Disagreeing with others in a discussion ■■ Read the text “The smart home that spied on its owner” on bbc.com (search for it or scan this page with the QuickMedia app). Alternatively, search for another text on a homeowner’s or resident’s experiences with smart technology. ■■ Identify and list some arguments mentioned in this text against living in a smart home. ■■ Get together with a partner. ■■ Prepare a short list of arguments in favour of living in a smart home, based on your previous knowledge, the quotes on smart homes & the internet of things below, and the article “Are Smart Homes a Smart Idea?” (1 2.3). ■■ Have a short discussion in which − − one of you presents an argument in favour of smart homes, and − − the other one uses a phrase from the lists “Disagreeing with someone and introducing counterarguments” (1 2.7) and “Additional phrases for debates from the ‘Core Inventory for General English’” (1 2.8) to introduce a counterargument. For example, this is what you could say: A B ■■ Use as many phrases as possible. ■■ Switch roles after a few rounds. This is excellent training for the dialogue part of your exam. Quotes on smart homes & the internet of things To do [C] [D] [F] [G] 2.9 What I love about smart homes is that extra level of safety they provide. It happens so often that I leave my house and then start wondering if I really turned off the stove. With a smart home, I can just check on my phone if everything is OK. That may be true, but at the same time you increase the overall vulnerability of your house considerably by exposing it to the entire world online … JUST FOR FUN Why was the Italian chef locked out of his house? Because he had gnocchi. 2.10 “The world would have had an automated clothes folding machine long before the first connected smart bulb was introduced if my mom had been sitting at the design table.” Hod Fleishman, BCG Digital Ventures & Forbes Contributing Editor on Tech Innovation “The instrument (the telescreen, it wa s called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. […] The tele screen received and transmitted simultaneou sly. Any sound that Winston made, above the l evel of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained with in the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether yo u were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork . It was even conceivable that they watched e verybody all the time.” From the novel “1984” by George Orwell (written in 1948) “Despite continued security problems, the IoT will spread and people will become increasingly dependent on it. The cost of breaches will be viewed like the toll taken by car crashes, which have not persuaded very many people not to drive.” Richard Adler, Institute for the Future “We have a deep need and desire to connect. Everything in the history of communication technology suggests we will take advantage of every opportunity to connect more richly and deeply. I see no evidence for a reversal of that trend.” Peter Morville, Semantic Studios “Your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provid e you with Voice Recognition features and e valuate and improve the features. Please be a ware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that informatio n will be among the data captured and transmi tted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.” From Samsung’s Local Privacy Policy for its Smart TV systems 24 Key aspects Strategies Sample task 2 Smart homes, smart lives Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv
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