STAT reporters Katie Palmer and Casey Ross spotlight how Prof. Regina Barzilay has developed an AI tool called Mirai that can identify early signs of breast cancer from mammograms. “Mirai’s predictions were rolled into a screening tool called Tempo, which resulted in earlier detection compared to a standard annual screening,” writes Palmer and Ross.
In an article for The Wall Street Journal about next generation technologies that can create and quantify personal health data, Laura Cooper spotlights Prof. Dina Katabi’s work developing a noninvasive device that sits in a person’s home and can help track breathing, heart rate, movement, gait, time in bed and the length and quality of sleep. The device “could be used in the homes of seniors and others to help detect early signs of serious medical conditions, and as an alternative to wearables,” writes Cooper.
Fast Company reporter Mark Sullivan spotlights QuEra Computing as one of the 15 startups to watch in 2022. “Research breakthroughs by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University led to the launch of QuEra Computing, which uses a unique quantum architecture and laser techniques to arrange and direct the tiny qubits or quantum bits, in its 256-qubit system,” writes Sullivan.
New York Times reporter Steve Lohr spotlights Institute Prof. Daron Acemoglu’s research showing that “excessive automation” has contributed to rising inequality. “We need to redirect technology so it works for people,” says Acemoglu, “not against them.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Mark Hulbert writes that a new study by MIT researchers finds that most investors “can do much better than the one-size-fits-all approach to equity allocations that target-date funds offer for your retirement portfolio.”
Gramophone contributor Laurence Vittes spotlights Prof. Tod Machover’s “Death and the Powers,” an opera about robots and humans that has recently been released as an “electrifying surround-sound thriller.” Vittes writes that “Machover’s arsenal of music stands triumphantly on its own, fusing and defusing technoflash from the composer’s MIT Media Lab with rich writing for Gil Rose’s Boston Modern Orchestra ensemble.”
Prof. Regina Barzilay speaks with Good Morning America about her work developing a new AI tool that could “revolutionize early breast cancer detection” by identifying patients at high risk of developing the disease. “If this technology is used in a uniform way,” says Barzilay, “we can identify early who are high-risk patients and intervene.”
Washington Post reporter Steve Zeitchik spotlights Prof. Regina Barzilay and graduate student Adam Yala’s work developing a new AI system, called Mirai, that could transform how breast cancer is diagnosed, “an innovation that could seriously disrupt how we think about the disease.” Zeitchik writes: “Mirai could transform how mammograms are used, open up a whole new world of testing and prevention, allow patients to avoid aggressive treatments and even save the lives of countless people who get breast cancer.”
Researchers from MIT and the Berklee College of Music “have started a blockchain platform called RAIDAR, designed to help musicians connect with potential clients (perhaps filmmakers or video game designers who need theme music) and get paid for their work without losing ownership,” reports Newsweek.
The MIT Press will publish all monographs and edited collections on an open-source access basis this upcoming spring, reports Suzanne Smalley for Inside Higher Ed. The move presents a “model that scholars and librarians say could be revolutionary for cash-strapped libraries, university presses and a dwindling number of humanities scholars,” writes Smalley.
Boston Globe reporter Pranshu Verma highlights how The Engine has expanded into an 42,000 square-foot space in the Somernova Innovation Hub, located near Union Square in Somerville. “We knew it would be a great fit for The Engine’s expansion,” said Katie Rae, CEO and managing partner for The Engine. “It offers us the ability to solve the infrastructure challenge for our network and also brings us even closer to Greentown Labs so we can continue our close partnership on our shared mission of climate tech support.”
Boston Globe reporter Aaron Pressman spotlights Prof. Tim Berners-Lee’s startup, Inrupt, for creating open-sourced based software applications that protect and maintain digital data. “The idea is that a person or company could stash important personal or business data in a digital space, kind of like an online locker,” writes Pressman.
Ikigai, an MIT startup, is building automated workflows where human decision making will be a part of the process, reports Ron Miller for Tech Crunch. “What we saw is that there are use cases… [that involve] manual processes in the organizations that were extremely difficult to automate because a fundamental step involved humans making judgements or decisions with data, and where both the data and rules they’re operating on would change very often,” co-founder and CEO Vinayak Ramesh M.Eng ‘18, ‘12 tells Miller.
Writing for Popular Science, Sarah Scoles spotlights DAILy (Developing AI Literacy) initiative, a project by MIT researchers and students aimed at teaching middle schoolers “the technical, creative, and ethical implications of AI, taking them from building PB&Js to totally redesigning YouTube’s recommendation algorithm.”
Gizmodo reporter Shoshana Wodinsky spotlights a new study by MIT researchers that finds videos are not likely to sway public political opinion more than their textual counterparts. “It’s possible that as you’re scrolling through your newsfeed, video captures your attention more than text would,” says Prof. David Rand. “You might be more likely to look at it. This doesn’t mean that the video is inherently more persuasive than text – just that it has the potential to reach a wider audience.”