Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray writes that a study by Prof. Alberto Cavallo finds that prices for online and in-store items were identical about 72 percent of the time. Cavallo found that “prices were more likely to be the same for clothing and electronics, while drug stores and office supply stores showed greater price variations.”
John Tirman of the Center for International Studies writes for The Huffington Post about the politics behind the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments about President Obama’s executive order on immigration. Tirman writes that the case, “puts on hold a genuine solution to the status of these mostly Latino immigrants.”
MIT researchers have developed an artificial intelligence platform that uses input from human analysts to predict cyber-attacks, reports Brian Mastroianni for CBS News. “We realized, finding the actual attacks involved a mix of supervised and unsupervised machine-learning,” explains research scientist Kalyan Veeramachaneni.
Prof. David Autor speaks with NPR’s Chris Arnold about trade deals, the presidential election, and how trade with China has impacted American workers. Instead of criticizing trade deals, Arnold notes that Autor would like the national conversation to “focus on what can be done to help workers who've been displaced by trade.”
ELLE reporter Chloe Schama speaks with the organizers of the MIT breast pump hackathon about the need for a better breast pump. "There are a lot of women who are internalizing failures," says Alexis Hope, one of the organizers of the MIT hackathon, "when these are really problems with public policy or with pumps."
A Vox article on the potential and challenges of scaling solar power cites the MITEI Future of Solar Energy report’s findings about the relationship between market penetration of solar, market prices, and solar revenues. In the article, MITEI researcher Jesse Jenkins discusses what it will take to make solar energy competitive.
In an article for Forbes about technology history, Gil Press highlights how on April 20, 1951, the Whirlwind computer, which was developed by MIT researchers, came online for the first time. Press writes that Whirlwind, “was the first computer that operated in real time and used video displays (cathode-ray tubes) for output.”
Wired reporter Brian Barrett writes that MIT researchers have developed a new system to help detect cyber-attacks. Barrett explains that the system, “reviews data…and pinpoints anything suspicious. A human takes it from there, checking for signs of a breach. The one-two punch identifies 86 percent of attacks while sparing analysts the tedium of chasing bogus leads.”
As part of the centennial celebration of MIT’s move from Boston to Cambridge, the Institute is hosting a campus-wide open house on Saturday, April 23rd, the AP reports. The open house will feature more than 350 activities, including “robotic demonstrations, science exhibits, laboratory tours and talks by professors.”
Tech reporter Katherine Nazemi writes about MIT’s “Frontiers of the Future” symposium, which provided an in-depth look at current research across campus. Nazemi writes that the symposium offered a glimpse at research on everything from “studying financial systems based on mobile phones in Africa to finding genetic pathways to improve the efficiency of biofuel production.”
Steve Annear writes for The Boston Globe about how grad student Lydia Krasilnikova created graphs and charts illustrating the color underwear MIT students select, based off self-reported information from dorm mailing lists. “It’s a different type of picture of MIT’s dorm culture,” says Krasilnikova. “I absolutely love it, and it was so much fun to put together.”
In an article for The Boston Globe, Jeremy Eichler highlights MIT’s open house on Saturday April 23rd as part of his top picks for Boston-area classical music events. Eichler writes that, “researchers from the MIT Media Lab — incubator of operatic robots, city symphonies, and many other arts-related projects — will offer demos of their current research.”
MIT researchers have developed an application to help improve driver safety, according to the Associated Press. The app, “measures driving behaviors including speeding, acceleration, hard turning, harsh braking and phone distractions. The results can then be reviewed…and scores posted on a leaderboard where drivers can compare one another.”
Popular Science reporter Kelsey Atherton describes how MIT researchers have developed a mini robotic cheetah to study how bumbling and bouncing machines move best.
In this Reuters video, Ben Gruber reports that MIT researchers have found a risk of water stress across Asia by 2050 due to economic and population growth. "We are looking at a region where nations are really at a very rapid developing stage,” explains Dr. Adam Schlosser, “so you really can't ignore the growth effect.”