【英语生活】一款照料你生活的新设备──“母亲” A New 'Mother' to Digitally Nag You

More and more gadgets seek to replicate the sorts of things your mother used to needle you about: getting exercise, eating more slowly or brushing your teeth.

Now one company has decided to embrace that image -- it has named its product 'Mother.'

The device, from a firm called Sen.se, caught my eye at a press preview for the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, in part because of its unique design. It looks like a cross between WALL-E's girlfriend EVE and Russian nesting dolls. Mother has slightly creepy glowing eyes - but surely has your best interest at heart?

Mother's potential use is intriguing: Each Mother unit talks wirelessly to a set of smaller tracking devices, dubbed cookies, that can sense motion and temperature. You can put cookies on things and people -- on your body to gather data about how much you walk, on your coffee machine to track many espressos you drink, on your front door to track whenever it is opened, on your toothbrush to see how often and how long you brush ... and so forth.

Whenever the cookies get close to the Mother unit, they wirelessly send back their data to the Internet.

The company says users of Mother, which is supposed to start shipping in the spring, will be able look at all their info at once, or drill down on certain topics. And if something is really important, you can have an alert sent to your phone when a sensor detects a change.

So what does all that data do for you? That's a question that bedevils many Internet of Things gadgets on display here at CES. Mother's makers say the data she tracks can help you gain peace of mind by answering specific questions in your life, such as, 'Am I drinking enough water?' or, 'Did somebody open my secret drawer?'

Lots of companies want to connect parts of your body, home and life to the Internet -- a trend called the 'Internet of Things.' Mother's maker, Rafi Haladjian, told me he thinks having separate devices for all these things is too expensive, and too cumbersome because they can't talk to each other. 'There are not so many needs that are worth $200' for a distinct Internet-connected device, he said.

Mother, which costs $222 for a base unit and four cookies, is designed to be repurposed as new challenges or needs spring to mind, he said. It's kind of like a mobile device that can run an ever-changing array of apps.

Where did the name come from? 'We need a device that does all sort of things,' Haladjian said. 'The metaphor that matched this noble caring figure is the mother. She is not a nurse, a gardener or a cop -- she is everything at the same time.'

Geoffrey A. Fowler上图为2014年拉斯维加斯消费电子展上亮相的一款名为“母亲”的电子设备。该设备试图通过一个单一的系统把人和物同互联网连接起来。
如今，越来越多的电子设备正学着扮演母亲的角色，提醒你多锻炼、吃慢点、去刷牙。

现在有家公司干脆决定用“母亲”给一款新产品命名了。

这家名叫Sen.se的公司在2014年拉斯维加斯消费电子展(Consumer Electronics Show)的一场媒体预览会上发布了这款产品，我被它的独特设计所吸引。这款产品看上去有点像《机器人总动员》中瓦力(WALL-E)的女友伊芙(EVE)与俄罗斯套娃的结合体。“母亲”的眼睛会闪光，看上去有点怕人，但想必她是全心全意为你着想的吧？

“母亲”有什么用？听起来挺有趣。每台“母亲”都能与一系列名叫“曲奇”的小追踪器无线通话，“曲奇”能探测到动作和温度。你可以把“曲奇”放在物体上或是身上，放在身上的时候可以记录你走了多少路，放在咖啡机上可以记录你喝了多少咖啡，如果放在门上，不管什么时候有人开门你都能知道，要是放在牙刷上，你刷牙的频率和每次刷牙用多长时间都逃不过它的眼睛。凡此种种，不一而足。

而每当“曲奇”靠近“母亲”，数据就会通过无线方式传到网上。

Sen.se称，“母亲”（预定今春发货）的用户可以一次性浏览全部信息，也可以分别浏览不同主题；如果某件事特别重要，一旦感应器探测到事情有变化，你的手机还能收到一条提醒。

收集这些数据有什么用呢？这是让消费电子展上许多物联网(Internet of Things)设备都感到头疼的问题。“母亲”的设计者们说，这些数据可以回答你生活中的具体问题，例如“我喝的水够多吗？”“是不是有人偷偷打开了我的私密抽屉？”知道这些会让你觉得心里踏实。

现在许多企业都涉足“物联网”，想把每个人的家庭、生活甚至身体上的一些零部件都与互联网连接起来。“母亲”的设计者Rafi Haladjian对我说，要是每件事都需要预备一台单独的设备，那就太昂贵了，而且由于不同设备之间不能相互交流，用起来也蹩脚。他说，花200美元购买一个只能满足单一功能的联网设备，不会有太大销路的。

“母亲”的售价是222美元，包括一台基础设备和四个“曲奇”。Haladjian说，这款产品在设计上是为了解决和满足用户脑子里随时可能蹦出来的问题和需求，就想一台能够运行不断变化的应用软件的移动设备。

为什么用“母亲”给这款产品命名呢？Haladjian说，“母亲”切合了这款产品高尚的关爱形象。她不是护士，不是园丁，也不是警察，但同时又扮演着所有这些角色。