After years of research and tests, the hybrid car was developed and put on the market. It's an interesting and exciting new improvement in today's world as we look for better ways to protect the quality of the air we breathe and protect our natural resources.

The quality of our air is affected by many different things. But one of the largest sources of air pollution is the burning of fossil fuel such as coal and gasoline which is used to power a car's engine. The Environmental Protection Agency（EPA）has set national standards to help control the level of harmful pollutants sent off into the air, and the automobile industry has acted by producing the hybrid car that uses less gas and therefore causes less pollution.

A hybrid car is a combination of a regular car that runs on gasoline and an electric car that is battery-powered. Some people tend to think that since the hybrid car is partially electric, you have to plug it in to charge it. But that's not how it works. The 144 volt battery pack（电池组）is actually recharged through the energy that is produced when the car's brakes are used. This is referred to as "regenerative braking", because it generates electricity.

Although the hybrid car still runs on gasoline most of the time, this helps it use less gas than a regular car. When the driver stops at a traffic light, the engine automatically shuts off to save fuel. Then, as soon as the driver puts the car in gear and touches the gas pedal（踏板）, the engine starts backing up.

Have you ever ridden in a car with someone which ran out of gas？That probably wouldn't happen if you were riding in a hybrid car. It flashes a warning on its computer screen that says, "I am low on gas. "When it completely runs out, the warning reads, "YOU ARENOW OUT OF GAS！"Then the electric power supply starts to work to let the driver travel a few more miles to a gas station.

   Technological innovation（创新）may not give you a warm feeling. 【小题1】 Messaging apps are examples of technology that is helping bring people together. It’s ready to continue improving our lives as innovation allows technology to really understand how we live.

【小题2】

Some of the most popular and widely adopted innovations make things we’re already doing easier. A well-designed piece of technology can transform something that consumes time into a worry-free touch of your finger, giving you more time to spend with friends and family.

Developers keep finding new and brilliant ways to prove our identities online. With fingerprints and voice recognition, technology keeps getting better at proving we are who we say we are. 【小题3】 .The more trust we have, the easier it will be to fully welcome the aspects of fintech（金融科技）and have control of our financial data.

Crowdfunding（众筹）technology keeps breaking down walls that may have previously kept good ideas from being realized. Here’s how it works: You throw your project to people through an online platform. 【小题4】 . By connecting dreamers and inventors to a new type of capital, technology is giving more creative ideas the opportunity to become a reality.

As technology continues improving, it becomes easier to build and keep a connection with someone who isn’t in the same location as you. 【小题5】 . And think about how great it will be when you can communicate with your friends and relatives in virtual reality. It will be the next best thing to be together in person.

   New technology rules the whole world now. But I still remember when I was a child, I did not have a cell phone or a computer because it was not necessary at all in those days. The Internet was not popular and the touch screen technology was unknown.

At this time here in the US smartphones are really a need, especially for young and business people. There are many applications (应用软件) really useful like maps, dictionaries, e-mails and games.

For me, I use my smartphone to check the weather and to look for something on the Internet and of course to keep communicating through calls and texts. Besides, I like music applications, GPS and Facebook.

Many tests have discovered that cell phones cause damage to us because they send out radioactive (具有放射性的) waves to our bodies and this could cause cancer.

Psychologists say that these devices can affect behavior and I believe everyone knows it is harmful to the eyes if we are sitting for a long time in front of the computer. However, it seems to be difficult for us to give up, even if we know how bad it is for our health. The use of technology becomes more and more important in our lives.

I think the use of technology has brought us unimaginable things. If we use technology correctly, I am sure it would be possible to decrease the damage to our bodies.

Keep in mind that it is important not to focus only on technology, but to spend time with our families and people close to us.

Can you imagine wear a pretty sweater made from garbages? It could happen! A few companies across the country are making clothes from things that are being thrown away by people. For example, company makes sweaters of old plastic bottles. First, the bottles are cut into small pieces. The pieces are melted. Then the melting plastic is made into long and thin threads. The threads are used to make sweaters which feels very soft and light.

Believe it or not, these sweaters sell good in spite of the fact which they are not cheap at all. Many people thought that these recycled clothes can help us cut down on garbage.

   You'll probably never go to Mars or sing on the stage with The Rolling Stones. But if virtual reality （VR）ever lives up to its promise, you might be able to do all these things - and many more - without even leaving your home.Unlike real reality, virtual reality means simulating（模拟）bits of our world. Apart from games and entertainment, it's long been used for training airline pilots and surgeons and for helping scientists to figure out difficult problems such as the structure of protein molecules（蛋白质分子）. Then how does it work?

Close your eyes and think of virtual reality and you probably picture something like this:a man wearing a wrap-around headset and data gloves wired into a powerful workstation or supercomputer. What distinguishes VR from an ordinary computer experiences the nature of the input and output. While an ordinary computer uses things like a keyboard, a mouse, or speech recognition for input, VR uses sensors that detect how your body is moving. A PC displays output on a screen while VR uses two screens （one for each eye） , surround-sound speakers, and maybe some forms of touch and body feedback as well.

VR has been routinely used by scientists,doctors, engineers, architects, archaeologists, and the military for about the last 30 years. Difficult and dangerous jobs are hard to train for. How  can you safely practice taking a trip to space, making a parachute jump, or carrying out brain surgery? All these things are obvious candidates for virtual reality applications.

Like any technology, virtual reality has both good and bad points. Critics always raise the risk that people may be addicted to alternative realities to the point of ignoring their real-world lives, but this criticism has been leveled at everything from radio and TV to computer games and the Internet. Like many technologies, VR takes little or nothing away from the real world: you don't have to use it if you don't want to.