时代杂志评出2014年25项最佳发明

If 2013 was the year in which selfie became a buzzword, then 2014 was the year selfies became a cultural phenomenon. Look no further than a recent Pew report, which found that at least a quarter of Americans have shared a selfie on a social-networking site (including Ellen Degeneres, Kim Kardashian and President Obama).
如果说2013年“自拍”只是一个热词的话，那么2014年自拍就已经成为了一种文化现象。通过皮尤研究中心最近的调查就知道，至少有四分之一的美国人在社交网络上晒过自己的自拍照（这其中包括艾伦•德杰尼勒斯、金•卡戴珊以及总统奥巴马）。

Sensing a new market, several companies have launched devices designed to streamline the selfie-taking experience. The selfie stick (produced by multiple brands), which enables users to position their smartphone beyond arms’ reach to get better photo angles, “adds genuine value,”says Van Baker, a mobile tech analyst at the research firm Gartner. “I’ve seen a lot of people using it.”
一些公司看到了其中的商机，纷纷推出各种帮助自拍的“神器”。自拍杆的出现避免了自拍的人用手举相机的不便，帮助提供更好的自拍角度。“这个发明非常实用，”Gartner研究公司的移动技术分析师范•贝克说，“我看到很多人都在用。”

The Filter that Fights Ebola
18.埃博拉病毒过滤器

What makes the Ebola virus so frightening is its speed. In a matter of days, it can pump out enough copies of itself to overtake the immune system. But the Hemopurifier, a specially designed cartridge that attaches to a dialysis machine, can tip the balance back in the body’s favor: its lectin filter attracts Ebola viruses and sucks them from the blood as it flows through. It’s been used only once, on a patient in Germany, but it did the trick—effectively curing his Ebola infection. In the future, doctors hope similar tech could be used on viruses like hepatitis.
埃博拉病毒之所以如此令人恐惧，原因就在于它的传播速度相当快。短短几天时间里，它就能疯狂自我复制到足以攻击免疫系统的地步。这款圆筒状的Hemopurifier是一款能与透析设备连接的特殊装置，它能够对已经感染埃博拉病毒血液进行过滤。目前它只在德国一名患者身上使用过一次，但它有效地治愈了病人的病毒感染。医生们希望类似的科技产品也能够应用在肝炎等病症上。

The AC that Lowers Your Energy Bills
19.超省电空调

Americans spend more than $11 billion each year to blast their homes with air-conditioning, releasing 100 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air. Experts say a sizable portion of that is waste. IT consultant Garthen Leslie realized as much while driving to work last summer in Washington, past rows of empty-looking houses with humming window units that could not be turned on or off remotely. There had to be a better way. “So I sent an idea to Quirky,” he says, referring to the GE-backed site that turns people’s concepts into creations. Four months later, they had a prototype.
美国家庭每年花在空调上的费用超过110亿美元，向空气中排放的二氧化碳量超过1亿吨。专家称其中相当一部分都属于浪费造成的。IT顾问甘森·莱斯利去年夏天在华盛顿开车去上班的途中也意识到了这一点。由于无法远程操作，所以成排的空房间里空调嗡嗡的一直开着。应该能有个好的解决办法的。“于是我把我的想法告诉了Quirky公司，”莱斯利说。GE有网页专门负责把人们的想法变成好的设计。四个月之后，他们开发出了产品原型。

The Aros air conditioner, which has sold nearly 50,000 units since its May 2014 release. For one thing, it’s elegant, with a sleek white exterior that’s almost Apple-esque. It’s smart too. Thanks to a companion mobile app, Aros can track owners’ movements via GPS and turn itself on and off depending on their proximity to home. It also tells people exactly how much money they’re spending to cool their residences.
这就是Aros空调，自今年5月上市以来，已经卖出了将近5万台。一方面它的外观简洁优雅，全白的机身有点苹果产品的味道。另一方面它是智能的。通过配套的移动应用，这款空调能够定位主人的位置并根据主人与家的距离远近自动开关，还能够直接告诉你已经使用了多少度电。

The Prison Room that Helps Inmates Relax
20.放松用牢房

For 23 hours a day, the 200 inmates in solitary confinement at Oregon’s largest prison see nothing but a tiny, white-walled cell—an experience some research suggests can heighten mental illness and make prisoners prone to suicide attempts and violence. Last year, officials began letting some of them spend their free hour in a first-of-its-kind “blue room,” an exercise space where a projector plays video of open deserts, streaming waterfalls and other outdoor scenes. That imagery, says creator Nalini Nadkarni, who studies how nature affects behavior, is designed to calm prisoners, “much in the way we walk through a park” to relax. Inmates have responded so well that guards now use blue-room time as a way to pre-empt bad behavior.
在俄勒冈州最大的监狱里，200多名单人牢房里的犯人一天中有23个小时面对只有狭小的白墙，据调查称，这种体验使很多犯人患上心理疾病，并且有暴力或自杀倾向。去年，官方开始尝试在自由时间向犯人们开放叫做“blue room”的放松用牢房，在这里可以边做运动边欣赏投影仪中播放的沙漠、瀑布等风景影像。设计者娜里尼称，研究表明这些自然风景画面能够影响人的行为，因此可以帮助犯人们平静自己，“就像我们在公园里散步那样放松”。这种牢房在犯人们中的反响很不错，一些监狱已经使用该种牢房作为预防恶劣行为的一种方法了。

The Tablet Toy that Gets Physical
21.儿童用互动平板计算机

Like many kids, Pramod Sharma’s daughter loves the iPad. But “when her face is glued to the screen, six inches away, all day long—I wasn’t too happy,” he says. So the ex-Google engineer and his former colleague, Jérôme Scholler, devised a way to bring virtual play back into the real world. Osmo’s “reflective AI” attachment enables the iPad camera to interpret physical objects—allowing kids to mimic an onscreen pattern with colored tiles, for example, and get rewarded for doing it correctly. “Many kids can play at once,” says Sharma, “so it becomes more interactive and imaginative.”
和许多孩子一样，夏尔马的女儿也非常喜欢玩儿iPad，但是夏尔马说：“当她整天都捧着它，像是把脸贴在上面似的，我真的很担心。”所以这位前谷歌工程师和他之前的同事一起设计了一种方法把虚拟游戏与现实世界结合在了一起。这款Osmo是一个包含应用与配件的学习工具套件，可以将iPad平板电脑变成以孩童为中心的增强现实装置，比如让孩子按屏幕上呈现的图形摆放彩色卡片，做对了就可以获得奖励。“孩子们可以一起玩，”夏尔马说，“这带来更多的互动，也能激发孩子们的想象力。”

The Coaching Basketball
22.智能篮球

This basketball comes embedded with nine sensors and a Bluetooth chip that sends performance data to a mobile app—allowing players to measure, say, the arc of their jumpshot. If something’s off during game play, the voice of a coach (via the app) can even implore you to “go faster” or “snap your wrist.” “We get excited when we see someone improve,” says Michael Crowley, whose company, InfoMotion Sports Technologies Inc., makes the 94Fifty Smart Sensor. And apparently, that’s happening a lot: Crowley says InfoMotion has sold close to 100,000 balls.
该款篮球内嵌有9个传感器和一个蓝牙芯片，可以向手机应用中传送训练数据，使球员可以评估跳跃时的状态。在比赛的时候它还能结合应用通过告诉球员“跑快点”“抖手腕”等对其进行指导。“当我们看到有人因此技术得到提高时，感到非常兴奋。”制造这款94Fifty 智能篮球的InfoMotion体育科技公司的总裁迈克尔说。目前为止，该款篮球已经卖出了将近10万个了。

Wrappers You Can Eat
23.可以吃的包装纸

“Edible wrapper” sounds like an oxymoron—unless you’re WikiFoods founder David Edwards, who has devised a way to encase yogurt, cheese, ice cream and more in shells strong enough to hold their shape (in water, heat and cold) until you take your first bite. The secret lies in science: Each shell is made of particles of dried fruit or other natural substances that are tiny enough to be electrically attracted to one another; they are combined with calcium and sugar to strengthen the form.
“可食用包装纸”听起来似乎有些矛盾，但WikiFoods的创始人大卫可不这么想，他发明了一种用来包裹优格、芝士、冰淇淋等的包装，在水里、高温或低温时都能保持形状，直到你开吃的时候。这其中的科学原理在于，每张包装纸都是由干果或其他天然材料的颗粒做成，这些颗粒相互吸引，通过钙和糖来固定形状。

Screens that Showcase Digital Art
24.电子艺术相架

“There are so many artists” making beautiful works on and for computers, says digital artist Jake Levine, referencing the burgeoning Tumblr community (among others). But putting that art on physical walls has been nearly impossible. Levine’s Electric Objects, the sleek, 22-by-13-in. flatscreens are wired specifically to display art.
数字艺术家杰克说网上有很多好看的艺术家的作品，但是却不能将它们挂在墙上。于是设计了这款电子相架，它大小为22×13英寸，专门用来展示艺术品。

Action Figures that Empower Girls
25.女性英雄人物模型公仔

Studies have shown that girls’ career ambitions can be heavily influenced by their playthings. But when moms Dawn Nadeau and Julie Kerwin started searching for female action figures that were athletic and empowering—as opposed to dolls like Barbie, most of which cannot even bend their limbs—they were dismayed to find … none. So they designed and commissioned a firm to build their IAmElemental series of action figures. Each figure embodies a different “element” of heroism, like persistence or honesty. “The idea that girls could save the world—that’s a very powerful fantasy,” says Nadeau.
研究表明玩具能够深入影响女孩的职业梦想。但是当已为人母的道恩和朱莉去寻找那些除芭比以外的女性人物模型时，失望的发现很多模型连手臂都无法弯曲。所以她们联合一家公司推出了IAmelemental女性英雄人物模型公仔。每种模型都包含一种不同的英雄人格特点，如坚持或诚实。道恩称：“女孩也能拯救世界的想法，是一种非常有力量的幻想。”