Text 1
Last November, engineers in the healthcare division of GE unveiled something called the "Light Speed VCT", a scanner that can create a startlingly good three-dimensional image of a beating heart. This spring Staples, an American office-supplies retailer, will stock its shelves with a gadget called a "wordlock", a padlock that uses words instead of numbers. The connection In each case, the firm’s customers have played a big part in designing the product.
How does innovation happen The familiar story involves scientist in academic institutes and R&D labs. But lately, corporate practice has begun to challenge this old, fashioned notion. Open source software development is already well-known. Less so is the fact that Bell, an American bicycle helmet maker, has collected hundreds of ideas for new products from its customers, and is putting several of them into production. Not only is the customer king: now he is market-resear
A. are eminent in a specific field.
B. are known to have invented new products.
C. lead the research teams of the corporations.
D. purchase the companies new products consistently.
Text 2
Last year, America’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, thought it would be a good idea to organize a robot race across the Nevada desert. The idea of the Grand Challenge, as DARPA dubbed it, was for autonomous robot vehicles to steer a 227km (142-mile) course and claim a $1 m jackpot. This would be a first step towards DARPA’s ultimate goal of being able to build unmanned self-driving military vehicles and thus keep American troops out of harm’s way on the battlefield.
This year’s crop of 23 entrants were offered an even greater incentive--a $ 2m prize for the win ner. That, plus the intervening 18 months, seems to have done the trick. This time, five vehicles finished the 211kin course. The winner, a modified Volkswagen Touareg dubbed Stanley by its makers, a team from Stanford University, did it in a mere six hours and 54 minutes.
Stanley was, of course, specially hardened by its designers for the rou
A. was a waste of time and money.
B. attracted nationwide attention.
C. encouraged the development of autonomous vehicles.
D. will not be organized again.
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