166 Language skills Extras Explore 12 Thinking about the future Find these expressions in the text. Discuss what they could mean, using the context to help you. 1 hurdles 3 fly-by-wire 5 machines rising up and taking over 2 spy cameras 4 a self-perpetuating process 6 fend off an attack Check in a dictionary or ask your teacher if your ideas were correct. Talk in pairs. 1 Would you ever be prepared to use a car like this? 2 What could be the personal disadvantages? Your future Listen to Eamonn and Lindie talking about their future. 1 Who likes planning things? 2 Whose approach to life is more spontaneous? Listen to Eamonn and Lindie again. Who talks about these topics? There are two topics that don’t come up. ■■ recruitment ■■ a job in another country ■■ flying ■■ technical college ■■ money ■■ a summer job ■■ holidays ■■ health ■■ self-employment In pairs, talk about predictions, hopes and expectations for your future. Talk about your: ■■ ambitions and job interests ■■ appearance ■■ relationships ■■ … The following expressions might be useful: 12 a There really aren’t any technological hurdles to this idea, says Cummings. The biggest hurdles we have are psychological and cultural, in terms of giving up the car. But no new technology needs to be developed to have our own personal flying cars. What we have to do is improve production and reduce manufacturing costs, meaning that we need more robots. So this is almost a self-perpetuating process, where we need robots to build robots to make them cheaper. Should we worry about the machines rising up and taking over? No, what Cummings says she is worried about is hackers and terrorists who are up to no good. One of the things she is working on is trying to develop technology that allows any flying robot to be able to fend off a potential attack and be able to navigate itself without any GPS or any other external signal. There are lots of different possibilities for what your personal air vehicle could look like. You could have your own in your driveway or garage, and you could just jump in it and off you go. Or we could have a shared network like the plane version of Zipcar. People should be excited about this: it promises much in terms of safer travel, and in parts of the world where the road and air networks are poor, people will be able to get the goods and services they need. So, when we look at globalising this concept of personal air vehicles, we will see the quality of life improve dramatically for everyone around the world. b Speaking 13 a Eamonn Lindie Listening 14 a 54 426rm7 b Speaking 15 a I think I’ll be/have … I expect to be/have … I might be/have … I hope to be/have … I should be/have … Ideally, I’d like to be/have … Example: Ideally, I’d like to have a well-paid job in mechatronics. Get into new pairs and tell each other what you learned about your first partner. Would you say their approach to life is more planned or more spontaneous? b Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv
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