未來家電高智能 冰箱洗衣機可"交談"

A fridge that talks to your washing machine and a television that instructs your dishwasher. It's all possible at CeBIT, the world's top high-tech fair.

But the question is: what's the point?

"Well, for example, you could be sitting on your sofa in your living room and you want to turn on your washing machine," said Christian Prause, a developer of the yet-to-be finalised "Hydra" software.

"If your smartphone is equipped with our technology, you can send a message to the washing machine to turn itself on."

"And if for whatever reason it doesn't work, you can ask your fridge to transmit the order to the washing machine," he added.

Prause said vacationers too need not panic if they realise they leave home in haste.

"Imagine you are 200 kilometres (130 miles) away, on holiday, and you realised you have forgotten to close your curtains."

Not to worry. You can send a quick text message to your curtain remote control. If that doesn't work, you can always get your television or your radio to lend a hand.

The fruit of four years of research by 10 different partners, including the German Fraunhofer Institute, the Hydra project is financially supported by the European Union.

Hydra "saves you time, energy and hassle," Prause insisted. With a bit of luck, "such a system could perhaps eventually appear in the shops."

冰箱和洗衣機“交談”、電視向洗碗機“下令”……在世界頂級高科技展會德國漢諾威通信和信息技術博覽會（CeBIT）上，這一切都成爲了現實。

但問題是：這有什麼意義呢？

Hydra軟件尚未最終完工，研發人員克里斯汀•普瑞斯說：“比如你正坐在客廳的沙發上，想打開洗衣機。

“如果你的智能手機安裝了我們的技術，你就可以給洗衣機發條信息，命令它自己開工。”

他說：“不管出於什麼原因，如果它沒有開始洗，你還可以讓冰箱當‘傳聲筒’，讓它去‘告訴’洗衣機。”

普瑞斯稱，度假者如果發現走得太匆忙了，也完全不必擔心。

“假如你正在離家有200公里（合130英里）遠的地方度假，突然想起來忘記拉窗簾了。”

不必擔心。你可以立即向窗簾遙控器發送一條信息。如果它沒有“開工”，你還可以讓電視或者收音機幫你傳個信兒。

Hydra項目爲歐盟資助，歷時4年，由德國弗勞恩霍夫研究院等10所不同的機構合作完成。

普瑞斯稱Hydra系統“節約了你的時間、精力，給你免去了麻煩。”如果運氣不錯的話，“你以後就可以在商店裏買到這樣一個系統了。”

Vocabulary:

lend a hand：to lend assistance; help out（幫助）