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This CNN video highlights a new system developed by CSAIL researchers that allows noncoders to teach robots to perform a task after a single demonstration. The new programming method also enables robots to learn from other robots, which could enable “a variety of robots to perform similar tasks.”
In an article for Scientific American about the future of robotics, Prof. Emeritus Rodney Brooks highlights Prof. Dina Katabi’s work developing devices that use wireless signals to detect a person’s emotions.
Prof. Andrew Lo speaks with Barry Ritholtz of Bloomberg View about the field of economics. Lo explains that his new book chronicles his “intellectual journey from a diehard devotee of efficient markets and rational expectations into the realm of first psychology and behavioral finance, and then to neuroscience and how people really make decisions.”
Graduate student Carrie Cai speaks with BBC News reporter Gareth Mitchell about a tool named “WaitSuite” that can help users learn a foreign language during idle moments. Cai explains that WaitSuite, “might detect that you are waiting for WiFi and alert you to the fact that there is a word you could be learning.”
Prof. Daniela Rus speaks with Siti Rahil of Kyodo News about how researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) are working autonomous vehicles. Rus explains that a challenge facing the field is enabling driverless cars to operate in environments where "some of the cars are driven by people and some of the cars are driven automatically."
Astronomers are using data gathered by telescopes around the world to develop the first image of a black hole, according to the AFP. “All the data -- some 500 terabytes per station -- will be collected and flown on jetliners to the MIT Haystack Observatory in Massachusetts, where it will be processed by supercomputers.”
Graduate student Frank Wang speaks with WGBH reporter Ciku Theuri about an encryption system developed by MIT researchers that can provide web users more online privacy. Wang explains that the system hits a “sweet point where we can actually say … we have pretty good security and we're pretty practical.”
Prof. Tim Berners-Lee has been awarded the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Turing prize for his work developing the World Wide Web, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “It is hard to imagine the world before Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s invention,” says ACM President Vicki Hanson.
Joel Brenner, former NSA inspector general and a research fellow at MIT, speaks to BBC reporter Gareth Mitchell about an MIT report that examines cyber security threats to the nation’s infrastructure. “You can have a digital network that’s not public,” says Brenner, “but you shouldn’t be able to get to the controls of critical infrastructure through the public internet.”
Prof. Tim Berners-Lee has been awarded the Turing Award for his work creating the World Wide Web and its underlying technology, reports Klint Finley for Wired. The web “succeeded because of the work he and so many other put into stewarding it as a platform,” writes Finley.
Prof. Tim Berners-Lee has won this year’s Turing Award, writes AP reporter Michael Liedtke. "It's a crowning achievement," says Berners-Lee of winning what is considered the Nobel prize for computing. "But I think the award is for the Web as a project, and the massive international collaborative spirit of all that have joined me to help."
A report released by MIT startup Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT) shows that one in four drivers were using a smartphone just before an accident occurred, reports The Boston Globe’s Matt Rocheleau. Prof. Samuel Madden, founder and chief scientist at CMT, explains that the study shows “people are using their phones a lot, and that’s playing a role in the accidents.”
CSAIL researchers have developed software that allows users to design and virtually test drones, writes Alex Davies for Wired. Graduate student Tao Du explains that the software can help users “explore and try different shapes and different controllers.”
Ilaria Liccardi, a research scientist at CSAIL, speaks with WBUR’s Meghna Chakrabarti about the repeal of privacy regulations that prevented internet service providers from using, sharing, and selling data collected about users. “If people want to safeguard their privacy they should use services like VPN or Tor,” suggests Liccardi.
James Brenner, the former NSA Inspector General and a research fellow at MIT, speaks with Meghna Chakrabarti of Radio Boston about a new report by MIT researchers that examines potential cyber security vulnerabilities in American infrastructure. Brenner explains that the report aims to “shine a light on what the underlying problems are both technological, commercial and political.”