Computer science and technology

$Engineers at MIT have taken a first step in designing a computer chip that uses a fraction of the power of larger drone computers and is tailored for a drone as small as a bottlecap.$

Miniaturizing the brain of a drone

Method for designing efficient computer chips may get miniature smart drones off the ground.

July 11, 2017

This figure shows a 36-tile Jenga system that’s running four applications. Jenga gives each application a custom virtual cache hierarchy.

Using chip memory more efficiently

System for generating ad hoc “cache hierarchies” increases processing speed while reducing energy consumption.

July 7, 2017

By comparing 1.6 million pairs of photos taken seven years apart, researchers have now used a new computer vision system to quantify the physical improvement or deterioration of neighborhoods in five American cities, in an attempt to identify factors that predict urban change. Pictured are two street views, with the old photograph on the left and the new photograph on the right.

Why do some neighborhoods improve?

Density of highly educated residents, rather than income or housing costs, predicts revitalization.

July 6, 2017

Graduate student Lucas Mason-Brown is chief technology officer for and co-founder of Data for Black Lives (D4BL), an organization helping scientists use data to fight racial bias in real estate, finance, criminal justice, and other areas.

Lucas Mason-Brown named 2017 Echoing Green Fellow

MIT graduate student in mathematics honored for using equations to boost racial equality.

July 6, 2017

Researchers demonstrate their scanning technique, with a user holding a monopod-mounted Kinect at close range from a T. Rex skull.

Researchers use Kinect to scan T. rex skull

System with $150 worth of hardware offers alternative to 3-D scanners that cost 200 times as much.

July 5, 2017

Instead of relying on silicon-based devices, a new chip uses carbon nanotubes and resistive random-access memory (RRAM) cells. The two are built vertically over one another, making a new, dense 3-D computer architecture with interleaving layers of logic and memory.

New 3-D chip combines computing and data storage

Advance points toward new generation of computers for coming superstorm of data.

July 5, 2017

A new system dubbed Fractal achieves 88-fold speedups through a parallelism strategy known as speculative execution.

Practical parallelism

System enables large speedups — as much as 88-fold — on common parallel-computing algorithms.

June 30, 2017

Neural networks learn to perform computational tasks by analyzing large sets of training data. But once they’ve been trained, even their designers rarely have any idea what data elements they’re processing.

Peering into neural networks

New technique helps elucidate the inner workings of neural networks trained on visual data.

June 29, 2017

A new computer system predicts the products of chemical reactions. “The vision is that you’ll be able to walk up to a system and say, ‘I want to make this molecule.’ The software will tell you the route you should make it from, and the machine will make it,” says professor Klavs Jensen.

Computer system predicts products of chemical reactions

Machine learning approach could aid the design of industrial processes for drug manufacturing.

June 27, 2017

One of the researchers' quadcopter drones with wheels.

Drones that drive

CSAIL team’s system of quadcopters that fly and drive suggest another approach to developing flying cars.

June 26, 2017

Researchers have created a universal algorithm for folding origami shapes that guarantees a minimum number of seams.

Origami anything

New algorithm generates practical paper-folding patterns to produce any 3-D structure.

June 21, 2017

Marty Ellis, of Inman Mills in South Carolina, checks a machine manufacturing fabric developed through AFFOA.

AFFOA launches state-of-the-art facility for prototyping advanced fabrics

New center for development of high-tech fibers and fabrics opens headquarters, unveils two products ready for commercialization.

June 19, 2017

The proximity of the new headquarters of the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA) Institute to MIT's campus will help connect students and faculty to new facilities, including the Fabric Discovery Center that provides end-to-end prototyping from fiber design to system integration of new textile-based products.

Advanced Functional Fabrics of America opens headquarters steps from MIT campus

New AFFOA facility represents a significant MIT investment in advanced manufacturing innovation.

June 19, 2017

A micrograph of the MIT researchers’ new device, with a visualization of electrical-energy measurements and a schematic of the device layout superimposed on it.

Toward optical quantum computing

Prototype device enables photon-photon interactions at room temperature.

June 16, 2017

Researchers at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have designed a new system that can efficiently search through hundreds of hours of video of laparoscopic surgeries to identify relevant events and visual features.

Shrinking data for surgical training

Technique that reduces video files to one-tenth their initial size enables speedy analysis of laparoscopic procedures.