Connected homes will take longer to materialize than expected. The fanfare has gone on for years. Analysts have repeatedly predi

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问题     Connected homes will take longer to materialize than expected. The fanfare has gone on for years. Analysts have repeatedly predicted that the "internet of things" could transform the lives of individuals as dramatically as the spread of the mobile internet. Providers have focused on the home, touting products such as coffee pots that turn on when the alarm clock rings. But so far consumers have been largely resistant to making their homes "smart".
    Too few consumers are convinced that the internet has a role to play in every corner of their lives. A survey conducted in Britain by a consulting firm, found that 72% of people have no plans to adopt smart-home technology in the next two to five years and that they are unwilling to pay for it. Last year consumers globally spent around $60 billion on hardware and services for the smart home, a fraction of the total outlay on domestic gadgets. That’s not for want of trying by tech firms, which have poured cash into their efforts to connect everyday objects to the internet. There are several reasons for muted enthusiasm. A lot of smart devices for the home, remain "fun but not essential", says Adam Segar of Canary. Many smart gadgets are still too expensive. One of Samsung’ s smart fridges sells for a cool $5,000. The technology is not perfect yet, either.
    Perhaps the biggest surprise is that Amazon, which failed miserably in its ambition to develop a smartphone, is showing the way. Amazon Echo shares information about the weather and sports scores, plays music and turns lights on and off. The device, which costs around $ 180, is not yet a big seller. Yet the Echo is the talk of Silicon Valley. An interface that relies on voice commands could overcome one of the drawbacks of the piecemeal approach to the smart home, by becoming the standard integrator of all the other bits of smart kit.
    If the tech giants retain their ambition to sit at the centre of the smart home, uncertainty prevails over where the profits lie. "It remains unclear what the economic model for the smart home will be," says Andy Hobsbawm of Everything, an internet-of-things platform.
The word "fraction" (Para. 2) is closest in meaning to________.

选项 A、a small part
B、a fragment
C、a large proportion
D、a big section

答案A

解析 含义题。根据题干关键词定位到文章第二段第三句后半部分…a fraction of the total outlay on domestic gadgets。根据前文调查结果“在未来2~5年中,72%的人既不打算采用智能家居技术,也不乐意购买智能家居”可知,智能产品及其消费额度会远远低于整个家居产品的消费总额,因此A项“一小部分”正确。故本题选A。
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