Researchers from MIT and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions are exploring the possibility of self-driving boats. “Imagine a fleet of autonomous boats for the transportation of goods and people,” says Prof. Carlo Ratti. “Also think of dynamic and temporary floating infrastructure like on-demand bridges and stages.”
Writing for The New York Times, Steve Lohr features Prof. Tomaso Poggio’s work “building computational models of the visual cortex of the brain, seeking to digitally emulate its structure, even how it works and learns from experience.” Lohr notes that efforts like Poggio’s could lead to breakthroughs in computer vision and machine learning.
Researchers involved in the MIT Bitcoin Project have found that students prefer cash and credit cards as their primary forms of payment, writes Deirdre Fernandes for The Boston Globe. While Bitcoin hasn’t caught on, the project has allowed researchers to collect data on how consumers adopt and use new technology, and to examine the technology underlying Bitcoin.
Mt. Hebron Middle School in New Jersey has been renamed in honor of MIT alumnus Buzz Aldrin, according to the Associated Press. Aldrin was one of the first humans to land on the Moon and the second person to step on it.
Daniel Akst of The Wall Street Journal writes that by bouncing electromagnetic waves off of pages, MIT researchers have developed a way to read closed books. The system could potentially be used also be used to count stacks of money and detect counterfeit currency, Akst explains.
In a Huffington Post video, Prof. Daniela Rus explains that the ingestible origami robot her team developed could enable incisionless surgery. “What we have developed so far is a proof of concept that shows that you could have tetherless machines that can do active and important functions inside the body,” she explains.
In an article about the increasing number of women studying electrical engineering and computer science at some of the nation’s leading universities, Washington Post reporter Nick Anderson highlights how “more than half of engineering bachelor’s degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology went to women in 2015.”
Chris Bentley reports for PRI that Jakarta residents are using PetaJakarta, an open-source map founded by Etienne Turpin of the Urban Risk Lab, to find real-time flood information. “As cities like Jakarta struggle to adapt to the new normal of high water that’s coming with global warming, online tools like PetaJakarta may help them live better with what they can’t change.”
Writing for Nature, Gary Stager spotlights the work of Prof. Seymour Papert, who dedicated his career to using technology to help children learn. Stager writes that Papert “built a bridge between progressive educational traditions and the Internet age to maintain the viability of schooling, and to ensure the democratization of powerful ideas.”
MITEI’s Francis O’Sullivan discusses the role of offshore wind energy in New England with WGBH’s Stephanie Leydon. "Potentially, energy costs will actually fall with offshore wind," said O'Sullivan. He adds that with renewable technologies "you have to spend a lot of money up front to pay for their construction, but you spend nothing on fuel.”
A study by Prof. David Autor finds a shift in voting patterns in areas of the country impacted by trade with China, report Binyamin Appelbaum, Patricia Cohen and Jack Healy for The New York Times. “This undercurrent of economically driven dissatisfaction,” Autor explains, “works to the benefit of candidates who are noncentrist, and particularly right-wing candidates.”
In an article for Workplaces magazine about the importance of lactation rooms, Jennie Morton writes that MIT is going “above and beyond to support community members who are breast-feeding their babies.” Ronnie Mae Weiss of the Work-Life Center notes that MIT aims to “offer our community members high-quality lactation rooms across the campus.”
Prof. Ramesh Raskar has been awarded the Lemelson-MIT prize for his “trailblazing work which includes the co-invention of an ultra-fast imaging camera that can see around corners, low-cost eye-care solutions and a camera that enables users to read the first few pages of a book without opening the cover,” writes Krishna Pokharel for The Wall Street Journal.
Writing on carbon pricing for The Wall Street Journal, Mark Muro cites MIT research by Professor Valerie Karplus and graduate student Jesse Jenkins. Their research finds that the “‘binding constraints’ of politics keep jurisdictions’ legislated carbon prices low.”
A new device developed by MIT researchers can read the pages of a book without opening the cover, reports Nsikan Akpan for the PBS NewsHour. The tool may “unlock the secrets of old books or ancient texts too fragile to be disturbed by human touch.”