11月9日午间英语新闻：机器人公司打造出“世界最快鞋”

> 机器人公司打造出“世界最快鞋” 步行速度可达每小时11千米
Robotics startup unveils the world’s fastest walking shoes

A Pittsburgh-based robotics and engineering startup recently unveiled Moonwalkers, a pair of battery-powered shoes that it claims can boost walking speed by up to 250%.
一家总部在美国匹兹堡的机器人与工程初创企业近日推出了一款名为“月球漫步者”的电池供电鞋，据称可以将步行速度提高250%之多。

At first glance, Moonwalkers look like a pair of futuristic roller-skates, but there is actually a lot more to them than that. You’re actually meant to walk with them the way you would with regular shoes or sneakers, letting the motorized wheels put a spring in your step. Powered by a state-of-the-art brushless DC motor, this ingenious contraption is actually a platform that can be attached to a wide variety of footwear to significantly increase your walking speed by up to a reported 7mph/11kph. For comparison, the average walking speed ranges from 2.5 to 4 mph. The sensation of walking with the world’s fastest shoes has been compared to that of walking on a ‘moving walkway’ in an airport.
乍看之下，“月球漫步者”就像一双未来主义风格的旱冰鞋，但实际上鞋里大有乾坤。你穿着它可以像穿普通鞋子或跑鞋一样走路，让电动轮助你脚下生风。这款设计巧妙的鞋的动力源自最先进的无刷直流电动机，实际上就是一个可以附着于各种鞋类的平台，能够显著提升步行速度，据称可达每小时7英里（11千米）。相比之下，人类平均步行速度为每小时2.5到4英里（4到6千米）。穿着“世界最快鞋”行走的感觉与在机场移动走道上行走的感觉差不多。

“Moonwalkers are not skates. They’re shoes. The world’s fastest shoes actually,” Xunjie Zang, founder and CEO of Shift Robotics said. “You don’t skate in them. You walk. You don’t have to learn how to use them, the shoes learn from you.”
Shift Robotics公司的创始人兼首席执行官臧迅杰（音译）称：“月球漫步者不是旱冰鞋，而是健步鞋，实际上它是全世界走路最快的健步鞋。你不是穿着它滑行，而是步行，你无须学习如何使用这种鞋，鞋子会学习你的走路方式。”

But do the world’s fastest shoes work on uneven terrain, or things like stairs? We all know how tricky those are to mitigate in roller-skates. Well, apparently the designers took that into consideration and implemented a simple gesture that allows the wearer to lock the wheels so that they can walk up or down stairs as they would in regular footwear.
但是，穿着这款世界最快鞋能否在不平坦的地形上行走或爬楼梯呢？我们都知道穿旱冰鞋走这种路有多难。不过，显然设计师已经考虑到了这一点，让穿着者用一个简单的动作就可以锁住轮子，这样他们就能像穿普通鞋一样上下楼梯了。

重点词汇：

1.unveil
英 [ˌʌnˈveɪl] 

美 [ˌʌnˈveɪl]

v. （首次）公开，揭示；为……揭幕，揭去……上的覆盖物；除去面纱，显露

2.ingenious
英 [ɪnˈdʒiːniəs]

美 [ɪnˈdʒiːniəs] 
adj. 灵巧的，有独创性的；精巧的，巧妙的

3.contraption
英 [kənˈtræpʃn]

美 [kənˈtræpʃn] 
n. 奇妙的装置；精巧的设计

5.sensation
英 [senˈseɪʃ(ə)n]

美 [senˈseɪʃ(ə)n] 
n. 感觉，知觉；感觉能力，知觉能力；（某种经历所产生的）整体感觉，总体印象；轰动，引起轰动的人（或事）

6.implement
英 [ˈɪmplɪment]

美 [ˈɪmplɪment] 
v. 执行，贯彻；为……提供工具
n. 工具，器具；<苏格兰>履行；手段

> Elon Musk Has Begun Mass Layoffs at Twitter and SpaceX Is Gearing Up To Launch Its First Starship Before the End of the Year
马斯克在推特大规模裁员 SpaceX预备在年底前发射第一艘星际飞船

This week, the tech industry witnessed Elon Musk take the reins of Twitter. The newly-minted CEO has already fired several executives and has now sent an email to employees detailing plans to continue layoffs throughout the company’s workforce. Wrapping up his first week as CEO, Elon Musk reportedly has plans to cull his flock. An earlier new report in Bloomberg revealed that Musk had plans to fire half of Twitter’s workforce, approximately 3,700 staffers. Employees have now been told via email not to come into office, as widespread layoffs were set to take place. Twitter is now subject to a potential class action lawsuit, with employees alleging that Twitter’s layoffs are in violation of the US Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
上周，科技行业见证了埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)执掌推特。这位新上任的CEO已经解雇了几名高管，并向员工发送了一封电子邮件，详细说明了公司继续裁员的计划。据报道，马斯克作为“推特首席”的第一周结束后，他计划裁员。彭博社早些时候的一篇新报道透露，马斯克计划解雇推特一半的员工，约3700名员工。由于大规模裁员即将发生，公司已通过电子邮件通知员工不要上班。推特现在面临着一场潜在的集体诉讼，员工们声称推特的裁员行为违反了美国《工人调整和再培训通知法》。

Elsewhere in Musk-related tech news, NASA shared that SpaceX is aiming to launch its Starship in December. While the space agency has previously launched prototypes of the Starship 6 miles (10 km) into the sky, this is the first time it’ll attempt to fully launch the rocket into orbit. “We have four major Starship flights planned. The first one here is coming up in December,” Mark Kirasich, an official from NASA’s Artemis moon program, revealed during a livestream, Reuters reported.
在其他与马斯克有关的科技新闻中，美国国家航空航天局（NASA）分享了SpaceX计划在12月发射其星际飞船的消息。虽然NASA此前曾将这艘星际飞船的原型发射到6英里(10公里)的空中，但这是它首次试图将这艘火箭完全抛入轨道。“我们追踪了四次主要的星际飞船飞行。”据路透社报道，NASA阿尔忒弥斯登月计划的官员马克·基拉西奇在直播中透露称：“第一次将在12月，大约12月初。”

重点词汇：

1.take the reins
美 [teɪk ðə reɪnz] 
支配；掌握

2.layoffs

n. 裁员；解雇

3.cull
英 [kʌl]

美 [kʌl] 
v. 挑选；部分捕杀，选择性宰杀；（诗、文）采集（花果）
n. 选择性宰杀；被选出宰杀的体弱（或过剩）动物

4.flock
英 [flɒk]

美 [flɑːk] 
n. （鸟或羊等动物）群；一大群人；（某个教堂的）会众，全体教徒；（填充垫子的）絮屑，毛棉填料；（植绒用的）短绒，绒屑
v. 群集，蜂拥

5.approximately

英 [əˈprɒksɪmətli]

美 [əˈprɑːksɪmətli] 
adv. 大约，大概

6.prototypes
英 [ˈprəʊtətaɪps] 
n. 原型；技术原型；雏型