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  3. For centuries, canes have served blind and partially sighted people well by giving them a means to negotiate the world around th

For centuries, canes have served blind and partially sighted people well by giving them a means to negotiate the world around th

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问题     For centuries, canes have served blind and partially sighted people well by giving them a means to negotiate the world around them. The only serious upgrade they have undergone dates back to 1921, when a Briton called James Biggs, who had recently lost his sight, painted his own cane white in order to make it easily visible and to alert others to the presence of someone unable to see nearby obstacles. In the opinion of Daniela Rus of MIT, however, the white cane has had its day. Dr. Rus would like to replace it with a system that scans its user’s environment and communicates back to him what it sees.
    Dr. Rus’s device consists of a camera worn on a string around the neck, and a belt. A computer inside the camera creates a three-dimensional image of the area ahead of the wearer, processes it to extract relevant information, and uses the results to pass on appropriate signals via the belt.
    Dr. Rus knew from previous attempts to build devices of this sort that what might seem the obvious way of manifesting those signals, namely as sounds with specific meanings, was not a good approach. Blind people depend a lot on their hearing and do not like it when stylish devices hamper this sense with beeps and clicks. Hence the belt, which has five vibrating motors installed in it.
    That configuration permits the computer to warn a wearer when he is on a collision course with an obstacle. It does so by telling the motor pointing most closely in the direction of the obstacle to vibrate. If the wearer is walking towards a wall, for example, the central motor vibrates softly when he comes within a couple of metres of it. If he ignores this, perhaps because he actually wants to reach the wall, the computer increases the amplitude as he closes in, giving him a good idea of exactly how far away he is. When compared with white cane, it reduced blind persons’ collisions with others by 86％.
    The new system can do more than just help someone walk around without collisions, for the belt incorporates a touchpad that is inscribed with instructions in Braille. This permits the user to program it to perform specific tasks.
    For example, Dr. Rus knew that blind students often struggle to find an empty seat in a crowded lecture theatre. Adding an appropriate algorithm to the computer’s software helps get around this by enabling it to recognize chairs, and also whether or not a chair is occupied.
    Whether a camera and a belt could replace a cane completely remains to be seen. In particular, Dr. Rus’s system does lack one important feature of Biggs’s innovation. A white cane not only helps a blind person to navigate, it also signals his condition to the rest of the world, allowing others to adjust their behavior accordingly.
The example in Paragraph 6 is used to illustrate that________.
选项 A、Dr. Rus’s new devices will completely replace canes
B、Dr. Rus’s new system helps users walk around without collisions
C、Dr. Rus’s new system can guide directions and perform specific tasks
D、the belts warn a wearer when he is on a collision course with an obstacle
答案C
解析 细节题。由题干定位到第六段。第五段最后指出，“其允许用户可以给这块触控板编程，以使其可执行特定的任务”。由此可知新系统不仅可以指引方向，还可以执行特定任务，故正确答案为C项。A项太过绝对，而且文章最后提到摄像机和腰带的组合能否完全取代导盲杖仍有待观察，故排除。系统具有指引方向的功能，是上一段例子中讲的作用，而不是第六段例子要证明的内容，故排除B项；D项也是说系统的指引方向的功能，故排除。
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