Imagine a future where your furniture flies, reacting and responding to your everyday needs. You could have an almost-sentient desk that jets off when it feels you’re over-working, or a remote control that floats over when you think you’ve lost it.
想象一下，未來你的家具會飛，還能滿足與回應日常需求。當你工作過量時，智能書桌會自動飛離；當你以為遙控器丟了，它會自動浮現在你眼前。

In an interactive project dubbed “L’evolved,” Harshit Agrawal and Sang-Won Leigh, two researchers from the MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces Group, are exploring how to make everyday objects transform into “flying smart agents.”
來自MIT媒介流界面小組的兩位研究者哈什特·阿格拉瓦爾與桑王·利，正探究如何讓日常用品轉變為“會飛的智能物件”。

“We really look at this as a way of making the objects around us kind of speak with us,” Agrawal said. “In the sense that they somehow know what they are doing, so they might prevent you from doing something wrong or light up your path in a dark environment.”
阿格拉瓦爾說：“事實上，我們希望能讓身邊的物品與自己對話，即物品從某種程度上了解你的需求，因此它們能避免你做出不當舉動，或者懂得在黑暗中為你亮起一盞燈。”

So far, their project features drones acting as flying tables that adjust to your height, fly away once you’re done, or auto-eject if you start using the wrong pen on your homework. They also have a lampshade drone that hovers above you, focusing light on where you need it when you’re reading a book in the dark.
到目前為止，這項以智能飛翔為特點的家具計劃中，有會飛的桌子能自動適應你的身高，一旦工作完成，它會自動飛離；有當你做作業時拿錯了會自動彈開的鋼筆；還有懸浮在你身邊的燈罩，它會自動在黑暗中為你提供光亮。

To power their flying furniture, the pair used a motion capture system where a camera tracks everything in the room—including the person and the drone, which receives commands from the computer.
為了快速推動飛翔家具，兩位研究者使用了動態捕捉技術，讓攝像機對房間的每一個角落進行追蹤，包括主人和該家具，然后通過電腦接受指令。

“The computer knows where the drone wants to go by tracking where the person is,” explained Leigh. “We are feeding that data from the computer to the drone so that it can move smoothly to the required position.”
利解釋道：“電腦通過追蹤人的位置，就能知曉飛翔的家具應去往何處。我們將電腦中的數據傳輸給家具，使其準確移動到指定位置。”

Currently, the duo faces two main challenges: stabilizing the drone, and feeding it a regular power supply (at the moment, it’s connected to a power socket).
如今，兩位研究者面臨著兩大挑戰：增強飛翔家具的穩定型，并實現充電功能（現在它們仍依賴電源插座）。

Drones can’t support much weight yet, so the team opted for a paper tabletop. They soon found, however, that if they placed the tabletop directly on top of the drone, it blocked airflow. To solve this problem, they made the distance between the drone base and its paper tabletop greater so it could keep flying.
飛翔家具還無法承受過多的重量，因此研究團隊選用了紙質臺面。然而他們很快發現，如果直接將臺面擱到飛翔家具上，會阻礙飛行。為了解決這個問題，他們加大了飛翔家具底座和紙質臺面的距離，以保證它能飛行。

Agrawal said that in the future, they could optimize stability by replacing a hovering desk with one that parks in front of users when they need it, then clears off when the user has finished their task.
阿格拉瓦爾認為，在未來，他們將優化飛翔家具的性能，用飛翔的桌子代替用戶面前靜態的桌子，當使用者工作完成后，桌子能自動離開。

Ultimately, the researchers are set on enchanting everyday appliances so that they surpass their limitations as static objects, and have a more socially collaborative relationship with their human owners.
最終，研究者將讓日常家電也魔力四射，它們將超越傳統靜態物品的局限，與人類建立更好的協作關系。

Vocabulary

sentient: 有感情的；有感覺力的
lampshade: 燈罩
power socket: 電源插座

英文來源：motherboard.vice.com
譯者：張靚
審校&編輯：丹妮