ВУЗ:
Составители:
Рубрика:
(1)
First of all
/
After all
,
I'd like to thank Keiko Ihida for her kind words of introduction, and for inviting me here to speak to
you this morning. The title of my talk is 'The Age of the Robot', and I'll be talking today about robotics, and (2)
anyway
/
in particular
their commercial exploitation.
(3)
Especially
/
Clearly
there's huge interest in the subject, as can be seen by the number of people in the audience today, and this
is not surprising as we predict that over the next decade robotics is going to be one of the world's fastest growing industries. (4)
To
give an example
/
However
, we predict that health-care robots in Japan alone will be a $1 billion market by 2010. They'll be present in
hospitals and nursing homes, reminding patients to take medicines, delivering food trays, cleaning, supporting patients who have
problems walking, and doing almost everything else (5) except
for
/
instead of
peeling the grapes! (6) As
far as the general public is
concerned
/
Concerning the general public
, Sony Corporation thinks that the best place to launch the robot revolution is home
entertainment, because singing and dancing robots don't do anything essential and it's OK if they make a mistake sometimes. (7)
Especially
/
Furthermore
,
home entertainment is likely to be the biggest market (8)
eventually
/
at test
,
with some households having
two or three robots, just like they have PCs today. (9)
As a matter of fact
/
Moving on
all the leading players (10)
such as
/
for
example
Matsushita, NEC and Omron are investing tens of millions of dollars in the development of personal robots. (11)
I mean
/
As
a result
progress has been rapid, and scientists now understand the technology necessary for complex actions like walking on two feet
without falling over.
(12) On
the other hand
/
At the end
, it's clear that the development of 'robo sapiens' with something that approximates human
intelligence will take longer, (13)
especially
/
or rather
a lot longer.
(14)
Nevertheless
/
In general
it's clear that in terms of competition between countries Japan leads in robotics at the moment,
(15)
although
/
apart from
the Americans are trying hard to catch up. And Japan does urgently need a whole new area of products to
sell to the world as profit margins in other areas of consumer electronics gets smaller.
So, (16)
in fact
/
to sum up
,
I've tried to show you how I believe we're entering a new age, the age of the robot and it's an age
that's full of business opportunities.
E x e r c i s e S i x t e e n
. Complete the dialogue with one of these words:
for
,
since
,
during
,
while
,
ago
,
before
,
after
,
afterwards
.
Interviewer: Well, perhaps you could begin by telling us a little bit about your career history? And
(1) _____ afterwards _____ we'll move on to your current job.
Alessandro: Yes, of course. Well, I graduated from Bocconi University in Milan five years (2) was at Bocconi (3) about
six years, and (4) that period I worked briefly as an analyst in my uncle's consultancy firm.
Interviewer: Uh, huh. And did you manage to find a job easily (5) _____ you left university?
Alessandro: Well, eventually I was offered a job in an Italian bank, but (6) _____ that I had been looking for work
(7) _____ quite a long time. It wasn't easy finding jobs in Italy at that time, you know, but luckily the situation has got much better
(8) _____ then.
Interviewer: Yes, like here. So how long did you work at the bank?
Alessandro: Well, I worked there (9) _____ about two years.
Interviewer: Two years _____ and why did you leave?
Alessandro: I enjoyed my time there a lot. And (10) _____ I was there I learnt a lot of techniques for financial analysis, and
important skills like teamwork, you know. But I wanted the chance to do something more challenging in an international
environment _____ .
Interviewer: Uh, huh.
Alessandro: _____ It had been my dream to work in an international company (11) _____ leaving
school.
Interviewer: Well, you've applied to the right place. So what did you do then?
Alessandro: Well, I decided to take a risk and move to London. That was about two years (12) _____ .
Interviewer: Did you have a job to go to in London?
Alessandro: No. (13) _____ I left Italy I sent my CV to a lot of different agencies, but I thought that it would be easier to find a
job (14) _____ I was actually living in London. Hah. I only realized (15) _____ how much competition there was!
Interviewer: Well, yes.
Alessandro: Anyway, eventually, (16) _____ some months, I found a job at a bank in the City. That's where I'm working now.
