As every new parent knows, sleep can go out the window after the arrival of a newborn.

如每對剛生孩子的爸媽所知，新生兒到來後，再也沒有夜夜好眠。

That was certainly the case for parents Radhika and Bharath Patil, who seeking relief for their own disrupted sleep patterns, put their electronic engineering backgrounds together to create a "smart crib".

這確實就是拉德西卡和巴拉特‧帕蒂爾的狀況，這對父母正在補救自身混亂的睡眠模式，結合他們的電子工程背景，創造了一個「智慧嬰兒床」。

Their crib, powered by artificial intelligence, combines a baby monitor, rocker, bassinet and crib in one.

他們把一台嬰兒監視器、弧形搖桿、搖籃和嬰兒床合而為一，由人工智慧來驅動嬰兒床。

"It’s not the amount of work around the baby that tires the parents, it’s the lack of sleep," Radhika Patil, Cradlewise chief executive, told Reuters in an interview.

「智慧搖籃」執行長拉德西卡‧帕蒂爾在訪問中告訴路透，「並非圍繞著嬰兒的工作量累到父母，而是睡眠不足。」

Early detection is key, she said, adding that the sooner parents can detect the baby waking up, the easier it is to get the child to fall back asleep.

她說，早期偵測是關鍵，並補充指出，父母越早發現嬰兒醒來，就越容易讓他們的孩子再度入睡。

"Once you put the baby in, the crib takes care of everything. That’s the aim," Bharath Patil said.

巴拉特‧帕蒂爾說，「只要把嬰兒放進去，嬰兒床就顧好每件事。這就是目的。」

Next step for touch-free payments? Amazon launches palm scanner 無接觸支付的下一步？亞馬遜推出手掌掃描器

Amazon has announced a new payment system for real-world shops which uses a simple wave of the hand.

亞馬遜發表1種用於實體商店的新支付系統，只需簡單揮動1隻手。

Its new Amazon One scanner registers an image of the user’s palm, letting them pay by hovering their hand in mid-air "for about a second or so", it says.

它的新Amazon One掃描，透過使用者手掌的圖像登入，他們在半空中揮動手掌約1秒即可付款。

Palm scanners are not a brand-new technology, and there are already some commercially available solutions.

手掌掃描不是全新的技術，已經有一些商用的可行方案。

"Palm-based identification is based on capturing the vein patterns of the palm," explains Dr Basel Halak of the Electronics and Computer Science School at the University of Southampton.

「手掌辨識是基於抓取手掌的靜脈紋」，英國南安普敦大學電子與電腦科學學院的巴塞爾．哈拉克博士解釋。

"These patterns are different for each finger and for each person, and as they are hidden underneath the skin’s surface, forgery is extremely difficult."

「每支手指與每個人的紋路都不一樣，而且因為他們藏在皮膚表面底下，非常難以偽造」。

The level of security was roughly similar to a fingerprint scan, but could be used at a distance of a few inches, making it much more practical.

安全等級與指紋掃描大致上差不多，但可以在相隔幾英吋的距離下使用，讓它的實用性更高。

Source article: https://features.ltn.com.tw/english/article/paper/1404953 ; https://features.ltn.com.tw/english/article/paper/1405736