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Programming crowds
With the Web, people worldwide can work on distributed tasks. But getting reliable results requires algorithms that specify workflow between people, not transistors.
In the World: Drinking water, from sunshine
MIT team designs solar-powered portable desalination system to use in disaster zones and remote regions.
Lending a hand
MIT researchers may be closer to understanding why spacesuit gloves hurt astronauts’ hands.
Disembodied performance
Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers, which features robots as performers, premieres this month. Is this the future of opera?
Can you find me now?
By demonstrating fundamental limits on their accuracy, MIT researchers show how to improve wireless location-detection systems.
Supercomputing on a cell phone
For complex problems whose form can be anticipated but whose particulars can’t, new software can offer approximate solutions in seconds.
The MIT roots of Google’s new software
Google’s App Inventor, which lets people with no previous programming experience build applications for mobile phones, draws on decades of MIT research.
A hop, skip and a jump on the moon — and beyond
Team envisions robotic spacecraft that can explore hard-to-reach areas on the moon and other planetary bodies by hopping.
Shape-shifting robots
Self-folding sheets of a plastic-like material point the way to robots that can assume any conceivable 3-D structure.
3 Questions: Nicholas Roy on deploying drones in U.S. skies
MIT robotics expert discusses the logistical hurdles of regulating unmanned aircraft for civilian use.
A plane that lands like a bird
An innovative control system allows a foam glider to touch down on a perch or a wire like a pet parakeet.