Reading text

Working and free time activities – Has the future already begun?

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1 Imagine how you will travel to work in a couple of years: You live in Palo Alto, California,

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but work 350 miles away in Los Angeles. After your morning coffee, you click on a

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smartphone app to order your digital driver. An autonomous car comes to your front door three

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minutes later and takes you to the nearest HSTS (High Speed Transportation System), where

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a pod¹ transports you through a vacuum tube at 760 mph. When you reach the station in LA,

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a self-driving car is waiting to take you to your office. You will be at your destination in less

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than one hour. This isn’t something that might happen sometime in the next century. It will

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become reality by the end of this decade.



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2 A vision of a transportation system similar to HSTS

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came from a successful businessman. He says that a

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capsule-like pod would ride on an air cushion and would

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be driven down a steel tube at high speed. This system

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would be safer, faster and cheaper than trains, cars, boats

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or supersonic planes, for distances of up to 900 miles.

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And the solar panels installed on the outside of its tubes

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would generate more energy than the whole system used.

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Science fiction? No, there are companies prepared to take

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up the challenge. These start-ups have raised more than $100 million each for the development

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of prototypes. They say that they will have working systems in three to four years and that

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there are governments backing them. Elements of this technology have already been demon-

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strated in the Las Vegas desert.



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3 But this raises the central question in the digital age: Will commuting really be necessary?

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Another vision of a wealthy IT-business magnate is that of the physical and digital worlds

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coming together. This creates a space where digital representations of people – avatars –

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interact at work: They go to their virtual offices, sit at virtual desks in virtual cubes with won-

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derful artificially created views of the sea or mountains. Employees save lots of time by not

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having to commute, time they can use creatively for working. A digital world of this kind can

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already be experienced today with the use of virtual reality (VR) headsets and smart glasses.

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This new technology will also include augmented reality, a sort of step back from VR where

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elements of the digital world are layered on top of the real world. Apps where workers enter

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virtual offices and hold meetings already exist and several major tech companies have started

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using such “rooms” for meetings and training sessions.



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4 Young people are big gamers. The so-called digital natives are familiar with multiplayer

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online games and are able to manage different virtual identities. They have developed the skills

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to deal with cyberspace. In contrast, many older professionals with lots of experience in their

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jobs have only learned basic computing like the use of e-mail, web search and software pro-

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grams. They may have difficulty finding their way through the digital jungle of virtual reality.



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5 The main risk factors, however, are not the employees mentioned above but privacy and

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security. For example, an advertising agency tracking you in a virtual world might not just be

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reacting to “old-world data” like your age and gender. What if your body language and your

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physiological responses are being monitored, too? This company learns about your likes and

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dislikes and who you interact with and how. The use of this data for advertising purposes can

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be harmless. But what if the information that someone is a heavy smoker or likes extreme

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sports is passed on to health insurance companies or future employers? Or, even worse, a

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criminal with a stolen or fake identity joins a company and spies out classified data?



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6 Virtual reality will not only transform our working environment but also our free-time

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activities like going to concerts or going to the shops. Think of entertainment: one of the most

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popular pop groups in history appears as digital avatars in a breathtaking concert. In fact, there

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are no real people performing on stage; it’s a perfect illusion that one really must see to believe.

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The way you buy things is also about to change: you need new clothes but you don’t want to

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go downtown or cannot leave the house? All you need is a program that creates your own

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avatar who tries on clothes virtually in an online fitting room.



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7 For some people this vision may be both fascinating and frightening. Twenty years ago,

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when the digital revolution started, nobody imagined how mobile phones and the internet

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would change our everyday lives. Once again, we are standing at the dawn of a new techno-

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logical era which could have even more far-reaching consequences.

¹ pod = passenger capsule for train-like transportation systems

Task 1

Read the text “Working and free time activities – Has the future already begun?” above. Match the headings (A–J) with the paragraphs (1–7).

Write the letters in the boxes below. Use each letter only once.

There are two headings you do not need. One heading (H) is already matched.

Task 2

Answer the questions using information from the text above.

Short answers are enough. There is an example (0) at the beginning.

(0) How will long-distance commuting be mastered? by HSTS

(1) What is used to transport HSTS pods?

(2) Which group might have fewer problems coping with the new technology?

(3) What new kinds of information could be collected in the virtual context?

Name one.

(4) How can avatars support you when you go shopping online?

Task 3

Give the line(s) of the sentence in the text above where you find the following information. There is an example (0) at the beginning.

Task 4

The following words have various meanings. Which of the meanings below is the one used in the text above? Write the correct number in the box.

There is an example (0) at the beginning.

Task 1

Task 2

(1) What is used to transport HSTS pods? vacuum / tube(s) / vacuum tube(s)

(2) Which group might have fewer problems coping with the new technology? digital natives / young people

(3) What new kinds of information could be collected in the virtual context? Name one.

body language / physiological responses / likes and dislikes / smoker / extreme sports / how and who you interact with

(4) How can avatars support you when you go shopping online? try(ing) on clothes (in online fitting rooms)

Task 3

Task 4