雙語財經新聞 第22期:未來的冰箱

A refrigerator of the future that tells you what to cook with your leftovers1 and automatically re-orders fresh food is being designed in the UK.

英國正在研製一種未來冰箱，它可以告訴你如何用剩菜做出美味佳餚,而且還 可以根據新鮮程度自動調整食物的擺放順序。

The self-cleaning “refrigerator of the future” will automatically place supermarket home delivery orders when required and move food near its use by date to the front of the shelves.

這種自潔式“未來冰箱”會自動下訂單讓超市送貨上門，它還會根據需要，把接 近保質期的食物放在擱架的最前面。

Researchers hope the fridge could clean itself, cut down on wasted food and offer up recipes ——which could be tailored to different countries, cuisines and seasons.

研究人員希望這種冰箱可以自動清潔、減少食物浪費並提供食譜,在這些方面 能夠滿足不同國家、不同烹飪風格和不同的季節需求。

With Brits putting in 36 million hours every year of free overtime — leaving little time for household chores — the refrigerator could help save precious time during hectic modern-day lives.

由於英國人每年都得超時加班3600萬個小時，幾乎沒有什麼閒暇時間去做家 務，而這種冰箱則可以幫助人們在繁忙的現代生活中節省寶貴的時間。

These new developments are in the pipeline thanks to collaborations3 between scientists at the University of Central Lancashire and online supermarket Ocado.

英國中央蘭開夏大學的科學家與網上“奧卡多”超市目前正在聯合開發這種未 來冰箱。

The planned new features include the ability for refrigerators to scan their shelves to see what is in stock and use this information to both plan meals and automatically place a supermarket food order.

按照計劃，未來冰箱的新特點包括能夠掃描擱架上的食物、清點庫存，利用這 些信息安排晚餐，並自動創建一份超市食物訂單。

The smart fridge will use “nano-articulated technology” shelf surfaces which, whilst smooth to the touch, will have millions of independently controlled micro-tiles which will manoeuvre products which soon need to be eaten to the front of the refrigerator.

這種智能冰箱的擱架表面將採用“納米合成技術”，由數百萬獨立控制的微型 瓷磚組成，手感細膩平滑，可以把必須儘快食用的食物挪到冰箱擱架最前面。

Ultrasound-scanning technology built into the door will allow the refrigerator to “swipe and capture” the food on a plate before and after mealtime, meaning it can assess what type and amount of food is wasted.

冰箱門所採用的超聲波掃描技術使得冰箱可以在餐前和餐後“捕捉”到盤子裏 的食物,這也就意味着它可以對被浪費的食物的種類和數量做出評估。

Dr. Simon Somerville, an expert from the University of Central Lancashire, said: “Cookbooks are essentially inventory lists of food items. To this end the most available information that the refrigerator will have is a set of permutations that allow a setnumber of ingredients to produce alarge number of quite different dishes. The key concept in the successful implementation of this process is accurate inventory tracking.”

中央蘭開夏大學專家西蒙?薩默維爾博士指出：“菜譜從本質上說是一份食品 的存庫清單。這樣說來，未來冰箱的信息系統可對所有食材進行排列組合，用有限的原料做出許多不同的菜餚，而成功執行這一程序的關鍵就在於對庫存的精確跟蹤。