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In an article for The Huffington Post about teaching kids computer programming, Joni Blecher highlights the robotic garden developed by researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and CSAIL. The garden has “over 100 flowers that can be controlled via a Bluetooth-enabled device.”
As part of its Game Changers series, Chronicle highlights Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, and her work developing robots that can collaborate, change shape and perform multiple tasks. Rus explains that she dreams “of a future where robots are as common as smart phones.”
Graduate students Jean Yang and Frank Wang have partnered with Highland Capital to launch a new bootcamp aimed at helping researchers commercialize their cybersecurity research, reports Janelle Nanos for BetaBoston. “A lot of university PhD students have all these great cybersecurity ideas that could solve a lot of real-life problems,” explains Wang.
The ACM has awarded the A.M. Turing Award, widely regarded as the “Nobel Prize in Computing,” to CSAIL researcher and adjunct professor Michael Stonebraker, reports Barb Darrow for Fortune. Stonebraker is “famous for arguing that database is not a one-size-fits-all category."
Michael Stonebraker, a principal investigator at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and an adjunct professor at MIT, has won the A.M. Turning Award for his work with database management systems, reports Nidhi Subbaraman for BetaBoston. “This is every computer scientist’s lifetime dream, and it came true for me,” said Stonebraker.
Steven Rosenbaum highlights PhD student Abe Davis’ TED talk in a piece for Forbes. Rosenbaum writes that Davis “has co-created the world’s most improbable audio instrument.”
Nidhi Subbaraman writes for BetaBoston about MIT’s new cybersecurity initiatives designed to “tackle tech security problems both big and small.” The new efforts are aimed at addressing cybersecurity’s technical, policy and business challenges.
MIT is launching three cybersecurity efforts, including one aimed at managing cybersecurity within critical infrastructure, reports Rachael King for The Wall Street Journal. “We’re hoping to develop a number of new approaches and techniques that measure security culture in organizations,” says Prof. Stuart Madnick.
MIT is launching three new cybersecurity initiatives aimed at the technical, business and regulatory issues posed by cybersecurity, reports Conor Ryan for BostInno. “We hope that these initiatives will help us work together with industry to create better tools to eliminate a lot of the current vulnerabilities that plague the digital landscape,” says Prof. Daniela Rus.
Spencer Kelly of BBC News visits the MIT Distributed Robotics Lab to see how researchers have developed software that allows robots to build Ikea furniture. Kelly explains that the goal of the research is to “work towards robots that can work together collaboratively to build complex structures.”
Chris Neiger of BBC News reports on software being developed by Professor Brian Williams aimed at helping drivers arrive at their destinations on time. “The lab’s planning algorithms would give motorists an initial travel plan, which would adapt to externalities along the way,” writes Neiger.
Sarah Hedgecock writes for Forbes about how researchers have made major advances in mapping the human epigenome. Prof. Manolis Kellis explains that the new findings allow researchers to “ go from a static picture of the genome, which is effectively the book of life, to a dynamic picture of a genome.”
Professor Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, speaks with Timothy Aeppel of The Wall Street Journal about why robots cannot perform tasks humans regularly perform, like folding laundry. While Rus explains that it would be difficult to predict when robots will be able to match the skill set of humans, “compared to now, what we had just two years ago was nothing, so I don’t think it’s going to take that long.”
A team of researchers has published a map of the human epigenome, which could be useful in better understanding how to treat disease, writes Amanda Schupak for CBS News. Prof. Manolis Kellis explains that the findings provide “a reference for studying the molecular basis of human disease, by revealing the control regions that harbor genetic variants associated with different disorders."
MIT researchers have developed a garden filled with origami robots, LED flowers that can bloom on command and mechanical insects, reports Nidhi Subbaraman for BetaBoston. The garden was developed in an effort to make programming more accessible to children.