Improv game puts the role-playing back in RPG
“Improviso” develops AI research by asking players to take on actual roles.
Media Lab
In the World: Turning old oil into new mileage
Brazilian waste pickers gain an inexpensive way to fuel their vehicles using leftover cooking oil.
Why do some countries’ economies grow faster?
One of the Media Lab’s newest faculty members is adapting the mathematical tools of statistical physics to study development economics.
3-D TV? How about holographic TV?
Using a single Xbox Kinect and standard graphics chips, MIT researchers demonstrate the highest frame rate yet for streaming holographic video.
The surprising usefulness of sloppy arithmetic
A computer chip that performs imprecise calculations could process some types of data thousands of times more efficiently than existing chips.
Illuminating research
MIT study finds potential for significant energy savings through user-controlled efficient lighting systems.
Social Studies
In MIT's Human Dynamics Lab, Sandy Pentland PhD '82 uses cell phones and wearable sensors to research nonverbal signals, information flow, and the value of face-to-face conversation.
Your vital signs, on camera
MIT team develops system for continuous medical monitoring using widely available video technology.
Putting heads together
New study: groups demonstrate distinctive ‘collective intelligence’ when facing difficult tasks
Disembodied performance
Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers, which features robots as performers, premieres this month. Is this the future of opera?
MIT researchers among Technology Review’s annual list of the world’s top young innovators
‘TR35’ to be honored at Technology Review’s EmTech@MIT conference next month.
NSF award funds Media Lab researchers work on Autism spectrum disorders
Collaboration is the first large-scale effort of computer and behavioral scientists to jointly address ASD.
Local competition inspires creative use of public-private space
Atlantic Ave. installations prove community value of pedestrian-friendly elements.
In the World: Easy on the eyes
Simple, low-cost device that affixes to a cell phone could provide quick eye tests throughout the developing world.