Better traffic signals can cut greenhouse gas emissions
Analysis shows that smarter programming of stoplights could improve efficiency of urban traffic.
Reviewing online homework at scale
System clusters similar student programs together, so instructors can identify broad trends.
Better debugger
System to automatically find a common type of programming bug significantly outperforms its predecessors.
Satellite imagery can aid development projects
New image-analysis methods can automate identification of cost-effective sites for grants or microgrids.
Finger-mounted reading device for the blind
Audio feedback helps user scan finger along a line of text, which software converts to speech.
Can an LED-filled “robot garden” make coding more accessible?
CSAIL’s 100-plus blooming, crawling, swimming bots teach basic programming concepts.
Researchers generate a reference map of the human epigenome
Better understanding of epigenetic modifications could elucidate their role in human traits, diseases.
Parallelizing common algorithms
Researchers revamp a common “data structure” so that it will work with multicore chips.
Biology, driven by data
Newly tenured biological engineer Ernest Fraenkel goes where the numbers lead.
Optimizing optimization algorithms
Analysis shows how to get the best results when approximating solutions to complex engineering problems.
Software that knows the risks
Planning algorithms evaluate probability of success, suggest low-risk alternatives.
Evolutionary approaches to big-data problems
Una-May O'Reilly applies machine learning and evolutionary algorithms to tackle some of the world's biggest big-data challenges.
Drive-by heat mapping
Startup’s thermal-imaging cars can quickly track energy leaks in thousands of homes and buildings.
Drones, Bitcoin, and robotic fish
Here are eight of the coolest things that happened at CSAIL in 2014.
In one aspect of vision, computers catch up to primate brain
Newest computer neural networks can identify visual objects as well as the primate brain.