Electrical engineering and computer science (EECS)

MIT researchers have created “Dribblebot,” a four-legged robot capable of playing soccer across varying terrain, reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch.

Researchers at MIT have created a four-legged robot capable of dribbling a soccer ball and running across a variety of terrains, reports Ross Cristantiello for Boston.com. “Researchers hope that they will be able to teach the robot how to lift a ball over a step in the future,” writes Cristantiello. “They will also explore how the technology behind DribbleBot can be applied to other robots, allowing machines to quickly transport a range of objects around outside using legs and arms.”

Prof. Marzyeh Ghassemi speaks with Scientific American reporter Sara Reardon about the impact of AI chatbots on medical care. “Ghassemi is particularly concerned that chatbots will perpetuate the racism, sexism and other types of prejudice that persist in medicine—and across the Internet,” writes Reardon. “Scrubbing racism from the Internet is impossible, but Ghassemi says developers may be able to do preemptive audits to see where a chatbot gives biased answers and tell it to stop or to identify common biases that pop up in its conversations with users.”

Venti Technologies, a startup co-founded by MIT professors and alumni that builds autonomous vehicles for industrial and logistics centers, has raised $29 million in Series A funding. The company’s “target customer comes from the wide range of supply chain businesses that operate across warehouses, ports and other shipping and logistics environments where vehicles — currently driven by humans — are central to operations,” writes Ingrid Lunden for TechCrunch.

Bob Metcalfe ’69, a CSAIL research affiliate and MIT Corporation life member emeritus, has been awarded this year’s Turing Award for his work inventing Ethernet, reports Randy Bean for Forbes. “Turing recipients include the greatest pioneers in the advancement of computer science,” says Metcalfe. “I am grateful to be considered among these giants.”

MIT has ranked first in 11 different academic fields in the latest QS World University Rankings, reports Michael T. Nietzel for Forbes.

This year's Turing Award has been awarded to Bob Metcalfe ’69, a CSAIL research affiliate and MIT Corporation life member emeritus, for his work inventing Ethernet, a computer networking technology that for decades “has connected PCs to servers, printers and the internet in corporate offices and homes across the globe,” writes Cade Metz for The New York Times. “Almost everything you do online goes through Ethernet at some stage,” said Marc Weber of the Computer History Museum.

Bob Metcalfe ’69, a CSAIL research affiliate and MIT Corporation life member emeritus, has been honored as this year’s recipient of the Turing Award for the invention of the Ethernet, “a technology that half a century after its creation remains the foundation of the internet,” reports Stephen Nellis for Reuters. “The Ethernet got its start when Metcalfe, who later went on to co-found computing network equipment maker 3Com, was asked to hook up the office printer,” writes Nellis.

CSAIL research affiliate and MIT Corporation life member emeritus Bob Metacalfe ‘69 has been awarded the 2022 Turing Award for his contributions to creating Ethernet, a method for enabling personal computers to communicate directly with one another over a wired connection, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “Variants of the original Ethernet connect countless millions of computers around the world,” writes Bray.

Kirin Sinha ‘14 founded Illumix, a technology company that combines 2D models to interactive 3D models to provide immersive AR experiences, reports Rebecca Suhrawardi for Forbes. “Illumix is enabling high-quality and real-time virtual try-on which has implications for the fashion industry ranging from higher conversion rates, fewer returns, and more environmentally-friendly,” says Sinha.

MIT engineers have developed a new technique that enables bug-sized aerial robots to handle a sizeable amount of damage and still fly, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “The new repair techniques could come in handy when using flying robots for search-and-rescue missions in difficult environments like dense forests or collapsed buildings,” writes Paul.

Using an artificial intelligence system, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have developed a new Covid-19 vaccine that could be effective against current and future strains, reports Gwen Egan for Boston.com. “The vaccine differs from others currently on the market due to the portion of the virus being targeted,” writes Egan.  

Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray writes that MIT researchers have used an AI system to identify a potential new Covid-19 vaccine that may be effective against both current and future variants of the virus. “The new vaccine targets a portion of the COVID virus that is much less prone to evolve,” writes Bray. “That could potentially make it effective against many different versions of the virus, eliminating the need for routine booster shots.”

MIT researchers have developed a new approach to vaccines that uses “a machine learning twist [that] could put an end to boosters and seasonal variant shots,” reports Devin Coldewey for TechCrunch.

Researchers at MIT have predicted that without improvements in hardware efficiency, energy consumption and emissions from autonomous vehicles could be “comparable to that of data centers today,” reports Sarah Wells for Popular Mechanics. “In order to reduce the future carbon footprint of AVs, scientists will need to make the computing systems of AVs, including smart sensors, far more efficient,” writes Wells.