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In an article for TechCrunch, Danny Crichton calls the new MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing a “doubling down on the future of computer science.” Crichton writes that “the objective of the new school will be to ensure that all MIT students become familiar with the field regardless of their chosen profession.”
The New York Times writes about the new MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, calling MIT’s move “a particularly ambitious step.” President Reif says the College will “educate the bilinguals of the future,” people in fields like biology, chemistry, politics, history, and linguistics who are also skilled in the techniques of modern computing that can be applied to them.
TechCrunch reporter Kate Clark spotlights Prof. Tim Berners-Lee’s quest to decentralize the web and provide people with power over their personal data through his new startup inrupt. Clark explains that inrupt is expanding the platform Berners-Lee developed that allows users to “keep their data wherever they choose, rather than being forced to store it on centralized servers.”
Popular Science reporter Rob Verger writes that MIT researchers have developed a new AI system that can help identify fake news. Verger explains that the researchers set out to create a tool that could “evaluate how factually strong different sites are, and their political bias.”
Researchers from MIT and the Qatar Computing Research Institute have developed a machine learning tool that can identify fake news, reports Steven Melendez for Fast Company. Melendez writes that the system “uses a machine learning technique known as support vector machines to learn to predict how media organizations will be classified by Media Bias/Fact Check.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Eugenia Cheng examines how three MIT researchers developed the RSA encryption system. “The development of RSA cryptography shows how mathematics research done for curiosity’s sake can eventually become useful, even if it takes several centuries,” writes Cheng. “It’s almost impossible to predict what research will yield practical results.”
Prof. Tim Berners-Lee has created a new technology aimed at allowing people more control over their online data, reports the BBC News. Berners-Lee felt that the “current model of handing over lots of data to many different online services did not serve people well,” the BBC explains.
Prof. Tim Berners-Lee discusses his new startup Inrupt, which is “the first major commercial venture built off of Solid, a decentralized web platform he and others at MIT have spent years building,” writes Katrina Brooker for Fast Company. Inrupt’s mission is “to decentralize the web and take back power from the forces that have profited from centralizing it,” says Brooker.
CSAIL researchers have developed a technique that makes it possible to create 3-D motion sculptures from 2-D video, reports Jennifer Kite-Powell for Forbes. The new technique could “open up the possibility to study social disorders, interpersonal interactions and team dynamics,” Kite-Powell explains.
BBC Click reports on a system developed by CSAIL researchers that creates 3-D motion sculptures based off of 2-D video. The technique, say the researchers, “could help dancers and athletes learn more about how they move.”
Prof. John Leonard speaks with Bloomberg News about his work with the Toyota Research Institute on developing a system that combines machine learning technologies and sensors to make vehicles safer. “Imagine if you had the most vigilant and capably trained driver in the world that could take over in a situation where a teenager took a curve too fast,” says Leonard of the inspiration for the system.
BBC Click reports on an AI system developed by CSAIL researchers that simplifies image editing. “Instead of requiring the user to select the pixels very accurately, our system can just detect it and give the opacities for every object in the image automatically, which can then be used for editing the images in a realistic way,” explains visiting researcher Yagiz Aksoy.
CSAIL researchers have created a system that allows robots to see and pick up objects they have never encountered without assistance from humans, writes Jason Murdock for Newsweek. The researchers are now working on teaching the system to “move objects with a specific goal in mind, such as cleaning a desk,” reports Murdock.
MIT researchers have developed a model that can help detect depression by analyzing an individual’s speech patterns, reports Kaveh Waddell for Axios. Waddell explains that the researchers, “trained an AI system using 142 recorded conversations to assess whether a person is depressed and, if so, how severely.”
CSAIL researchers have developed a new system that gives robots a greater visual understanding of the world around them, reports Heather Kelly for CNN. “We want robots to learn by themselves how to very richly and visually understand lots of objects that are useful for lots of tasks,” explains graduate student Pete Florence.