智能汽车
1 Even the automobile industry, which has remained largely unchanged for the last seventy years, is about to feel the effects of the computer revolution.
即便是过去70年间基本上没有多少变化的汽车工业，也将感受到计算机革命的影响。
2 The automobile industry ranks as among the most lucrative and powerful industries of the twentieth century. There are presently 500 million cars on earth, or one car for every ten people. Sales of the automobile industry stand at about a trillion dollars, making it the world's biggest manufacturing industry.
汽车工业是20世纪最赚钱、最有影响力的产业之一。目前世界上有5亿辆车，或者说每10人就有1辆车。汽车工业的销售额达一万亿美元左右，从而成为世界上最大的制造业。
3 The car, and the roads it travels on, will be revolutionized in the twenty-first century. The key to tomorrow's "smart cars" will be sensors. "We'll see vehicles and roads that see and hear and feel and smell and talk and act," predicts Bill Spreitzer, technical director of General Motors Corporation's ITS program, which is designing the smart car and road of the future.
汽车及其行驶的道路，将在21世纪发生重大变革。未来“智能汽车”光速汽车的关键在于传感器。“我们会见到能看、能听、有知觉、具嗅觉、会说话并能采取行动的车辆与道路，”正在设计未来智能汽车和智能道路的通用汽车公司ITS项目的技术主任比尔?斯普雷扎预言道。
4 Approximately 40,000 people are killed each year in the United States in traffic accidents. The number of people that are killed or badly injured in car accidents is so vast that we don't even bother to mention them in the newspapers anymore. Fully half of these f
atalities come from drunk drivers, and many others from carelessness. A smart car could eliminate most of these car accidents. It can sense if a driver is drunk via electronic sensors that can pick up alcohol vapor in the air, and refuse to start up the engine. The car could also alert the police and provide its precise location if it is stolen.
美国每年有大约4万人死于交通事故。在汽车事故中死亡或严重受伤的人数太多，我们已经不屑在报纸上提及。这些死亡的人中至少有半数是酒后开车者造成的，另有许多死亡事故是驾驶员不小心所导致。智能汽车能消除绝大多数这类汽车事故。它能通过会感测空气中的酒精雾气的电子传感器检测开车者是否喝醉酒，并拒绝启动引擎。这种车还能在遇窃后通报警方，告知车辆的确切地点。
5 Smart cars have already been built which can monitor one's driving and the driving conditions nearby. Small radars hidden in the bumpers can scan for nearby cars. Should you make a serious driving mistake (e.g., change lanes when there is a car in your "blind spot") the computer would sound an immediate warning.
6 At the MIT Media Lab, a prototype is already being built which will determine how sleepy you are as you drive, which is especially important for long-distance truck drivers. The monotonous, almost hypnotic process of staring at the center divider for long hours is a grossly underestimated, life-threatening hazard. To eliminate this, a tiny camera hidden in the dashboard can be trained on a driver's face and eyes. If the driver's eyelids close for a certain length of time and his or her driving becomes erratic, a computer in the dashboard could alert the driver.
在麻省理工学院媒介实验室，业已制造出能测知你行车时有多少睡意的样车，这对长途卡车司机意义尤其重要。一连数小时注视着中夹分道线这样一个单调、几乎能催眠的过程是被严重低估的威胁生命的重大隐患。为消除这一隐患，藏在仪表板里的一架微型相机可对准开车者的脸部及眼睛。如果司机的眼帘合上一定时间，行车变得不稳，仪表板里的计算机就会向司机发出警报。
7 Two of the most frustrating things about driving a car are getting lost and getting stuck in traffic. While the computer revolution is unlikely to cure these problems, it will have a positive impact. Sensors in your car tuned to radio signals from orbiting satellites can locate your car precisely at any moment and warn of traffic jams. We already have twenty-four Navstar satellites orbiting the earth, making up what is called the Global Positioning System. They make it possible to determine your location on the earth to within about a hundred feet. At any given time, there are several GPS satellites orbiting overhead at a distance of about 11,000 miles. Each satellite contains four "atomic clocks," which vibrate at a precise frequency, according to the laws of the quantum theory.
开车最头疼的两烦是迷路和交通堵塞。虽然计算机革命不可能彻底解决这两个问题，但却会带来积极的影响。你汽车上与绕轨道运行的卫星发出的无线电信号调谐的传感器能随时精确地确定你汽车的方位，并告知交通阻塞情况。我们已经有24颗环绕地球运行的导航卫星，组成了人们所说的全球卫星定位系统。通过这些卫星我们有可能以小于100英尺的
误差确定你在地球上的方位。在任何一个特定时间，总有若干颗全球定位系统的卫星在11000英里的高空绕地球运行。每颗卫星都装有4个“原子钟”，它们根据量子理论法则，以精确的频率振动。
8 As a satellite passes overhead, it sends out a radio signal that can be detected by a receiver in a car's computer. The car's computer can then calculate how far the satellite is by measuring how long it took for the signal to arrive. Since the speed of light is well known, any delay in receiving the satellite's signal can be converted into a distance.
卫星从高空经过时发出能被汽车上计算机里的接收器辨认的无线电信号。汽车上的计算机就会根据信号传来所花的时间计算出卫星有多远。由于光速为人熟知，接收卫星信号时的任何时间迟缓都能折算出距离的远近。
9 In Japan there are already over a million cars with some type of navigational capability. (Some of them locate a car's position by correlating the rotations in the steering wheel to its position on a map.)
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