TechCrunch reporter Darrell Etherington writes that MIT researchers have developed a new system that enables autonomous boats to latch onto one another to create new structures. Etherington explains that the researchers envision fleets of autonomous boats forming “on-demand urban infrastructure, including stages for concerts, walking bridges or even entire outdoor markets.”
Wired reporter Aarian Marshall spotlights how Prof. Sarah Williams has been developing digital tools to help map bus routes in areas that lack transportation maps. “The maps show that there is an order,” Williams explains. “There is, in fact, a system, and the system could be used to help plan new transportation initiatives.”
Financial Times reporter Hugo Cox highlights how MIT researchers have developed robots that can be used to detect disease in specific regions by sampling sewage. “A local robot takes days to identify an outbreak of flu; the surge in attendance at local hospitals and surgeries typically takes weeks to register,” Cox explains. “And because the information is local, the response can be too.”
Prof. Albert Saiz speaks with Greg Rosalsky on NPR’s Planet Money podcast about affordable housing and rent control. “The evidence is very clear that rent control doesn't work the way it's intended to work,” says Saiz. “There are policies that look a bit like rent control but that do not necessarily distort the housing market.”
Prof. Carlo Ratti speaks with NBC Mach reporter Wynne Parry about his vision for the city of the future. “New technologies will have an impact on the experience of the city more than on its physical form,” Ratti explains. “The way we move, communicate and shop will be radically different from how it is today.”
In an article for USA Today, research affiliate Ashley Nunes explores the feasibility of creating fully self-driving vehicles. “Unless these systems are proven faultless (which they aren’t), ceding control of public safety to algorithmic rather than human intuitions is an unlikely prospect at best,” writes Nunes. “There goes the let-the-robot-drive future we were promised.”
Guardian columnist John Naughton highlights Prof. Emeritus Jay Forrester’s work developing a simulation tool for urban planning. “A chance encounter with the outgoing mayor of Boston awakened Forrester’s interest in cities and led to the construction of a simulation model of a city at a time when American planners were alarmed by the flight to the suburbs,” Naughton explains.
In an article for Axios, Prof. Carlo Rati writes about how developments in automated vehicles and smart infrastructure could be used to help make cities safer. “Developing technology for AVs to communicate with other vehicles as well as infrastructure like streets, traffic lights and road signs could both improve safety and decrease congestion,” writes Ratti.
HealthDay reporter Steven Reinberg writes that a new study by Prof. Siqi Zheng finds that air pollution can make people unhappy. Zheng found that, “On days with high levels of pollution, people are more likely to engage in impulsive and risky behavior that they may later regret, possibly because of short-term depression and anxiety,” writes Reinberg.
Inverse reporter Emma Betuel reports on a new study by MIT researchers showing that air quality impacts the happiness of people living in cities in China. “When the air is polluted people stay home, they don’t go out, and they order food delivery while staying home playing computer games and shopping online,” explains Prof. Siqi Zheng.
By analyzing posts on social media in China, Prof. Siqi Zheng has found that air pollution can cause increased levels of depression and unhappiness, reports Adele Peters for Fast Company. “We want to show that there’s a wider range of the social cost of air pollution,” explains Zheng.
MIT researchers have found that it’s easy to reidentify anonymized data compiled in massive datasets, reports Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan for Fast Company. The findings show that urban planners, tech companies and designers, “who stand to learn so much from these big urban datasets,” writes Campbell-Dollaghan, “need to be careful about whether all that data could be combined to deanonymize it.”
A new study by MIT researchers provides evidence that compiling massive anonymized datasets of people’s movement patterns can put their private data at risk, reports the Xinhua news agency. The researchers found “data containing ‘location stamps’ – information with geographical coordinates and time stamps – could be used to easily track the mobility trajectories of how people live and work.”
TIME reporter Precious Adesina writes that researchers from MIT’s Senseable City Lab have developed an algorithm that measures how many urban trees are seen from a pedestrian’s perspective. Prof. Carlo Ratti explains that in addition to lowering urban temperatures, increasing the number of trees in a city can be “extraordinary in terms of collective well-being.”
This Quartz video highlights how MIT researchers are developing a self-driving boat system that can navigate waterways and can transform into different structures to move cargo, trash or build a temporary bridge. “The boats find the best path between preprogrammed locations, while using GPS, laser sensors, and cameras to avoid hitting anything,” explains Michael Tabb.