Computer science and technology

“The problem with planning contingencies is that there are so many things that can go wrong, if you generated plans for all possible contingencies, you’d go nuts,” Brian Williams says.

Automatic contingency planning

Algorithm lets planning systems generate backup plans efficiently.

February 15, 2016

Much of Daskalakis’ work concentrates on the application of computer science techniques to game theory, a discipline that attempts to get a quantitative handle on human strategic reasoning.

Computer science meets economics

Constantinos Daskalakis adapts techniques from theoretical computer science to game theory.

February 4, 2016

A new chip could enable devices that help visually impaired users navigate their environments.

A virtual “guide dog” for navigation

Low-power chip processes 3-D camera data, could enable wearable device to guide the visually impaired.

February 2, 2016

“One of the most intriguing aspects of this research is that we’ve found that there are indeed universal properties of correct code that you can learn from one set of applications and apply to another set of applications,” Martin Rinard says.

Recognizing correct code

Automatic bug-repair system fixes 10 times as many errors as its predecessors.

January 29, 2016

“In research contexts, I’m driven mostly by the technical difficulty of the problem, and the opportunity to learn,” Sami Alsheikh explains.

Computer science and engineering major helps people while having fun

Senior Sami Alsheikh helps others, solves problems, and has fun doing both.

January 29, 2016

“Science is always subject to a set of assumptions,” David Gifford says. “What this whole study demonstrates, in my opinion, is that it’s important to think carefully about our assumptions.”

Mapping regulatory elements

Systematically searching DNA for regulatory elements indicates limits of previous thinking.

January 27, 2016

This diagram shows how an electrical voltage can be used to modify the oxygen concentration, and therefore the phase and structure, of strontium cobaltites. Pumping oxygen in and out transforms the material from the brownmillerite form (left) to the perovskite form (right).

Switchable material could enable new memory chips

Small voltage can flip thin film between two crystal states — one metallic, one semiconducting.

January 20, 2016

In a forest simulation, algorithms segment space into “obstacle-free regions” and then link them together to find a single collision-free route.

Drones dodge obstacles

Motion-planning algorithms allow drones to do donuts, figure-eights in object-filled environments.

January 19, 2016

Engineers at MIT have developed a queuing model that may help air traffic controllers direct departures more efficiently, minimizing runway congestion.

Cutting down runway queues

Model that predicts time from gate departure to takeoff could cut airport congestion, fuel waste.

January 14, 2016

The DriveWell app runs in the background of a smartphone, collecting data on driving behavior. Drivers receive a score on a scale from 1 to 100, a route map, and tips for improvement. Scores can also be used for insurance discounts, or to compete with friends and other drivers worldwide.

Smarter driving, using your phone

App that rates drivers’ behavior yields promising safety results on the road.

January 5, 2016

MIT researchers fed their physics prediction system videos of collisions, shown as screenshots in (a) and (b), which were then converted into simulations generated by the 3-D physics engine, shown in (c) and (d).

Computer model matches humans at predicting how objects move

“3-D physics engine” from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory simulates the human brain to infer physical properties.

January 4, 2016

Researchers have produced a working optoelectronic chip that computes electronically but uses light to move information. The chip has 850 optical components and 70 million transistors, which, while significantly less than the billion-odd transistors of a typical microprocessor, is enough to demonstrate all the functionality that a commercial optical chip would require.

Optoelectronic microprocessors built using existing chip manufacturing

High-performance prototype means chipmakers could now start building optoelectronic chips.

December 23, 2015

Researchers have developed a computational model of visual representation intended to reflect the way the brain works.

Machines that learn like people

Algorithms could learn to recognize objects from a few examples, not millions; may better model human cognition.

December 23, 2015

PANDA is based on the open-source whole-system emulator known as QEMU (Quick Emulator), which uses binary translation to support multiple processor architectures. PANDA supports Windows, Linux, and Android operating systems; can efficiently record and replay whole-system executions; and has a modular software design that allows analysts to implement multiple software-analysis plugins. According to...

MIT Lincoln Laboratory receives three 2015 R&D 100 Awards

Three software products named among 100 most technologically significant innovations of 2015.

December 22, 2015

“In health care, there’s this gigantic world of unstructured data that needs to be translated into useable information,” says Paul Nemirovsky, who co-founded dMetrics with Ariadna Quattoni.

Detecting consumer decisions within messy data

Software analyzes online chatter to predict health care consumers’ behavior.

December 21, 2015

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