Mark Feeney writes for The Boston Globe about the exhibit “György Kepes Photographs: The MIT Years, 1946-1985,” which is on display at the MIT Museum through July 2018. This is the second show in a two-part series that celebrates the 50th anniversary of MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, which Kepes founded as an Institute professor.
“Spacewar!” – a video game developed by students in MIT’s Model Train Club on a mainframe computer in 1962 – is one of the finalists for this year’s World Video Game Hall of Fame. The game is "credited with helping launch the multibillion-dollar video game industry,” notes the Associated Press.
Sean Illing of Vox speaks with Prof. Sherry Turkle about her insights on how the digital world is impacting our human relationships. “I’m not anti-technology,” said Turkle. “I’m pro-relationships and pro-conversations and pro-communities and pro-politics. I want people to be media-savvy and to use it to their best advantage.”
In a report published by personal-finance website SmartAsset, MIT ranked number one for the third year in a row for best value. "The site ranked colleges by their value, using data about their tuitions, living costs, scholarship and grant offerings, retention rate and graduates’ starting salaries," writes Maria LaMagna for MarketWatch.
Endor, a spin-out that originally began at the Media Lab, has acquired $45 million in token pre-sales for its “blockchain-based predictive analytics technology” notes Reuters. “Endor’s platform allows users to key in questions and get predictions as answers. Its tokens can be spent by individuals and data owners to access predictions.”
Dennis Overbye of The New York Times speaks with Prof. Sara Seager and senior research scientist George Ricker about the future of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS. The mission, led and operated by MIT, is preparing to orbit Earth for two years in search of other planets.
Experts believe that DropBox, founded by EECS alums Drew Houston ’05 and Arash Ferdowsi ’08, may forge a path for more “unicorn” startups, writes Kate Gibson for CBS News Money Watch. “Demand for its shares is an indication that investors aren't overly worried about rival providers of cloud-storage services, including Microsoft, Google and Amazon.”
The Forbes Boston Business Council recommends the Martin Trust Center as “a great resource for early-stage Boston tech startups,” says Council member Ted Chan. “[C]onnections to people who have found success before are invaluable as you develop as a technology executive.”
Sloan sophomore Kai Kloepfer developed a “prototype of a biometrically secured ‘smart gun’ that could be fired only by its owner,” writes Mark Wallace for Fast Company. “We have to physically integrate our technology into the handgun,” Kloepfer says. “So that means attaching circuit boards and incorporating batteries. There has to be physical space made.”
Research led by Prof. Amy Finkelstein found that just 4% of “bankruptcy filings by non-elderly adults” were associated with medical expenses. “Medical bankruptcy…wasn’t nearly as common as anticipated,” writes Alex Kingsbury for The Boston Globe. “Public policy aimed at fighting it might not have the anticipated results, either.”
Sarah Toy of The Wall Street Journal writes that CSAIL researchers have developed a soft robotic fish that can capture images and video of aquatic life. “The key here is that the robot is very quiet as it moves in the water and the undulating motion of the tail does not create too much water disturbance,” says Prof. Daniela Rus.
Dropbox, which was “founded in 2007 by two Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer science students”, has launched its IPO with a valuation of more than $1 billion, writes Matt Phillips for The New York Times.“Dropbox’s initial public offering could pave the way for other unicorns to soon go public.”
Mouse on Mars, a music duo featuring former MIT guest lecturer Jan St. Werner, premiered their new album “Dimensional People” through a spatial installation that allowed guests to hear “more or less of certain instruments depending on their location,” writes Terence Cawley for The Boston Globe. The premiere was part of Dissolve Music @ MIT, a conference and sound festival organized by Prof. Ian Condry, St. Werner and DJ Rekha.
Associate Prof. John Hart speaks with Miles O’Brien on PBS NewsHour about the future of 3-D printing and how the true extent of its application is “in some part beyond our imagination.” “There’s few things that you can 3-D print and then use right away,” says Prof. Hart. “But we’re getting there.”
A recent study from Media Lab graduate student Joy Buolamwini addresses errors in facial recognition software that create concern for civil liberties. “If programmers are training artificial intelligence on a set of images primarily made up of white male faces, their systems will reflect that bias,” writes Cristina Quinn for WGBH.