Like many inventions, language translators were imagined by writers long before they became real. In Hugo Gernsback’s 1911 novel A Romance of the Year 2660, characters use a video telephone that can translate from one language to another. A language translator also appears in Murray Leinster’s 1945 First Contact. In that story, humans and creatures from another planet made a translation device together after asking for contact with one another. The idea of the language translator didn’t become truly popular, however, until the “universal translator” appeared in the 1970 Star Trek series, which delighted television viewers at that time. That device was universal in the sense that it could translate any language that it came across.

The first real language translator was demonstrated（展示）by engineers from IBM company and Georgetown University in 1954. Their machine could only translate Russian sentences into English.

Language translators have come a long way since then. Today, online translations can be accessed easily at no cost to users. With translation apps, users sometimes don’t even have to look things up. All they need to do is point their cellphone’s camera at some writing, and a translation immediately appears. If users want to translate something being said aloud, they just turn on their phone’s microphone. All of these features save time and effort.

Translation apps on phones make foreign travel much easier than before. They are invaluable and convenient when it comes to communicating with taxi drivers or hotel waiters who don’t speak a traveler’s native language. But these apps are far from perfect. Sometimes a translation makes no sense, forcing the user to guess what the translation means. At other times, the user might not know that the translation has failed until he or she shows it to a native speaker.

Every morning my father buys a newspaper on his way to work. Every evening my mother looks through magazines at home. And every night, I look at the posters with photos of David Beckham and Yao Ming on my bedroom wall before I go to sleep. Can we imagine life without paper or print?

Paper was first created about 2,000 years ago, and has been made from silk, cotton, bamboo, and, since the 19th century, from wood. People learned to write words on paper to make a book. But in those days, books could only be produced one at a time by hand. As a result, they were expensive and rare. And because there weren’t many books, few people learned to read.

Then printing was invented in China. When printing was developed greatly at the beginning of the 11th century, books could be produced more quickly and cheaply. As a result, more people learned to read. After that, knowledge and ideas spread quickly.

Today information can be received online, downloaded from the Internet rather than found in books, and information can be kept on CD-ROMs or machines such as MP3 players.

Computers are already used in classrooms, and newspapers and magazines can already be read online. So will books be replaced by computers one day? No, I don’t think the Yao Ming poster on my bedroom wall will ever be replaced by a computer two metres high!

It is 40 meters long and 6 meters wide. This must be the biggest bus you have ever seen. It can carry 1,200 to 1,400 people.

It is China’s new Super Bus. It is going for a test run in Beijing at the end of this year. Some other cities are also interested in running the Super Bus. They hope the traffic problems will be solved.

The Super Bus runs along fixed tracks (固定轨道) . The bus sits on top of two 2.2-meter-tall legs. The legs have wheels at one end. Small cars can drive under the bus, so the Super Bus does not take up road space.

The bus runs on electricity and solar power. It can travel up to 60 km every hour. Its creator, Song Youzhou, says a lot of traffic jams (堵塞) will be reduced.

The Super Bus can do the work of 40 buses. In that way, it can save 860 tons of fuel (燃料) every year, according to Song.

“To build a Super Bus and its track costs less than building subways. Subways are nearly ten times more expensive to build.”Song said.

Some people worry that the Super Bus may not be safe. However, Song says there’s no need for concern. The Super Bus has laser scanners (激光扫描仪) between its legs. The scanners make sure the cars keep a safe distance.