Boston Globe reporter Elizabeth Gehrman speaks with MIT alumna Ceres Lee about her career as a software engineer at Google. Of the field of computer science, Lee says that “everyone uses it, it’s important, and it’s basically everywhere.”
Under the Dome: MIT’s Open House was featured in The Boston Globe’s top picks for activities to do this weekend. The Globe notes that "the 100-year-old campus opens its doors to any and all who want to see some science. Whether you’re thrilled by 3-D printing or down for some DNA repair, this is prime access.”
Popular Science reporter Mary Beth Griggs writes that in an MIT course students developed a fleet of duckie-adorned self-driving taxis for a village called “Duckietown.” “Each of the robot taxis is equipped with only a single camera, and makes its way around the roads without any preprogrammed maps."
Inside Higher Ed reporter Carl Straumsheim highlights how the new Online Education Policy Initiative report stresses the central role of faculty members to online learning. Prof. Karen Willcox notes that the report discusses “ways online education can make what we do better.”
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.”
Justine Hofherr of Boston.com speaks with Bhaskar Pant about MIT Professional Education’s Innovation and Technology Certificate program, which educates working professionals on how to create innovation within their own companies.
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
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.”