As technology is developing rapidly, we can actually build VR headsets that meet high requirements. The interest in VR rises, so does the interest in creating new media to be experienced in using VR. Journalism is a medium built on relevance. Journalists are always finding new means to tell stories and report news. It is a goldmine for storytelling. What better ways to tell a story to someone than to put them right in the center of it?

People are already making use of VR in news. Creative director Spike Jonze and visual artist Chris Milk put viewers at the scene of the Millions March protest in New York in December, 2014. The University of Southern California created “Project Syria,” which allows viewers to experience the bombing of a crowded neighborhood and visit a refugee camp in the war-tom country. These are just a few examples of a growing number of projects that are out there.

VR is a powerful tool for journalists. The consumer isn’t just reading or watching something play out; they’re experiencing it. The immersive(沉浸式的) nature of VR allows people to connect with the subject matter on a much deeper level than just reading about it. The experience is emotional, speaking more to our instinct(本能) than our intellect(智力). There are a wide range of possibilities for storytelling here, and any storyteller wanting to do something more interesting than their peers should surely be considering the sheer power of VR.

The question of VR, though, is not how powerful it is. That is obvious. The question of VR is one of viability(可行性) and availability. Telling stories must be easy to do, and access to those stories must be readily available. This is the biggest challenge that VR faces. If the tools to tell a story with VR aren’t easy to pick up and learn, VR will fail. If VR technology isn’t both top-of-the-line and affordable, VR will fail.

“I think that current VR technology is pretty exclusive right now, but it’s very promising that it will not be a problem in the long run,” said Thomas Hallaq, assistant professor of journalism and mass communications. “We’re seeing more technology become accessible, and more people having access to that technology. Just look at smartphones.”

If the technology is widely available and companies like Oculus, Samsung, HTC and Valve can overcome the inherent difficulties, VR will succeed in being a desirable means of storytelling. Like radio, TV and the Internet before it, VR will change the way we tell stories.

A Russian robotics company has recently made headlines for offering $200,000（about 1,274,060 yuan) for the right to use one individual’s face and voice forever in robot development. It’s expected that their robots will look and sound human like. However, they may not be able to move like humans.

“Robots are klutzes (笨手笨脚的人),”   US AI engineer Ken Goldberg told the website Science News for Students.

Robotic scientists say that one-year-old human babies have better movement skills than robots do. Let’s take a look at some tasks that are easy for you but tough for robots.

Pick things up

Picking things up is not easy. If we drop our pencil on the floor, our brains work hard. First, we must find the pencil and look at its distance. Then we move our hands to it. A robot cannot always move it’s “hand” to the right place. Calculating (计算) the distance is not easy. Then, when we touch the pencil, it might roll a little bit. Robots cannot easily understand this either. So, if you drop a pencil on the floor, a robot will probably roll it around the room.

Get around spaces

If someone drops you in a building you’ve never been to, you might feel a bit lost. But you can look around, find a door and get out quickly. You will not get stuck in a corner. But a robot will look everywhere for a door, even on ceilings and floors. This is because it’s hard for them to understand spaces, especially large, blank things such as walls or ceilings. Scientists need to train them with lots of data to learn this.

Understand the world made by people

“Common sense” is what we don’t need to think or talk about. Because of common sense, we do not look for doors on the ceiling. We pick up a coffee cup by its handle. We feel whether it has coffee inside, and whether it is hot.

But robots may turn the cup upside down or hold the hot part of the cup, damaging itself. Scientists have tried teaching robots common-sense rules. But even huge databases don’t help much. There are just too many rules – and too many exceptions (例外). Maybe they just need more time to learn.

On Saturday evening, CCTV showed a computer-generated image of the Chang’e 3 lander’s path as it approached the surface of the moon, saying that during the landing period it needed to have no contact with Earth. As it was just hundreds of meters away the lander’s camera broadcast images of the moon’s surface.

The Chang’e 3’s solar panels, which are used to absorb sunlight to generate power, opened soon after the landing. The mission blasted off (发射) from southwest China on Dec. 2 on a Long March-3B carrier rocket. It is named after a mythical Chinese goddess of the moon and the “Yutu” rover vehicle, or “Jade Rabbit” in English, afternoon the goddess’ pet.

China’s military-backed space program has made much progress in a relatively short time, although it is behind the United States and Russia in technology and experience. China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, becoming the third nation after Russia and the United States to achieve manned space travel independently. In 2006, it sent its first probe (探测器) to the moon. China plans to open a space station around 2020 and send an astronaut to the moon after that.

“They are taking their time with getting to know about how to fly humans into space, how to build space stations. how to explore the solar system, especially the moon and Mars. They are making big advancements, and I think over the next 10-20 years they’ll certainly be matching Russia and America in this area and maybe overtaking them in some areas.”