CNBC reporter Lora Kolodny writes about Spyce kitchen, an MIT startup that uses both humans and robots to make what it calls “complex meals.” “Spyce has a stated goal of not replacing human chefs, explains Kolodny, “but helping them work faster, and make delicious meals more consistently, in its restaurants.”
Boston Herald reporter Jordan Graham writes about Ori, a Media Lab spinout that aims to make apartments more functional and spacious through the use of robotic furniture. Founder and CEO Hasier Larrea, an MIT alumnus, explains that by using technology and robotics, “you can make a 300-square-foot apartment be much more functional than a traditional static 400-square-foot apartment.”
In this video, Mashable highlights a new method developed by MIT researchers to 3-D print soft robots that can crawl, fold and carry a pill. The team hopes the structures, which can be controlled with a magnet, could eventually be used as a medical device to take tissue samples or deliver treatments.
Lara Lewington reports for BBC Click on how MIT researchers have developed a technique to create 3-D printed soft structures that can be controlled with a magnet. Lewington explains that the structures could eventually be used in biomedical devices to “take images, extract samples, deliver drugs or even surround a blood vessel to control the pumping of blood.”
Researchers at MIT have created 3D-printed structures that can be controlled by a magnet. The structures included a tube that could squeeze shut, a sheet that could fold, and “a spider-like ‘grabber’ that could crawl, roll, jump, and snap together fast enough to catch a passing ball,” reports Mu Xuequan for Xinhua.
Gabriel Bousquet ’17 speaks to BBC Click’s Gareth Mitchell about the robot he designed for his graduate thesis that was modeled after an albatross. Bosquet envisions using the robot to better understand “the exchanges between the atmosphere and ocean and carbon dioxide,” in the Antarctic Ocean, in an effort to learn more about climate change.
Using magnetic nanoparticles that have been mixed into rubber, Associate Prof. Xuanhe Zhao has created “3D printed shapes that fold, morph, and move in the presence of a magnetic field,” reports Leah Crane for New Scientist. In the future, Zhao believes this work could have medical applications, “like assisting minimally invasive surgeries,” notes Crane.
In response to a reader’s question about self-driving cars, Mercury News reporter Gary Richards describes new technology in the works by MIT researchers to allow, “driverless cars to change lanes more like human drivers do.”
NBC Mach reporter Tom Metcalfe writes that MIT researchers are developing autonomous boats that could be used to ferry goods and people and could help ease traffic congestion. “We believe that with fleets of very agile autonomous boats we can offload some street traffic onto the waterways,” explains Prof. Daniela Rus.
Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray writes about Technology Review’s EmTech Next conference, which examined how technology and AI will impact the future of work. Prof. David Mindell noted that while AI could impact the types of jobs available in the future, machines will always need human assistance. “When robots succeed,” said Mindell, “they’re never alone.”
Prof. Patrick Winston is teaching a computer to read a truncated version of Macbeth in an effort to determine “how to build computer systems that can simulate the human mind’s unique powers of perception and insight,” writes Andy Rosen for The Boston Globe. Winston believes understanding stories is “a fundamental differentiating capability of us humans. And machines don’t have it yet.”
Researchers from MIT's CSAIL and Senseable City Lab “have designed a fleet of 3-D printed autonomous boats [that] could eventually taxi people and deliver goods,” reports CNBC’s Erin Black. The boats “can also be equipped to monitor a city's water quality,” Black explains.
MIT researchers have developed a surgical technique that allows the central nervous system to send movement commands to a robotic prosthesis, writes Allen Cone for United Press International. Cone explains that the new technique allows for “more stable and efficient” control over the movement of the prosthetic device.
STAT reporters Gideon Gil and Matthew Orr describe a “pioneering” surgical technique from researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital that allows prosthetics to operate like human limbs. Prof. Hugh Herr, “himself a rock climber who lost both his legs to frostbite as a teen, describes his goal as nothing short of eliminating disability."
Wired reporter Jack Stewart highlights how MIT researchers have developed a 3-D printed autonomous boat that could be used to ferry goods or people. The boats could eventually, “use their onboard GPS sensors and inertial measurement units to precisely position themselves in packs, forming instant floating bridges, or stages, or platforms for pop-up food markets on the water.”