Упражнения уровня IELTS по английскому языку. № 21.

Toyota, in collaboration with the Sony Corporation, has just developed what might be the car of the future.

The Pod (which stands for 'personalisation on demand') is not yet in production but it is already a major talking point. It is a four-seater car with a 1.5 litre engine. Nothing unusual there, you may think. But you would be wrong. First of all, it doesn't have a steering wheel. Instead it has a joystick that you control with one hand. But more significantly, the Pod has something that no other car has - a personality.

You notice something different when you see it from the front. It is designed to look like a face: the headlights are the eyes, the sideview mirrors are the ears and the grille looks like a mouth. When you approach it, the grille lights up orange and 'smiles' at you. At the same time, the doors open and the seats turn toward you. It even has an antenna at the back that wags like a dog's tail to show that it is happy to see you.

When there is a problem, the smile changes to blue when it's 'sad,' for example when it runs out of petrol, or even red when it's 'angry,' for example if it thinks you're driving too dangerously. It senses how you are controlling the car, for example your speed and steering. It also detects how you are feeling through special sensors on the joystick; these measure your heart rate and perspiration. It then reacts intelligently by making adjustments such as altering the suspension, changing the temperature or playing relaxing music. Eventually, the designers hope, the car and the driver will come to 'understand' each other.

So will our car be our friend in the future? It all sounds like something from a science-fiction movie, but amazingly, the thing already exists!

(1) You can't buy the Pod at the moment. T / F /
(2) The Pod has a normal steering system. T /F /
(3) The headlights come on when it sees you. T / F /
(4) The antenna moves when you approach the Pod. T / F /
(5) The Pod stops if you are driving badly. T / F /
(6) The Pod can change the way the driver feels. T / F /