Episode Details

Hello everybody, and welcome to a new episode of News Bites! I'm Trevor Tortomasi… And I'm Clifford Chu. In today's news… Pingtung sends pineapples to Singapore, robots learn to peel bananas in Japan, and dogs get six-star service in South Africa. All that and more, coming up next. ________________________________ 屏東外銷鳳梨至新加坡 Pingtung Sends Pineapples to Singapore Did you know that there are more than 90 different kinds of pineapple in Taiwan? To most people, they may look almost identical. 對大部分人來說，不同種類的鳳梨外觀都一樣。 Pineapples first came to Taiwan from China, during the Qing Dynasty (清朝). And different kinds of pineapple from Hawaii and Southeast Asia were also introduced, during the Japanese colonial period (日本殖民地時代). During that time, Taiwan became the third biggest exporter of pineapples in the world. 那段時間台灣成為世界第三大鳳梨出口國。 Now, most of Taiwan's pineapples are grown in Pingtung, Kaohsiung, and Tainan. But Pingtung's farmers like to say that the country's most famous pineapple is the "golden diamond", also called the "Tainung 17", which can be canned (裝成罐頭) or eaten fresh (新鮮地吃). Pingtung farmers may be a little bit biased (有點偏心). But they say their golden diamond pineapples are the best in the country, because they are sweet, not too sour, and they have a thin rind (果皮), which makes them easy to peel (剝開). The Pingtung County government says the region harvests (收穫) more than 120 thousand tons of pineapples every year. Most of the pineapples are harvested between February and June, and they are sent to mainland China, and Japan. In fact, nearly all of the pineapples harvested in Pingtung at the beginning of this year went to Japan. But farmers are now hoping that they'll find new fans outside of North Asia, and they've sent their first pineapple shipment to Singapore. And Pingtung pineapples will now be sold at one of Singapore's largest supermarket chains (連鎖超市). If the Singapore market picks up, Taiwan may have a new regular customer (新的固定買家) for its golden fruit. ________________________________ 日本機器人學習剝香蕉皮 Robots Learn to Peel Bananas in Japan Robots can do plenty of things. They can clean floors… and they can deliver food. And during the last Olympics in Beijing, robots were even used to cook meals, which looked impressive (令人印象深刻), even though we're not sure what robot cooking tastes like. Now, Japanese scientists say they have trained a robot to do something a bit more challenging (更有挑戰性的). They've taught a robot to peel bananas. It doesn't take much for people like you and me to peel bananas. But this action is much more difficult for a robot, since they need to peel the delicate fruits without squashing them. 但是對機器人來說，這個動作困難多了。他們需要把這種細緻的水果去皮，並且不能把它?爛。 Pictures from the University of Tokyo, where the banana-peeling robot can be found, showed mechanical (機械性的) hands reaching for a banana and then peeling it. Researchers who are training the robot to peel the banana say they had to demonstrate (展現) the action hundreds of times, before they had enough data (數據) to teach the robot how to do the simple action. In the end, it took the robot more than 13 hours of training (訓練) before it could peel a banana. And even then, the robot was only successful 57 percent of the time. 就算機器人練習了13個鐘頭，成功率也只有57趴。 But researchers say they still hope to train robots to do other easy human tasks. And that the robots can help alleviate (減輕) Japan's ongoing labor shortage, so they can do things like make lunch boxes or work with food processing (食品加工). Let's hope it takes researchers less time to teach their robots new actions… Or it could take the robots a long time, to do things that humans can do in a few seconds! ________________________________ 六星級服務 給南非寵物狗 Dogs Get Six-Star Service in South Africa Dog owners who live in the South African city of Cape Town (南非的開普敦市) have a new way