In honor of the late Prof. Michel Dertouzos’ 82nd birthday, Google honored the renowned computer scientist for his work with a special doodle, reports Nina Godlewski for Newsweek. "Michael had a broad understanding of technology and a teacher's knack for explaining ideas," says Prof. Emeritus Fernando Corbató.
The life and legacy of Prof. Michael Dertouzos, who was “renowned for making complicated technology accessible to the general public,” is celebrated in a new Google doodle, reports Helen Rogers for CNN. Rogers notes that Dertouzos “predicted how the internet and the rise of personal computers would impact people's lives.”
Boston Herald reporter Jordan Graham writes that MIT researchers have developed an autonomous system that allows fleets of drones to navigate without GPS and could be used to help find missing hikers. “What we’re trying to do is automate the search part of the search-and-rescue problem with a fleet of drones,” explains graduate student Yulun Tian.
Motherboard reporter Daniel Oberhaus writes that MIT researchers have developed an AI system that can generate theories about the physical laws of imaginary universes. Oberhaus writes that in the future the system could be used to help understand “massively complex datasets, such as those used in climate modeling or economics.”
Technology developed by researchers from MIT Lincoln Lab could be used to help detect public shooters before they fire, writes Elizabeth MacBride for Forbes. “The technology uses radar energy to detect weapons and explosives through clothing, backpacks and hand baggage in real time,” MacBride explains.
MIT researchers have developed a language translation model that operates without human annotations and guidance, reports Liangyu for Xinhua news agency. The system, which may enable computer-based translations of the thousands of languages spoken worldwide, is “a step toward one of the major goals of machine translation, which is fully unsupervised word alignment,” Liangyu explains.
MIT alumni Aman Narang and Steve Fredette speak with NECN’s Brian Burnell about their startup Toast, which provides cloud-based, restaurant management software. Narang explains that Toast was created to replace outdated restaurant technology and “build something from the ground up that could connect their diners, their guests, their employees, and make the restauranteur’s life more efficient.”
UCLA Prof. Leonard Kleinrock, an MIT alumnus, speaks with PC Mag reporter S.C. Stuart about his work developing the mathematical theory of packet networks during his graduate studies at MIT. Kleinrock recounts how “that was a golden era at MIT and elsewhere in the research groups in the sixties, and I'll be forever grateful to ARPA's enlightened funding culture.”
MIT researchers have developed a way to prevent the theft of sensitive data hidden on a computer’s memory, writes TechCrunch’s Zack Whittaker. Storing sensitive data in different memory locations creates “clear boundaries for where sharing should and should not happen, so that programs with sensitive information can keep that data reasonably secure,” explains graduate student Vladimir Kiriansky.
Financial Times reporter Jemima Kelly reports that MIT researchers have developed a low-power chip that is hardwired to perform public-key encryption. Kelly writes that the chip is “potentially a game-changer for simple, low-powered products such as smart sensors used by industry to gauge things such as temperature and pressure, as well as health monitors.”
Taylor Pettaway of the Boston Herald writes that MIT’s new college of computing will be one of the university’s largest structural changes made since 1950. Offering classes in different fields, “students will be able to experience on campus new computational tools and these new abilities transform academics on campus with every study,” says Provost Martin Schmidt.
President L. Rafael Reif joins Bloomberg Bay State Business to speak with hosts Peter Barnes, Janet Wu and Pat Carroll about MIT’s $1 billion commitment to furthering the study of computer science and AI through a new college for computing.
Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Lee Gardner notes that MIT is making a $1 billion investment in furthering the study of computation and AI. “The institute’s project will support the search for solutions to two other daunting challenges,” Gardner explains, “how to handle the ethical and philosophical implications of AI for the societies it will transform, and how to break down institutional silos in academe.”
WGBH reporter Maggie Penn examines how the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing will integrate the study of computer science and AI into every academic discipline. "Much of higher education is silo-ed, a lot of universities are dealing with that," explains Melissa Nobles, dean of SHASS. "This is a really creative way of getting around that and creating something new that is truly collaborative."
Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Lee Gardner notes that MIT is making a $1 billion investment in furthering the study of computation and AI. “The institute’s project will support the search for solutions to two other daunting challenges,” Gardner explains, “how to handle the ethical and philosophical implications of AI for the societies it will transform, and how to break down institutional silos in academe.”