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Associate Professor Elsa Olivetti studies the huge quantities of industrial waste materials generated in the manufacturing industry, in hopes of finding useful ways to reconstitute and reuse this waste for building.

Making buildings from industrial waste

Following a successful project creating bricks from pulp plant waste in northern India, Elsa Olivetti is looking for ways to repurpose slag produced by the metals industry.

December 16, 2019

The Engine’s team of 21 full time employees helps the entrepreneurs it invests in commercialize their transformative technologies.

An engine for game-changing innovation

The Engine, a venture firm built by MIT, is investing in companies tackling the world's most urgent problems.

December 13, 2019

ObjectNet, a dataset of photos created by MIT and IBM researchers, shows objects from odd angles, in multiple orientations, and against varied backgrounds to better represent the complexity of 3D objects. The researchers hope the dataset will lead to new computer vision techniques that perform better in real life.

This object-recognition dataset stumped the world’s best computer vision models

Objects are posed in varied positions and shot at odd angles to spur new AI techniques.

December 10, 2019

Clockwise from upper left: Asu Ozdaglar, Joel Voldman, Arvind, and Antonio Torralba

Restructuring the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

The Institute's largest academic department reorganizes with new leadership as part of the formation of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing.

December 5, 2019

An MIT-invented model demonstrates an understanding of some basic “intuitive physics” by registering “surprise” when objects in simulations move in unexpected ways, such as
rolling behind a wall and not reappearing on the other side.

Helping machines perceive some laws of physics

Model registers “surprise” when objects in a scene do something unexpected, which could be used to build smarter AI.

December 2, 2019

The 2019 Lam Research Tech Symposium brought together Lam’s global technical staff, academic collaborators, and industry leaders with MIT faculty, students, and researchers for a two-day event on smart systems for semiconductor manufacturing.

Smart systems for semiconductor manufacturing

Lam Research Tech Symposium, co-hosted by MIT.nano and Microsystems Technology Lab, explores challenges, opportunities for the future of the industry.

November 25, 2019

"In Event of Moon Disaster" reimagines the story of the first moon landing as if the Apollo 11 astronauts had not been able to return to Earth. It was created to highlight the concern about computer-based misinformation, or "deepfakes."

MIT art installation aims to empower a more discerning public

With “In Event of Moon Disaster,” the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality aims to educate the public on deepfakes with an alternative history of the moon landing.

November 25, 2019

The fourth annual Inclusive Innovation Challenge (IIC) featured four grand prize winners. Here members of all the winning organizations pose with IIC organizers.

Inclusive Innovation Challenge recognizes startups improving the future of work

Competition awards entrepreneurs from around the world working to ensure technological progress brings greater prosperity.

November 22, 2019

Daniela Rus (far right), director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), moderated a panel on dispelling the myths of AI technologies in the workplace. The AI and the Work of the Future Congress was co-organized by CSAIL, the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and the MIT Work of the Future Task Force.

MIT conference focuses on preparing workers for the era of artificial intelligence

As automation rises in the workplace, speakers explore ways to train students and reskill workers.

November 22, 2019

DeepRole, an MIT-invented gaming bot equipped with “deductive reasoning,” can beat human players in tricky online multiplayer games where player roles and motives are kept secret.

Bot can beat humans in multiplayer hidden-role games

Using deductive reasoning, the bot identifies friend or foe to ensure victory over humans in certain online games.

November 19, 2019

“We believe that AI plays a key role now, and in the future development of the region, if it’s used in the right way,” says Omar Costilla Reyes, one of four MIT graduate students working to help Latin America adopt artificial intelligence technologies. Pictured here (left to right) are Costilla Reyes, Emilia Simison, Pedro Antonio Colon-Hernandez, and Guillermo Bernal.

Students push to speed up artificial intelligence adoption in Latin America

To help the region catch up, students organize summit to bring Latin policymakers and researchers to MIT.

November 19, 2019

A new tool reveals what AI models leave out in recreating a scene. Here, a GAN, or generative adversarial network, has dropped the pair of newlyweds from its reconstruction (right) of the photo it was asked to draw (left).

Visualizing an AI model’s blind spots

New tool highlights what generative models leave out when reconstructing a scene.

November 8, 2019

Brian Storey, director of accelerated materials design and discovery at Toyota Research Institute, speaks at the MIT MRL Materials Day Symposium.

Driving toward a healthier planet

Materials Day speaker Brian Storey describes how the Toyota Research Institute is embracing machine learning to advance the use of electric vehicles.

November 7, 2019

Eight distinguished researchers spoke at the 2019 Materials Day Symposium. Pictured here (l-r) are MIT professors Carl Thompson, Asu Ozdaglar, Elsa Olivetti, and Ju Li.

Materials Day talks examine the promises and challenges of AI and machine learning

The ability to predict and make new materials faster highlights the need for safety, reliability, and accurate data.

November 5, 2019

3 Questions: When the student becomes the teacher

Grad student Brandon Leshchinskiy created EarthDNA Ambassadors, an outreach program “for the Earth, for future generations.”