Media Lab

CityScope Andorra is a 3-D augmented-reality platform that visualizes complex urban data on a small-scale model of the country. Users can interactively test scenarios on the model, such as how many parks to include in a city, adjust heights of buildings, calculate the optimal mix of residential and commercial real estate, and whether to allow private vehicles or only car-share services. The impact...

Small European nation becomes a “living lab” for urban innovation researchers

Andorra funds MIT Media Lab technologies that, in turn, help improve the nation’s cities.

October 13, 2017

A new flexible piezoelectric sensor is 2 by 2.5 centimeters and can be rolled up and swallowed. “For the first time, we showed that a flexible, piezoelectric device can stay in the stomach up to two days without any electrical or mechanical degradation,” assistant professor Canan Dagdeviren, left, says. Dagdeviren is next to researcher Giovanni Traverso.

Flexible sensors can detect movement in GI tract

Ingestible devices could diagnose gastrointestinal slowdown or monitor food intake.

October 10, 2017

Ten from MIT and the Broad Institute recently received NIH Director's Awards. Top row (l-r): Feng Zhang, Kay Tye, Kevin Esvelt, Fei Chen; Bottom row (l-r): Gabriela Schlau-Cohen, Ahmed Badran, Hilary Finucane, Ed Boyden. Not pictured: Paul Blainey and Evan Macosko.

Ten researchers from MIT and Broad receive NIH Director’s Awards

Awards support high-risk, high-impact biomedical research.

October 5, 2017

The Media Lab’s Human Dynamics group team beat some 3,000 other submissions from around the world to win three of six categories in the 2017 Fragile Families Challenge.

Media Lab team tops Fragile Families Challenge

Human Dynamics research group earns high marks in new scientific collaboration to improve the lives of disadvantaged American children.

October 4, 2017

“Before we can trust machines like autonomous vehicles, we have a number of challenges,” says professor Iyad Rahwan.

3 Questions: Iyad Rahwan on the “psychological roadblocks” facing self-driving cars

MIT Media Lab professor considers the trust gap between people and autonomous vehicles.

September 11, 2017

MIT President L. Rafael Reif, left, and John Kelly III, IBM senior vice president, Cognitive Solutions and Research, shake hands at the conclusion of a signing ceremony establishing the new MIT–IBM Watson AI Lab.

IBM and MIT to pursue joint research in artificial intelligence, establish new MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab

IBM plans to make a 10-year, $240 million investment in new lab with MIT to advance AI hardware, software, and algorithms.

September 7, 2017

MIT engineers have devised a way to automate the process of monitoring neurons in a living brain using a computer algorithm that analyzes microscope images and guides a robotic arm to the target cell. In this image, a pipette guided by a robotic arm approaches a neuron identified with a fluorescent stain.

Robotic system monitors specific neurons

Success rate is comparable to that of highly trained scientists performing the process manually.

August 30, 2017

Danielle Wood spoke at the Media Lab’s space event, Beyond the Cradle, in March. She will join the faculty full-time in January 2018.

Danielle Wood joins Media Lab faculty

MIT alumna is establishing a new research group aimed at harnessing space engineering to improve life on Earth.

August 28, 2017

MIT researchers have developed a system that enables small, safe, aerial drones to read RFID tags in large warehouses at a distance of several meters, while identifying the tags’ locations with an average error of about 19 centimeters.

Drones relay RFID signals for inventory control

System could save retailers billions lost through faulty inventory records.

August 25, 2017

A three-day hackathon on campus brought together students and researchers from MIT and around Boston who developed functional fabric concepts to solve major issues facing soldiers in combat or training, first responders, victims and workers in refugee camps, and many others.

Hacking functional fabrics to aid emergency response

MIT and other innovators design novel solutions for the battlefield, disaster sites, and other dangerous environments.

August 1, 2017

After piloting its smart microgardening system in Boston homes and restaurants, and following a successful Kickstarter campaign last fall, SproutsIO is ramping up production and hitting the shelves in a few months.

SproutsIO aims to power a “Personal Produce” movement

Smart, soil-free microgarden lets users optimize growing conditions while cutting water and resource use.

July 26, 2017

Left to right: LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Media Lab Director Joi Ito joined Disobedience Award finalists Phyllis Young and LaDonna Brave Bull Allard; Betina Kaplan and Lorgia García-Peña; and James Hansen; along with winners Marc Edwards and Mona Hanna-Attisha.

Defiance: Disobedience for the good of all

MIT Media Lab summer event explores responsible dissent, embodied in its new Disobedience Award.

July 25, 2017

Twine has developed a platform that lets users build customized disease-management and care plans on an app, which then sends alerts about when to take medications, tracks the patient’s various health goals, and offers key analytics, among other features.

Coaching platform improves health outcomes, lowers medical costs

New app lets patients work alone or with others to prevent, monitor, and reverse chronic disease.

July 21, 2017

A new technique for imaging biopsy samples relies on an approach known as expansion microscopy, in which the researchers expand a tissue sample to 100 times its original volume before imaging it.

Microscopy technique could enable more informative biopsies

Expanding tissue samples before imaging offers detailed information about disease.

July 17, 2017

MIT researchers have developed a sampling scheme that is unconstrained by bandwidth, allowing analog-to-digital conversion without “clipping."

Ultra-high-contrast digital sensing

Technique could lead to cameras that can handle light of any intensity, audio that doesn’t skip or pop.

July 14, 2017

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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