MIT researchers have developed a system to map streetlights, writes Linda Poon for The Atlantic CityLab. Using sensors mounted on top of vehicles, the system measures illumination levels, gathers data into a map, and distinguishes between background light and streetlights through machine learning, explains Poon.
Dr. Mallika Marshall reports for CBS Boston that MIT researchers have created a robot that helps maternity nurses make scheduling and placement decisions. “What we found was that the suggestions of the robot were accepted 90 percent of the time, which was very exciting for us,” explains Prof. Julie Shah.
MIT researchers have found that low-emissions vehicles are among the least expensive to drive. Based off their findings, the researchers developed an app that helps consumers evaluate a car’s carbon impact, reports John Schwartz for The New York Times. “Consumers can save money and save emissions at the same time,” explains Prof. Jessika Trancik.
Wall Street Journal reporter Melinda Beck spotlights the MIT D-Lab’s emphasis on flexible business plans and designs when developing innovations for developing nations. Beck highlights two D-Lab projects, an effort to make low-cost sanitary pads available in rural India and SurgiBox, a “collapsible tent that creates a sterile space around the portion of a patient undergoing surgery,” as examples.
In an article for The Wall Street Journal about pay equity, Lauren Weber highlights Prof. Emilio Castilla’s research on manager bias. Weber explains that Castilla designed a system that “increased transparency and accountability for managers’ merit-pay decisions,” and found that pay gaps based on race, gender and nationality almost disappeared.
Eric Boodman writes for STAT that MIT researchers have developed a technique to produce biopharmaceuticals in remote locations. “Instead of making the drugs and then trying to keep them refrigerated over thousands of miles,” Boodman writes, the researchers, “want to give people the ingredients. These components don’t require refrigeration, and the instructions are as simple as they come: Just add water.”
CSAIL researcher have created a device that uses changes in heart beat and breathing to detect emotions, writes Forbes’ Kevin Murnane. The heart of the system,” writes Murnane, “is the algorithm that extracts the heartbeat from the RF signal. It’s an impressive achievement that solves a difficult problem.”
A device created by CSAIL researchers can detect emotions by wirelessly measuring heartbeats, according to the Associated Press. The device is “87 percent accurate in using heartrate and what it’s already learned about a person to recognize joy, pleasure, sadness or anger.”
CSAIL researchers have developed a device that can determine a person’s mood using wireless signals, write Jordan Graham and Donna Goodison for The Boston Herald. “We view this work as the next step in helping develop computers that can better understand us at an emotional level,” explains Mingmin Zhao.
CSAIL researchers have developed a device that can determine emotion by analyzing reflections from wireless signals bounced off the human body, writes Mary Beth Griggs for Popular Science. “Because it can measure heart rate, it might also be a less invasive way for doctors to monitor patient's heartbeats, potentially watching for conditions like arrhythmias,” writes Griggs.
Matt McFarland writes for CNN that CSAIL researchers have developed a non-invasive device that uses radio waves to detect human emotion. "Imagine if the machines around you can understand when you are stressed or your emotional state is negative,” explains Prof. Dina Katabi."[It could] try to detect depression."
Mercury News reporter Lisa Krieger writes that a letter co-authored by Prof. Kerry Emanuel warns U.S. politicians about the dangers of withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. “We all reacted with some shock to statements from the Republican platform that would have reversed decades of progress,” said Emanuel. “We felt we had to say something.”
Researchers from MIT and IBM are joining forces to develop systems that enable machines to recognize images and sounds as people do, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. James DiCarlo, head of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, notes that as researchers build systems that can interpret events, “we learn ways our own brains might be doing that.”
MIT researchers are studying the possibility of developing autonomous boats and floating vessels, writes Stephanie Mlot in a Fox News article. The research, which is being conducted in collaboration with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions, “aims to serve as an inspiration for urban areas around the globe.”
Researchers from MIT and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions are exploring the possibility of self-driving boats. “Imagine a fleet of autonomous boats for the transportation of goods and people,” says Prof. Carlo Ratti. “Also think of dynamic and temporary floating infrastructure like on-demand bridges and stages.”