Computer science and technology

Fadel Adib has joined the Media Lab faculty to head the new research group Signal Kinetics.

Fadel Adib joins Media Lab faculty

Adib is directing a new research group at the Media Lab, aiming to uncover, analyze, and engineer natural and human-made networks.

January 27, 2017

Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have designed a new system that automatically handles caching of database queries for web applications written in the web-programming language Ur/Web.

Faster websites with fewer bugs

System that automatically handles database caching in server farms increases speed and reliability.

January 20, 2017

Professor Daniela Rus stands with autonomous SMART vehicles on the MIT campus.

SMART automation

MIT Professor Daniela Rus combines automation and mobility to create a smarter world.

January 19, 2017

A new system called Data Civilizer automatically finds connections among many different data tables and allows users to perform database-style queries across all of them. The results of the queries can then be saved as new, orderly data sets that may draw information from dozens or even thousands of different tables.

Taming data

System finds and links related data scattered across digital files, for easy querying and filtering.

January 19, 2017

MIT grad student Joy Buolamwini (left) meets author Margot Lee Shetterly at an MIT screening of "Hidden Figures."

Joy Buolamwini wins national contest for her work fighting bias in machine learning

Media Lab graduate student selected from over 7,300 entrants, awarded $50,000 scholarship in contest inspired by the film "Hidden Figures."

January 17, 2017

“The whole goal of my life is to fix all the people problems. I sincerely think that the biggest problems we have are how we deal with each other, and how we treat each other. [We need to be] promoting empathy and understanding, and technology is an enormous power to influence that in a good way,” senior Garrett Parrish says.

Creating “big, beautiful things”

Senior Garrett Parrish combines art and technology, with dramatic effects.

January 13, 2017

MapD is a type of commonly used database-management system modified to run on GPUs instead of CPUs, which power most traditional database-management systems. MapD can process billions of data points in milliseconds, making it 100 times faster than those traditional systems, and visualizes that data near instantaneously.

Split-second data mapping

New type of database-analytics platform queries and maps billions of data points in milliseconds.

January 11, 2017

“There’s a close correspondence between the behavior of networks of computers or other devices like mobile phones and that of biological systems,” says MIT professor Nancy Lynch. “We’re trying to find problems that can benefit from this distributed-computing perspective, focusing on algorithms for which we can prove mathematical properties.”

Model sheds light on purpose of inhibitory neurons

Study suggests computational role for neurons that prevent other neurons from firing.

January 9, 2017

In 2016, MIT CSAIL researchers worked on a range of projects in robotics, theory, wireless technology, software systems, and other disciplines.

Ingestible robots, glasses-free 3-D, and computers that explain themselves

A look at 16 of the coolest things that happened at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 2016.

December 16, 2016

A new technique devised by MIT researchers can take data sets with huge numbers of variables and find approximations of them with far fewer variables.

Making big data manageable

Technique shrinks data sets while preserving their fundamental mathematical relationships.

December 14, 2016

“My parents loved the idea of me being a doctor, and then when I decided on nuclear engineering, they wanted me to look into medical physics,” says Caroline Colbert, a senior in nuclear science and engineering.

Caroline Colbert: Paving a path to medicine

Nuclear science and engineering senior Caroline Colbert has found herself on an unexpected career path in the medical field.

December 12, 2016

“I see starting a company not only as an option, but the option,” says graduate student Keertan Kini. “It’s a way to make sustainable change in the world.”

Helping policy and technology work together

Engineering grad student Keertan Kini is working to strengthen the intersection of policy and technology.

December 12, 2016

The Lincoln Laboratory team working on a robust rerandomization technique for protecting networks from cyberattacks includes: (left to right) James Landry, David Bigelow, Hamed Okhravi, William Streilein, and Robert Rudd.

Foiling cyberattackers with rerandomization

A unique moving target technique combats information leakage attacks.

December 9, 2016

Clockwise from top left: MIT professors Erik Demaine, Fredo Durand, Daniel Jackson, and William Freeman.

Four CSAIL researchers named ACM fellows

Association for Computer Machinery cites Erik Demaine, Fredo Durand, William Freeman, and Daniel Jackson for having "provided key knowledge" to computing.

December 8, 2016

Apple CEO Tim Cook to deliver MIT’s 2017 Commencement address

Head of world’s largest publicly traded corporation will address the Class of 2017 on June 9.