VOA常速英语2019--新技术可让电话线路在灾难期间保持通畅

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New Tech Keeps Phone Lines Open During Disasters

Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico in 2017 and the region is still recovering nearly two years later. The storm destroyed power and communication grids¹, leaving victims without a way to get information or call for help.It’s a problem Brian Knouse and some friends set out to solve.It’s not just that the communication were able to execute now.It is not as good as, it could be that is true, but it’s also that during disasters, communications often somewhat are completely disrupted which just makes dealing² with a really really complicated incident.That’s much harder, and more costly³ both in terms of lives and money.His simple elegant solution won the IBM sponsored contest Call for Code last year,and Knouse and his team just finished their first large scale pilot deployment⁵ of Project Owl⁶ in Puerto Rico.These little devices create a Wi-Fi network, just like your Wi-Fi router in your house.

飓风玛丽亚在2017年席卷波多黎各，在其后两年时间内该地区仍然在恢复。风暴摧毁了电力和通信系统，受害者因而无法获取信息、寻求帮助。这是Brian Knouse和他一些朋友打算解决的问题。这不仅仅是是否能够立即恢复通信的问题。这比不上、这有可能是真的，但是也是通信常常在灾害期间某种程度上被中断的问题，通信中断的问题十分难以解决。从生活和资金角度而言，这个问题更困难、花费更高。他简练的解决方案赢得了IBM赞助的“代码集结号”的竞赛，Knouse和他的团队刚刚在波多黎各部署完他们的第一个大型试点项目猫头鹰项目。这些小设备可以创建Wi-Fi网络，就像您家中的Wi-Fi路由器一样。

And just like your Wi-Fi router in your house, you can connect to it with your phone, you can also connect to it with your laptop or any other like consumer electronics device.To test the Owls⁷, the team deployed⁸ Owl boxes every couple of hundred meters in effect creating a giant Wi-Fi network that could cover the entire island even when communication grids go down.It’s basically just a way to take in a lot of data about an incident.You can think during a category-5 hurricane, like chaos⁹ and misinformation is pervasive,so it takes in a lot of data through API’s, through manual input¹⁰ from first responders, government officials, civilians¹¹ on the ground, takes in a lot of information about an event and just paints a really clear operating picture of what’s going on.

就像您家中的Wi-Fi路由器一样，您可以使用手机连接它，也可以使用笔记本电脑或任何其他类似的电子消费产品连接它。为了测试“猫头鹰”，该团队每隔几百米就部署了猫头鹰盒子，创造了一个巨大的Wi-Fi网络，即使在通信网格出现故障时也可以覆盖整个岛屿。它基本上只是一种收集大量事件数据的方法。想象一下，在5级飓风期间，错误混乱的信息无处不在，所以它通过API收集大量数据，手动输入从首位发声者、政府官员和在场平民处收集的事件相关的信息，并且清楚地描绘出现场发生了什么。

Anyone with a phone or computer can access the network and call for help.Emergency responders can keep track of supplies and personnel operating in disaster zones. Each Owl has enough battery to operate for a week, but now says it would be simple to add a little solar charger to make them last indefinitely or even put them up before a disaster.They’re optimized¹² for rapid deployment, however, we do believe it would be very useful to deploy⁴ them before.The analogy I like to use is, you know, I’m on a Mac here, and if I yanked out the power cord that’s like magnetically clipped in.My Mac doesn’t shut off it just immediately switches to battery power.These could be redundant¹³ networks in the same sort of way.The team has at least four more field tests scheduled before the end of this year.

只要有电话或电脑，人们就可以连上网络寻求帮助。紧急救援人员可以跟踪灾区的供应和操作人员。每个猫头鹰电池的电量都足以运行一周，如果加上一个太阳能充电器，就能很容易地让它们持续保持有电状态，甚至可以在灾难发生前将它们装置好。为了快速部署，它们已经得到了优化，但是我们还是认为在灾害前部署会比较有用。我喜欢用这个来类比，你看，我用的苹果电脑，如果我把因为磁力夹在充电口的电源线拔出来，我的苹果不会关机，只是立即切换到了电池模式。同理，这些也可能是冗余的网络。该团队在今年年底前至少安排了四场现场测试。