Prof. Emeritus Rodney Brooks and Prof. Michael Stonebraker are featured in Boston Magazine’s list of the 30 most influential people in the local technology scene. Brooks was honored for his work in the field of robotics, and Stonebraker for his work developing new ways for data to be stored and analyzed.
Prof. Stuart Madnick writes for CNBC about how corporations can protect themselves from the growing threat of cyber crime. “It is up to senior business leaders to take the lead in protecting their organizations,” writes Madnick. “That can only be accomplished by working together with government, industry, and academia.”
In an interview with EFE, President L. Rafael Reif describes the importance of educational opportunity and how online education can provide students around the world a chance to learn. "It's very empowering, especially for people who are in the middle of nowhere and no longer need to win the lottery to enter," explains Reif.
In an article for Inside Higher Ed, Rick Seltzer highlights MIT’s efforts to reduce bias in the college application process by soliciting more information from applicants. “The value of more information is it gives us this opportunity to get a little closer to the student,” explains Lauren Avalos, associate director of admissions.
Researchers at the MIT Media Lab are joining forces with Google to create a program aimed at mentoring the next generation of African-American and Latino computer scientists in Oakland, California, reports Ethan Baron for The Mercury News.
Eric Boodman writes for STAT that MIT researchers have developed a technique to produce biopharmaceuticals in remote locations. “Instead of making the drugs and then trying to keep them refrigerated over thousands of miles,” Boodman writes, the researchers, “want to give people the ingredients. These components don’t require refrigeration, and the instructions are as simple as they come: Just add water.”
Senior lecturer Robert Pozen writes for The Financial Times about the new money market (mm) reforms. Pozen argues that “in 2017, the SEC should re-consider its new rules on institutional MM funds in light of the actual rise in borrowing costs for banks, companies and local governments.”
CSAIL researcher have created a device that uses changes in heart beat and breathing to detect emotions, writes Forbes’ Kevin Murnane. The heart of the system,” writes Murnane, “is the algorithm that extracts the heartbeat from the RF signal. It’s an impressive achievement that solves a difficult problem.”
A letter co-authored by Prof. Kerry Emanuel warns against withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, writes Chelsea Harvey for The Washington Post. “The U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement would really set back all of our efforts to deal with climate problems,” says Emanuel.
Martha White of Money writes about MIT’s MicroMasters program, a pilot that provides students an opportunity to gain a master’s degree through online and on-campus courses. "Experts say this could be a breakthrough because MIT and the other schools rolling out similar graduate degree on-ramp programs have excellent academic reputations,” writes White.
A device created by CSAIL researchers can detect emotions by wirelessly measuring heartbeats, according to the Associated Press. The device is “87 percent accurate in using heartrate and what it’s already learned about a person to recognize joy, pleasure, sadness or anger.”
CSAIL researchers have developed a device that can determine a person’s mood using wireless signals, write Jordan Graham and Donna Goodison for The Boston Herald. “We view this work as the next step in helping develop computers that can better understand us at an emotional level,” explains Mingmin Zhao.
The MicroMasters model MIT launched as a pilot last year to provide students a new path to a master’s degree is being adopted by 13 universities, reports Peter Coy for Bloomberg. President L. Rafael Reif explained that the MicroMasters concept is "an important project for me. I believe in the model of empowering people."
Writing for The Washington Post, Prof. Tim Berners-Lee and research scientist Daniel Weitzner examine Senator Ted Cruz’s proposal for the U.S. to control the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). If the U.S. reverses plans “to allow the global Internet community to operate ICANN independently…we risk undermining the global consensus that has enabled the Internet to function and flourish.”
CSAIL researchers have developed a device that can determine emotion by analyzing reflections from wireless signals bounced off the human body, writes Mary Beth Griggs for Popular Science. “Because it can measure heart rate, it might also be a less invasive way for doctors to monitor patient's heartbeats, potentially watching for conditions like arrhythmias,” writes Griggs.