VOA慢速英语2012 Technology Report - Drones: Not Just For the Military Anymore

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This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语科技报道。

Late last month, for the first time, President Obama publicly confirmed the American use of drone strikes in tribal¹ areas in Pakistan. He answered a question on the subject during a Google video conference with people around the United States.

上月末，奥巴马总统首次公开证实美国使用无人机在巴基斯坦部落地区发动袭击。他在与美国各地民众的一次Google视频会议期间就这一话题回答了一个提问。

BARACK OBAMA: "I want to make sure that people understand that actually, drones have not caused a huge number of civilian² casualties. For the most part, they have been very precise precision strikes against al-Qaida and their affiliates³. And we are very careful in terms of how it has been applied⁴."

奥巴马：“我希望确保人们明白，无人机实际上并没有造成大量平民伤亡。在大多数情况下，它们非常精准地打击了基地组织及其分支机构。我们在无人机的应用方面非常谨慎。”

Debate continues about how many people, including civilians⁵, have been killed in those drone attacks.

就有多少包括平民在内的人们在这些无人机袭击中丧生的争论仍在继续。

Drones are technically⁶ known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. These aircraft, however, are not just used for air strikes, and they are not just used by governments.

无人机在技术上被称为无人驾驶飞行器。然而这些飞机不仅仅用于空袭，也不仅仅被政府使用。

Human rights activists⁷, environmental groups and journalists are increasingly using drones in their work.

人权活动人士、环保团体以及记者在工作中也越来越频繁地使用到无人机。

Drones can fly above news events to capture images that reporters may not be able to get close to on the ground.

无人机可以飞到新闻现场上方，抓拍一些记者在地面上可能无法够及的画面。

Matt Waite is a journalism⁸ professor at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Students in his Drone Journalism Lab are exploring different uses for drones in news reporting.

马特·怀特（Matt Waite）是内布拉斯加大学林肯分校的一名新闻学教授。在他的无人机新闻实验室里，学生们正在探讨无人机在新闻报道中的各种用途。

MATT WAITE: "Drone journalism as an idea is less than a year old at this point. The first instance I saw was a labor⁹ protest in Poland where a man had a remote-controlled helicopter and he put a camera on it and he flew it up and got just a view of the protests from the air. And you could see police moving into position to kind of block the protest route."

怀特：“目前，‘无人机新闻’作为一种理念诞生尚不足一年。我看到的第一个实例是在波兰的劳工示威中，一名男子使用一架安装了摄像头的遥控直升机飞上天空，从空中拍到了示威的情景。你可以看到警察移动到位堵塞示威路线。”

A video on YouTube shows images captured by the so-called RoboKopter.

YouTube上的一个视频展示这种所谓的RoboKopter无人机拍摄的图片。

A group of citizen journalists in Moscow used a similar drone camera to record protests during Russian parliamentary elections.

莫斯科一家公民记者组织使用类似的无人机摄像机记录了俄罗斯议会选举期间的示威活动。

And Professor Waite noted¹⁰ a recent environmental case in the United States captured by someone flying his remote-controlled airplane.

怀特教授指出，美国最近的一起环境案件就是由某个人操作他的遥控飞机拍摄的。

MATT WAITE: "He spotted¹¹ a meat packing plant that was polluting a nearby creek¹² that ran into a nearby river. He had images of a river of blood flowing out of this meat packing plant, which was against the law. And environmental regulatory authorities were alerted to it."

怀特：“他发现一家肉类包装厂污染了附近一条流入小河的小溪。他拍摄到一条‘血河’从这家肉类包装厂内流出，这违反了法律。环境监管机构对此产生了警惕。”

Andrew Sniderman is a co-founder of the Genocide Intervention¹³ Network. He wrote recently in the New York Times that drones could be used to collect important information in conflict areas, like Syria.

Andrew Sniderman是种族灭绝干预网络的联合发起人。他最近在纽约时报写到，无人机可以用于在冲突地区收集重要信息，例如在叙利亚。

Professor Waite also imagines many other uses for drones.

怀特教授还展望了无人机的其它多种用途。

MATT WAITE: "I thought of every hurricane, and tornado¹⁴ and fire and every kind of mass disaster that I ever covered as a journalist and thought, oh wow, that would be amazing to have as a tool."

怀特：“我想起自己作为记者报道的每场飓风、龙卷风、火灾和所有大规模灾难后认为，哇，要是有这样一个工具（指无人机）多好啊。”

Drone use in the United States is now rare because of federal restrictions¹⁵ on airspace. However, Congress just passed a bill designed to ease those restrictions by twenty fifteen.

由于在领空上的联邦限制，无人机目前在美国的使用尚属罕见。然而美国国会刚刚通过一项法案，旨在在2015年前减轻这些限制。

And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report, written by Arick Simms. I'm Steve Ember.

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