Put "crottin de chevre," into Google Translate, and you'll be told it means goat dung (waste). So if it appears on a menu, you may pass. Alas! You will rule out a delicious cheese made of goats5 milk that is often served as a starter in France.

Such misunderstandings are why Google Translate is not intended to replace human translators. Tourists might accept a few misunderstandings because the technology is cheap and convenient, but when in business, law or medicine, these services often fall short. " Using Google Translate can lead to some serious errors, especially when words have multiple meanings, which is often the case in fields such as law and engineering, " says Samantha Langley, a court-approved French — to — English legal translator in France.

That is not to say professional translators do not use computer assisted translation (CAT) tools. One of the most popular new tools is the translation earpiece. Usually paired with a smart-phone app, they pick up spoken foreign languages and translate them. For conferences, wearable translation tools like Waverly's are undoubtedly popular. But even this new generation tech has limitations. Users must wait at least a few seconds for a phrase to be translated, or more if the Internet connection is poor. And computers still lack the subtlety (微妙之处)of human communication.

"If you want to create a relationship with the user, you need a human translator to make sound natural and capture the sentiment, which often involves restructuring a sentence completely, says Zoey Cooper, director at Wordbank. "I believe CAT tools get in the way of creativity, " says Antonio Navarro Gosalvez, an English-to- Spanish translator in Spain.

Mr. Ochoa Spencer, chief executive of US start-up Waverly Labs, thinks this problem could be resolved within the next 10 years. "When it comes to expressing emotion and intonation, we need sentiment analysis, which may well be in ten years time, " he says. Yet, nowadays foreign language skills are still in demand in the labour market.

Back in the early 2000s, lots of people couldn’t have imagined life without alarm clocks, CD players, calendars, cameras, or lots of other devices. But along came the iPhone and other smartphones, and they took over the functions of dozens of things we used to think were essential.

The smartphone story could even be a model for fighting climate change; not because smartphone use a small part of the energy of all the things they replace — although they do — but because they represent a different approach to design in general. And that approach is to focus on function rather than form. That requires focusing on understanding the underlying problem, and then engineering a wide range of potential solutions. This approach could revolutionize how we think about energy efficiency.

Traditionally, improvements in energy efficiency have mostly focused on individual devices, which can be quite fruitful. But focusing on individual devices is like if Apple had spent effort inventing a better alarm clock, a better CD player, a better calendar, and a better camera. Now with an iPhone, we don’t need the standalone devices at all, because it can function as all of them.

So when it comes to using energy efficiently, rather than just installing a more efficient heater, some people have focused instead on the desired function: staying warm. They designed and coated their house so well that they could get rid of their heater altogether, letting them heat their house with 99 % less energy.

In the same way, rather than just making cars more efficient, what if we focus on the desired function — getting where we want when we want — and create an efficient transportation system where we can drive less or get rid of our personal cars entirely? The most energy efficient car or heater is no car, or no heater, while still being able to get around and stay warm. In other words, it’s not thinking efficient, it’s thinking different.

It seems no longer the privilege (特权) of young people to get access to new technologies. As a matter of fact, senior citizens have taken advantage of the Internet to enrich their life and have benefited greatly from it—including looking through news, using mobile payments, and even enjoying online car-hailing (约车) services.

Most of the information read by older netizens is focused on national politics and economy. They also like reading encouraging materials and jokes online. Anyway, what brings them the greatest convenience is that they turn to the web for health advice, especially online hospital appointments. Increasingly, old people’s needs can be satisfied by online services, which are more convenient than those in traditional ways.

On the other hand, the Internet is not always safe. There exists the risk of being cheated. Some older users easily misunderstand or are cheated by incorrect information on the Internet. Of those cheated online, 60.3 percent fall for offers to collect free “red packet” money. And some health-related information they read is misleading. So they should be careful to make out the information.

It is the responsibility for the government, families and companies to help the old netizens to be away from the danger on line. This way, they will be more willing to use the Interact and the experience on the Interact will be more satisfying.