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If businesses are to get reluctant workers back into the office, finding ways to maintain social distancing will be key. An Israeli company thinks it can help, using smart sensors mounted on workplace ceilings.

疫情之下，如果企业想把不情愿复工的员工拉回办公室，找到保持社交距离的方法很关键。一家以色列公司认为在办公室天花板上安装智能传感器将有助于保持社交距离。

PointGrab developed its technology before the pandemic to help workspace managers optimize how employees use office space. About the size of a smoke alarm, the sensors can record the exact number and location of people in buildings including offices, hotels and restaurants.

PointGrab公司在疫情前就研发出了这一技术，帮助职场的管理者们优化员工使用办公空间的方式。这种传感器和烟雾警报器差不多大，可以记录办公大楼、酒店和餐厅等建筑物内人员的精确数量和位置。

One of the company's first clients was Deloitte, which installed the system at its flagship London office last year. PointGrab's sensors were connected to screens in the building to show the availability of desks and shared areas in real time. PointGrab CEO Doron Shachar says it was one of a range of innovations that helped Deloitte fit 30% more people into 3% less space.

德勤会计师事务所是这家公司最早的客户之一，德勤去年在伦敦总部办公室安装了这一系统。PointGrab的传感器和建筑物内的屏幕相连，实时显示可供使用的办公桌数量和共享空间。PointGrab公司的首席执行官多伦·沙哈尔说，这是该公司的一系列创新项目之一，帮助德勤公司在比原来小3%的空间内安置了比原来多30%的人员。

Now PointGrab has adapted the technology so the sensors can also monitor social distancing by keeping track of how far apart people are, and whether they're traveling in one direction around a building.

如今，PointGrab公司将这一技术调整后应用到社交隔离上，通过让传感器追踪记录人与人之间的距离来监控社交隔离的情况，以及人们是否向大楼的同一个方向移动。

Workspace managers can set up alerts for when two people are closer than two meters for more than 30 seconds, for example.

举例来说，职场管理者可以设置警报，当两个人的间距小于两米，并保持这样的间距超过30秒时，警报就会响起。

The sensors have been included in the "six feet office" concept created by real estate services company Cushman & Wakefield to encourage employees to practice social distancing. They are currently being used in this way at a university in the Netherlands, and at an innovation hub in Belgium.

这种传感器被运用在房地产顾问公司戴德梁行的“六英尺办公室”概念中，以鼓励员工践行社交隔离。目前荷兰的一所大学和比利时的一个创新中心正在使用这种传感器来实行社交隔离。

While the social distancing innovation is new, PointGrab has deployed more than 10,000 sensors for workspace optimization, including in the offices of Coca-Cola, Facebook and Dell.

尽管这一社交隔离创新项目刚出不久，PointGrab已经在可口可乐、脸书和戴尔等公司的办公室安装了超1万台传感器来优化办公空间利用率。

Workers might not like the idea of being monitored, but PointGrab says no images or identifying features are recorded. Instead, each employee is represented as an anonymous dot on a dashboard.

员工也许不喜欢被监视，不过PointGrab表示，传感器不会记录任何影像或可识别的特征。事实上，每个员工在监控仪表盘上都显示为一个无名的小点。

So many things can keep you from seeing your loved ones in person, from busy schedules to long distances to a rather unexpected pandemic. Fortunately, thanks to modern technology, the people we miss are often only a phone call or text message away. But if you're someone who's more prone to typed out messages than verbal ones, you may want to reconsider. According to science, if you want to feel more connected to the people you're talking to, you should call them instead of texting.

繁忙的日程、遥远的距离、突如其来的疫情……太多的事情阻止你亲自去见你所爱的人。幸运的是我们有现代科技，只要一通电话或一个短信就能联系上我们想念的人。但如果你更倾向于发短信而不是打电话，你可能需要重新考虑一下。科学告诉我们，如果你想和交谈的人感觉更亲近，你应该给他们打电话，而不是发短信。

A new study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, found that communication interactions that included voice, like a phone call or video chat, created stronger social bonds than communication through typing, like text messaging or email.

发表在《实验心理学杂志》的一项新研究发现，打电话或视频聊天等包含语音的通信互动比发短信和电子邮件等打字通信方式更能加强社交纽带关系。

In the study, researchers used various experiments to gauge connectedness. In one, they asked 200 people to make predictions about what it would be like to reconnect with an old friend by email or by phone and then assigned people at random to do one or the other. Although people anticipated that a phone call would be more awkward, hearing someone's voice actually made the experience better.

在这项研究中，研究人员运用了各种实验来衡量纽带关系。在其中一项实验中，他们请200个人预想通过电邮或打电话重新和一个老朋友取得联系的场景，然后随机指派人们发电邮或打电话。尽管人们预期打电话会更尴尬，但听到对方的声音实际上会让体验更好。

"People reported they did form a significantly stronger bond with their old friend on the phone versus email, and they did not feel more awkward," study co-author Amit Kumar, an assistant professor of marketing at the McCombs School of Business, said in a statement.

研究报告的合著者、麦康姆商学院营销学助理教授阿米特·库马尔在一份声明中称：“人们报告称他们与老朋友打电话相比发电邮可以建立起更强的纽带关系，而且并不感到更尴尬。”

In another experiment, the researchers had strangers connect by either texting, talking over video chat, or talking using only audio. They found that both forms of voice communication—whether video or audio only—made the strangers feel significantly more connected than when they communicated via text.

在另一个实验中，研究人员让陌生人通过发短信、视频聊天或语音聊天来联络。他们发现，无论是视频还是语音聊天，这两种语音通信方式都比发短信更能显著增强陌生人之间的纽带关系。

Half of all work tasks will be handled by machines by 2025 in a shift likely to worsen inequality, a World Economic Forum report has forecast.

世界经济论坛的一份报告预测，到2025年，半数工作任务将由机器处理，这一转变可能会加剧不平等。