More is less
Complex computer models can involve thousands of variables. But paradoxically, adding more variables can sometimes make them easier to work with.
Gesture-based computing on the cheap
With a single piece of inexpensive hardware — a multicolored glove — MIT researchers are making Minority Report-style interfaces more accessible.
Rivest wins faculty’s Killian Award
MIT encryption pioneer recognized for ‘extraordinary’ contributions in computer science
Machines that learn better
New math will make it much easier to build machine-learning systems that tackle a wider range of problems.
Slideshow: Mapping the oil spill
MIT student leads project using balloons and kites to provide aerial documentation of the Gulf oil slick’s extent and effects
When good enough is better
By exploiting a simple but counterintuitive trick, a new system finds sections of computer programs where accuracy can be traded for speed.
Seeing the forest for the trees
Object recognition systems that break images into ever smaller parts should be much more efficient and may shed light on how the brain works.
In Profile: Missy Cummings
Former U.S. Naval fighter pilot aims to improve how humans and computers interact.
A grand unified theory of AI
A new approach unites two prevailing but often opposed strains in the history of artificial-intelligence research.
Web sites that can take a punch
By preventing web applications from deviating from their normal behavior, a new MIT system can keep them online even during a cyberattack.
Self-assembling computer chips
Molecules that arrange themselves into predictable patterns on silicon chips could lead to microprocessors with much smaller circuit elements.
Explained: Linear and nonlinear systems
Much scientific research across a range of disciplines tries to find linear approximations of nonlinear behaviors. But what does that mean?
Cell-inspired electronics
By mimicking cells, MIT researcher designs electronic circuits for ultra-low-power and biomedical applications.
Jack Wozencraft, information theorist at MIT, 1925-2009
Jack Wozencraft, considered one of the pioneers of coding theory in the nascent field of information theory, died peacefully August 31, 2009.