Researchers at the MIT Media Lab have designed a miniature wireless track pad that fits on a thumbnail and allows users to control their devices while their hands are busy, reports Liz Stinson for Wired. “The value of NailO lies in pondering more discreet interaction with our gadgets,” Stinson writes.
MIT researchers have developed a new device that turns your thumb into a miniature wireless track pad, reports Tessa Verenson for TIME Magazine. The device could allow users to “answer the phone while cooking, control their cell phones even when they hands are full or discreetly send a text.”
Rachel Fobar writes for Popular Science about a sensor developed by Prof. Timothy Swager’s team that can predict when food will spoil. The sensor could be used in "'smart packaging' that could help provide more accurate information than an expiration date,” writes Fobar.
In this video, MIT researcher Chris Green speaks with BBC Click about the swarm of autonomous drones developed by the MIT SENSEable City Lab that can communicate with one another and could be used to test water quality. Green explains that the drones can be outfitted to “include all sorts of sensors… from water quality to air quality.”
MIT researchers have developed a thumbnail-mounted sensor that can be used as a wireless track pad, reports Marie Szaniszlo for the Boston Herald. The device, “puts Bluetooth and a battery into a package that you can stick to your fingernail and can send data wirelessly to your phone,” Szaniszlo explains.
Stacy Shepard writes for Boston Magazine about FitBark, a product created by MIT alumnus Davide Rossi that monitors a dog’s activity and health statistics. “Our pets are full members of the family, and we needed a way to monitor how they are doing,” says Rossi.
In an article examining graphene, John Colapinto of The New Yorker highlights Prof. Tomas Palacios’ work integrating graphene into everyday objects. “Rather than using graphene to improve existing applications, as Tour’s lab mostly does, Palacios is trying to build devices for a future world,” writes Colapinto.
Cynthia Graber of Scientific American reports that MIT researchers have developed a new technique that turns a smartphone into a sensor that can detect hazardous gases and environmental pollutants. "The method was tested with ammonia, cyclohexanone and hydrogen peroxide. And the tags could sense the substances at levels of a few parts per million,” reports Graber.
“There’s an enormous richness of information by looking in the water that’s indicative of what’s going in a city in a real-time fashion,” says Prof. Eric Alm in an interview with Wudan Yan of The Daily Beast of his idea to examine public health by tracking the transmission of pathogens in sewers.
New York Times reporter Steve Lohr profiles the work of Professor Alex “Sandy” Pentland, director of the Human Dynamics Laboratory at the MIT Media Lab, Pentland’s new book, “Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread – The Lesson From a New Science,” argues that data collected about everyday human interaction can be used to accelerate the pace of innovation.