube of potato crisps or the hiss of opening a can of drink, are recognised by a smart speaker— prompting it, perhaps, to o?er discounts on related products.

其他公司也在嘗試制造更能感知周圍環(huán)境的設(shè)備——例如，通過提高它們識別聲音的能力。英國一家聲音識別技術(shù)制造商Audio Analytic已經(jīng)開發(fā)并申請了一項專利，該公司稱之為“品牌超聲處理器”。在這方面,在某一產(chǎn)品上對獨特的聲音特點的使用,如玩搖滾時把蓋子從管馬鈴薯薯片或打開一罐飲料的嘶嘶聲,這些聲音可以被智能揚聲器識別——刺激它,也許,這可以讓其在相關(guān)產(chǎn)品提供折扣。

詞匯

soni?cation /超聲處理

That is technologically clever. How far Audio Analytic has thought this one through, though, is unclear. Being spied on by a smart speaker sounds bad enough. Being pestered by one might be worse.

這在技術(shù)上很智能。然而，音頻分析可以被怎樣的利用，有多么智能，目前還不清楚。被一個聰明的演講者用作監(jiān)視聽眾聽起來已經(jīng)夠糟糕的了。被人想著一切辦法去利用，這可能更糟。

詞匯

Pester/糾纏，煩擾；使煩惱

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