Computer science and technology

The goal of MIT's "Duckiebot" class was to create a fleet of 50 self-driving taxis that can navigate the roads of a model city with just a single on-board camera and no pre-programmed maps.

Self-driving cars, meet rubber duckies

“Duckietown” class at Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab teaches autonomy, aims to become global research platform.

April 20, 2016

AI<sup>2</sup> combs through data and detects suspicious activity using unsupervised machine-learning. It then presents this activity to human analysts, who confirm which events are actual attacks, and incorporate that feedback into its models for the next set of data.

System predicts 85 percent of cyber-attacks using input from human experts

Virtual artificial intelligence analyst developed by the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and PatternEx reduces false positives by factor of 5.

April 18, 2016

In tests on 50 popular Web applications written using Ruby on Rails, a new debugging system found 23 previously undiagnosed security flaws, and it took no more than 64 seconds to analyze any given program.

Patching up Web applications

New debugging method found 23 undetected security flaws in 50 popular Web applications.

April 15, 2016

Professor Yoel Fink, director of MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics

New institute will accelerate innovations in fibers and fabrics

National public-private consortium led by MIT will involve manufacturers, universities, agencies, companies.

April 1, 2016

For a demo at a local cafe, the Chronos system was 97 percent accurate in distinguishing in-store customers from out-of-store intruders — meaning it could be used to prevent non-customers from stealing WiFi.

Wireless tech means safer drones, smarter homes and password-free WiFi

System from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab enables single WiFi access point that can locate users within tens of centimeters.

March 31, 2016

Members of the MIT Media Lab’s Camera Culture Group devised a new approach to image separation in photographs. Their system fires light into a scene and gauges the differences between the arrival times of light reflected by nearby objects — such as panes of glass — and more distant objects.

Reflection-removing camera

Device uses depth sensor and signal processing to capture clear images through windows.

March 25, 2016

CSAIL researchers are presenting a new infrared depth-sensing system built from off-the-shelf components, that works outdoors as well as in.

Phone-based laser rangefinder works outdoors

Depth sensor built from off-the-shelf parts filters out ambient infrared light.

March 25, 2016

A prototype of a new speech-controlled nutrition-logging system allows users to verbally describe the contents of a meal. The system then parses the description and automatically retrieves the pertinent nutritional data.

Voice-controlled calorie counter

Spoken-language app makes meal logging easier, could aid weight loss.

March 24, 2016

“This is a rethinking of the Web infrastructure,” Frank Wang says. “Maybe it’s better that one person manages all their data. There’s one type of security and not 10 types of security. We’re trying to present an alternative model that would be beneficial to both users and applications.”

Secure, user-controlled data

Cryptographic system would allow users to decide which applications access which aspects of their data.

March 18, 2016

U.S. News gives top rankings to MIT graduate programs in engineering, business

MIT is home to No. 1 graduate engineering program; MIT Sloan is No. 5 business school.

March 16, 2016

IDSS conversations: Guy Bresler

Assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science discusses his work focusing on learning graphical models from data.

March 11, 2016

Andrus Ansip, vice president of the Digital Single Market in the European Commission, chats with Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker.

U.S., EU leaders talk Web policy and world economy at MIT

With EU vice president, U.S. secretary of commerce discusses EU-U.S. “Privacy Shield” and launches new policy program.

March 11, 2016

System loads Web pages 34 percent faster by fetching files more effectively

"Polaris" system from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab accelerates website load-time by decreasing network trips.

March 9, 2016

Students from MIT and Cambridge University completed various cybersecurity challenges as part of a 24-hour Cambridge 2 Cambridge hackathon.

MIT, Cambridge University team up for “Cambridge 2 Cambridge” hackathon

Hosted by the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, event featured mixed student teams tackling cybersecurity challenges.

March 7, 2016

“Data has traditionally been used by anyone from corporations to the government,” Mor Naaman says. “But the goal of this system is to make the data more useful for the individuals themselves, to give them more control, and to make it more useful to communities.”

Browsing in public

System lets Web users share aspects of their browsing history with friends, researchers.