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.
Picture-driven computing
New research could enable computer programming based on screen shots, not just code
Explained: The Shannon limit
A 1948 paper by Claude Shannon SM ’37, PhD ’40 created the field of information theory — and set its research agenda for the next 50 years.
Driven to abstraction
Institute Professor Barbara Liskov pioneered many of the ideas that have shaped modern computer science.
Straining forward
Nanowires made of ‘strained silicon’ — silicon whose atoms have been pried slightly apart — show how to keep increases in computer power coming.
A classic text, 40 years in the making
Long-time computer science class at MIT finally gets its textbook
Putting the squeeze on data
In work that could make it easier to handle huge data sets, MIT researchers improve data compression's fidelity without sacrificing speed