Prof. Behnaz Farahi speaks with WBUR reporter Maddie Browning about her “Gaze to the Stars” exhibit, which will bring illuminated projections of eyes to the MIT Dome. “This is an incredible time to really use art and technology, not to just create something which is provocative, but also have a meaningful experience to share stories that matters,” says Farahi.
Prof. Behnaz Farahi speaks with GBH’s The Culture Show host Jared Bowen about her new eye-catching work “Gaze to the Stars,” an exhibit that will transform the MIT Dome into a living canvas, showcasing video projections of eyes gazing at the stars, as part of the Artfinity art festival. “We are very excited about the possibility of bringing the community at MIT together and the question was how the community, MIT and beyond, can get the sense of community, the sense of unity, the sense of connectedness,” says Farahi on the inspiration behind her work.
Ariel Ekblaw, principal investigator for the “To the Moon to Stay” mission and a visiting scientist at the MIT Media Lab, speaks with Chaiel Schaffel of WBZ News Radio about the three payloads MIT engineers built for a recent mission to the moon. Of the AstroAnt rover that Ekblaw and her team developed for spacecraft assembly and external servicing, she explains: "What we want to do in the future is send hundreds or thousands that will crawl on the outside of space stations, maybe crawl on the outside of a lunar habitat, and do the inspections that would be really risky for humans to do."
Researchers at MIT have sent three payloads into space, including the AstroAnt, a small robotic device developed to help monitor spaceship conditions, reports Kenneth Chang for The New York Times. The AstroAnt rover is about the size of a “Hot Wheels” toy car and can measure a lunar rover’s temperature and communicate via a wireless Bluetooth connection. “MIT researchers envision that swarms of AstroAnts could be used to perform various tasks in space,” Chang explains.
Orlando Sentinel reporter Richard Tribou spotlights the AstroAnt, a small robotic device developed by MIT researchers to monitor spaceship conditions during lunar missions. The device can wheel around the roof of a lunar rover “to take temperature readings and monitor its operation.”
MIT researchers developed a small robotic rover called the AstroAnt and a depth-mapping camera for use in monitoring spaceship conditions during space missions, reports Richard Luscombe for The Guardian. The AstroAnt is designed to “eventually assist in diagnostic and repair tasks for spacecraft during lunar missions,” explains Luscombe.
Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray spotlights how MIT researchers developed a thumb-sized rover and a depth-mapping camera, technologies that will be used on a mission to the south pole of the Moon. The mini rover, dubbed AstroAnt, could one day be used to “patrol the exteriors of lunar probes, satellites, or space stations. Some might use cameras to spot meteorite damage, while others could apply sealants to prevent air or fuel leaks.”
USA Today reporter Eric Lagatta spotlights how MIT engineers and scientists are sending three payloads into space, on a course set for the Moon’s south polar region. The payload includes a mini, thumb-sized rover dubbed “AstroAnt” that the MIT researchers designed to help monitor the larger space vehicle. “AstroAnt is designed to inspect external surfaces of spacecraft, and will also collect thermal data and measurements while the rover explores,” writes Lagatta.
Research Assistants Maisy Lam and Laura Dodds speak with Tech Briefs reporter Andrew Corselli about their work developing MiFly, a new approach that “enables a drone to self-localize, or determine its position, in indoor, dark, and low-visibility environments.” Dodds explains: “Our high-level idea was we can place a millimeter wave sensor on the drone, and it can localize itself with respect to a sticker that we place on the wall, a millimeter wave tag. This would allow us to provide a localization system in these challenging environments with minimal infrastructure.”
Diane Hoskins '79, a member of the MIT Corporation, has been named a CNBC Changemaker for her impact on the business world, reports Ian Thomas for CNBC. “Over her more than three-decade career at Gensler, she has risen up the firm’s ranks to now serve as its global co-chair alongside Andy Cohen, who Hoskins shares long-term strategy and day-to-day operations with and previously served as co-CEO with for nearly two decades,” writes Thomas. “Hoskins has also been at the center of the discussion around how workspace design intersects with employee performance and engagement, overseeing Gensler’s Workplace Survey and influencing how the industry at large designs offices and other spaces.”
Postdoctoral Associate Pat Pataranutaporn speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Heidi Mitchell about his work developing Future You, an online interactive AI platform that “allows users to create a virtual older self—a chatbot that looks like an aged version of the person and is based on an AI text system known as a large language model, then personalized with information that the user puts in.” Pataranutaporn explains: “I want to encourage people to think in the long term, to be less anxious about an unknown future so they can live more authentically today.”
Prof. Pattie Maes speaks with Wired reporter Reece Rogers about the potential benefits and challenges posed by AI agents. “The way these systems are built, right now, they're optimized from a technical point of view, an engineering point of view,” says Maes. “But, they're not at all optimized for human-design issues.”
Knowable Magazine reporter Katherine Ellison spotlights Future You, a new program developed by researchers at MIT that “offers young people a chance to chat with an online, AI-generated simulation of themselves at age 60.”
New Yorker reporter Rivka Galchen visits the lab of Prof. Hugh Herr to learn more about his work aimed at the “merging of body and machine.” Herr and his team are developing bionic prosthetics that can be completely controlled by the human brain and are designed to allow users “to walk approximately as quickly and unthinkingly as anyone else.” Herr imagines a future where “we will be able to sculpt our own brains and bodies, and therefore our own identities and experiences.”
Research from the Data Provenance Initiative, led by MIT researchers, has “found that many web sources used for training AI models have restricted their data, leading to a rapid decline in accessible information,” reports Gary Drenik for Forbes.