Computer science and technology

In this video, Reuters explores how MIT researchers have developed a robot that can automatically sort recycling. The robot uses a pressure sensor to squeeze items to determine how they should be sorted.

Axios reporter Ina Fried spotlights how graduate student Arnav Kapur has developed a system that can detect speech signals. “The technology could allow those who have lost the ability to speak to regain a voice while also opening up possibilities of new interfaces for general purpose computing,” Fried explains.

BBC Click spotlights how CSAIL researchers have developed a robot that can automatically sort recycling. “Many paper and plastic cups look the same, but by introducing the ability to squeeze the object and to know whether it is flexible or not we are able to go one step beyond what today’s methods can do, explains Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL.

TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater writes that MIT researchers have developed a robot that can recycle materials using sensors that allow it to differentiate between objects. Heater explains that “the system utilizes a Teflon gripper with built in sensors that are capable of determining an object’s makeup based on size and stiffness.”

Writing for Axios, Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, argues that technological advancement is needed to allow autonomous vehicles to operate outside well-traversed areas. “AVs still can’t function in many scenarios, including unmapped roads,” writes Rus. “Additional advances in sensor technology, mapping, algorithms for perception and more will move AVs closer to full autonomy anywhere.”

Forbes contributor Charles Towers-Clark writes that CSAIL researchers have developed a new machine learning system that could be used to help develop better estimates about internet data. “In tests, the system was over 57% more accurate in estimating internet traffic and more than 71% for trending social media topics,” Towers-Clark explains.

Axios reporter Kaveh Waddell writes about a new study by MIT researchers that examines the potential impact of adversarial attacks on health care systems. “If someone sending in data for analysis has a different goal than the owner of the system doing the analysis, there's a potential for funny business,” Waddell explains.

MIT researchers have found that medical systems could be vulnerable to adversarial attacks, report Cade Matz and Craig Smith for The New York Times. AI systems could exacerbate the threat of “stakeholders bilking the system by subtly changing billing codes and other data in computer systems that track health care visits,” write Metz and Smith.

Boston Globe reporters Ysabelle Kempe and Felice Freyer write that MIT is launching a new Down syndrome research center with a gift from the Alana Foundation. “I really want people with different conditions and different ability to feel they are not different, to feel that they belong, and to enhance their capability to interact and to enjoy life,” explains Prof. Li-Huei Tsai.

MIT is launching a new Down syndrome research center thanks to a gift from the Alana Foundation, reports the AP. The center “will combine the expertise of scientists and engineers in an effort to increase understanding of the biology and neuroscience of Down syndrome.”

Fast Company reporter Katherine Schwab spotlights Duality, an MIT startup that is using homomorphic encryption to analyze encrypted data without decrypting it. Schwab explains that the “company’s technology could provide an actual solution to the data privacy problem by allowing companies to keep their data fully encrypted and still find patterns in it.”

Writing for Smithsonian, Alice George highlights Margaret Hamilton’s work leading the team at the MIT Instrumentation Lab that developed the software for the Apollo 11 mission. “She was a pioneer when it came to development of software engineering,” says Teasel Muir-Harmony, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum, and “a pioneer as a woman in the workplace contributing to this type of program, taking on this type of role.”

The Financial Times has named Prof. Tim Berners-Lee its "Boldness in Business" Person of the Year for his work aimed at providing people with more control over how their personal data is used online, reports John Thornhill. “We know how to fire rockets into the sky. We should be able to build constructive social networks,” says Lee.

TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater writes that researchers at CSAIL and Harvard have developed a soft robotic gripper that can both handle delicate objects and lift items up to 100 times its own weight. “The gripper itself is made of an origami-inspired skeletal structure, covered in either fabric or a deflated balloon,” explains Heater.

In an article marking the 30^th anniversary of the World Wide Web, Vox reporter Aja Romano highlights how in 1961 two MIT graduate students developed the concept for ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet. Romano writes that Leonard Kleinrock “developed his thesis around the idea that computers could talk to each other if they could carve up their information into tiny, easily transferrable packets.”