VOA常速英语2015--帮助学生做数学题的手机应用

帮助学生做数学题的手机应用

WASHINGTON— School children usually can count on their parents to help them check if their homework is correct. But as students get older and their assignments get more complex, few parents are qualified 1 to assist them. At least for mathematics there is a solution, as a Croatian computer whiz is responsible for creating an application for solving equations.

Computer programmer and entrepreneur Damir Sabol has created an application using smartphone cameras to scan mathematical equations and return results within seconds. But the app, called PhotoMath, does much more than that, he said.

电脑程序员兼企业家达米尔·萨博开发了一款使用智能手机摄像头扫描数学方程式、然后几秒钟就能给出答案的应用。不过，他说这款名为PhotoMath的应用能做的事情不止这些。

"The students can check the results in their textbooks. They can calculate quickly and get the result fast, and see whether they did it right or not, but they can also get all the steps used to solve math problems. So it's not just a matter of getting results, but the whole process of getting to the solution. And we offer the entire process, step by step, along with explanations of what is being done. So for someone who is alone with a textbook, who just stares at equations and doesn't know what to do, our app can help them in many cases," said Sabol.

“学生们可以核对教科书上的答案，可以很快进行运算并得出结果，看到自己是否做对了，还可以得到解决数学问题所需的全部步骤。所以这不仅是得到结果的问题，还能得到解决问题的整个过程。我们提供整个过程，一步一步的，同时对每一步进行解释。因此，对于那些只有一本教科书，那些盯着方程式不知道怎么办的学生来说，我们的应用能在很多方面帮助到他们。”

PhotoMath was unveiled at a computer fair in London last October. Sabol said that since then, the free application has been downloaded more than 11 million times.

PhotoMath是去年10月份在伦敦的一个电脑展上推出的，萨博说从那时起，这款免费应用就被下载了1100多万次。

"We hear from mothers who say, 'Finally, I can help my children solve mathematics.' We hear from teachers who say their entire classroom is using the app," he said.

“我们听到母亲们会说，‘我终于可以帮助孩子解决数学题了。’我们听到老师们说整个教室里的学生都在使用这款应用。”

Meanwhile, the inventor has been working on an upgrade for the successful app.

同时，发明者一直在努力对这款成功的应用进行升级。

"We are about to release a new version of the app. First, we will release the Android version, which has a much bigger market, and we expect that to be the next element of growth. But not only that, the new version will support much more complex math problems, and we believe it will be much more interesting and useful for users, which is also why we expect the number of users to grow even further," said Sabol.

“我们准备发布这款应用的新版本，首先，我们将推出安卓版，这个版本的市场更大，我们预料这将是下一个发展的因素。但不仅如此，新版本将支持更复杂的数学难题，我们相信它对用户来说更有趣，起更大的帮助，因此我们预测用户数量还会继续上升。”

Sabol's company, MicroBLINK, made a breakthrough in 2012 with its PhotoPay scanning technology used for mobile banking 2, which scans bills and enables their instant payment. He said he has no regrets about making PhotoMath free because it has enabled his company to build a large database. His project has attracted attention from major educational companies.

萨博的公司MicroBLINK于2012年凭借其用于移动银行的PhotoPay扫描技术取得了突破，该技术能扫描账单并进行即时付款。他说并不后悔让PhotoMath免费的做法，因为它已让自己的公司建造一个大数据库，他的项目已经吸引了大教育公司的关注。

"They see our technology is something that really works in education, and that it is something children want to use, and they see lots of potential for that. We believe this has really huge potential," he said.

“他们看到我们的技术在教育上真正起到作用，也是孩子们希望用的，他们从中看到了很多潜力，我们相信这方面确实潜力巨大。”

Students who prefer electronic gadgets 3 to books do, too.

那些喜欢电子设备胜过喜欢书的学生们也觉得这个应用很有潜力。