Upper-intermediate

The iconic "Sophie" pedestrian crossing signal (pictured above) first appeared outside City Hall in Amersfoot, the Netherlands, in December 2000. Since then, she has inspired female figures on crossing signals around the world. As Dutch Ambassador Wim Geerts said in 2013, "Sophie is much more than a traffic light, as she encourages us to think about women's rights." She also seems to improve pedestrian safety—more people stop for Sophie than for lights with common male figures.

Mascots, or yuru-kyara, are incredibly popular in Japan. There are yuru-kyara for everything, from sports teams to prefectures to a toilet disinfectant (seriously). Now they're offering the world a mascot for the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Around 48 million people have some degree of hearing loss. Given the rise of wearing face masks in public, hearing-impaired people are struggling to understand those wearing ordinary masks as they muffle their voices. One way to solve this problem is to put on masks with clear windows.

When wearing such a mask, people can see your lips, which allows the deaf or hard-of-hearing to lipread and see facial expressions.

Technology has been quite a godsend for fraudsters. In the past, if you wanted to recreate a valuable painting you needed to painstakingly paint it, or if you wanted to open a fraudulent bank account, you had to physically grow a moustache to fool a bank teller. But these days, it's much easier. To beat two-factor authentication, scammers can simply transfer your phone number to a new SIM card and gain access to every penny you own.

Classic Australian lollies Redskins and Chicos are set to be renamed so they don't marginalise consumers, confectionery company Allens has announced.

The decision was made by the brand's parent company, Nestlé, because a redskin is a slang term for Native Americans in the U.S., where it is considered offensive. Chico, which is Spanish for "boy", is also used in a derogatory way. 

In a Forbes article, Bernard Marr predicts the 25 most important technology trends that will define the next 10 years. Not surprisingly, a number of them involve A.I. and IoT. Others will come from things like virtual, augmented and mixed realities; nanotechnologies; 3D printing; and Big Data.

The past 20 years have given us major technological game-changers, like Bluetooth, social media, and, of course, the iPhone. Other innovations include flash drives, hybrid cars, GPS, and the Cloud.

According to CNN, the outbreak of the coronavirus is pushing many Americans to buy their groceries online. With shoppers stuck in their homes, downloads of Walmart's grocery app and Shipt increased by 160%, and 124%, respectively, in early March compared with the same period last year. Instacart more than tripled, increasing by 218%!

According to BigThink, a publication focused on education, what consciousness is and where it comes from has absorbed great minds for thousands of years. In today's world, it's a question posed by physicists, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists. There are a few prevailing theories.

The first is known as materialism. This is the idea that consciousness emanates from matter. In the case of people, by the firing of neurons inside the brain. If you take the brain out of the equation, then consciousness doesn't exist at all.

Global News, a Canadian news outlet, reported that astronomers detected an explosion over fifteen times the size of our galaxy. This makes it the biggest blast ever recorded.

According to National Geographic, the remains of two white giraffes were found in a nature conservancy in northeastern Kenya. The giraffes likely had a rare genetic condition called leucism, which inhibits skin cells from producing pigment. It is believed that they were killed by poachers.

The animals had been well-known since 2017, after rangers spotted them in the conservancy and posted a video to YouTube, which then went viral.

The cashless economy has become increasingly prevalent in developed countries such as the U.S. and Japan. Consumers are incentivized to use debit or credit cards through discounts and freebies, and banks and credit card companies collect information on people’s spending habits.

Over the past 20 years, American television entered a Golden Age. Before the turn of the millennium, most TV shows followed familiar patterns: crime shows and situational comedies—also known as sitcoms—consisted of self-contained episodes with little plot development through a season or the run of the show.

According to The Japan Times, the tragic events of March 11, 2011, when a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered meltdowns at three nuclear reactors in Fukushima, forced Japan to reconsider nuclear energy. Today, 24 of Japan’s 33 reactors remain offline.

After the disaster, the government increased its push toward renewable energy, but it also invested heavily in coal projects. The dirty fuel was seen as the fastest, cheapest and most reliable way to keep the lights on.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported in 2018 that a private zoo in Alberta, Canada, was charged after a bear from the facility was taken through a Dairy Queen drive-thru in a pickup truck and fed ice cream through the vehicle's window.

The Japan Times reports that the number of hikikomori in Japan, or those choosing complete withdrawal from all social interactions, has grown over the past few years. Psychiatrist Tamaki Saito, an expert on the subject, has stated that there might be some 2 million hikikomori in Japan, more than the official government estimate of 1.15 million. He also warned that the total number of Japanese foregoing social interactions might be as high as 10 million.

The novel coronavirus COVID-19 has impacted the consulting industry in ways that seem potentially ruinous. But do not lose hope. Yes, consultants are used to traveling a lot, and widespread travel restrictions make that impossible. And much of consultancy work is done face-to-face in internal and client meetings, which can’t be done when gatherings are prohibited. There is also the fear that businesses will suspend contracts in the economic downturn.

This simple equation is at the heart of the global economy: One person’s spending = another person’s income.

It’s referred to as “supply and demand”—producers will supply as much as consumers demand. So if consumers aren’t buying anything, producers won’t be able to sell anything. In other words, whenever you buy something, you pay someone else’s wages.

In 2017, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government estimated that the economic effects of the upcoming Olympic Games will be worth about $292 billion over a span of 17 years. In an attempt to cash in on this, a wide array of businesses in Japan have been ramping up preparations, including the taxi industry.

In January 2018, the Japan Federation of Hire-Taxi Associations formulated measures for the Olympics and Paralympics. The association set a goal of having 9,000 drivers taking English lessons by April, and over 16,000 have already completed them.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, a report studying freelancers published by consulting firm Mackenzie said that the gig economy has done away with workers’ rights achieved through decades of activism and legislation. Mackenzie concluded that freelancers face labor conditions similar to those of workers before the Industrial Revolution.

For nearly a century, Kowloon Walled City stood out as a rare modern example of an ungoverned territory. When Great Britain took Hong Kong from the Chinese, they left a Chinese enclave in Kowloon, near Hong Kong island. As the 20th century unfolded, consecutive Chinese governments neglected the governance of the enclave, the British refused to get involved, and it took on a life of its own.