New York Times reporter Penelope Green speaks with Prof. Sherry Turkle about a new Facebook tool aimed at making breakups easier. “It’s not to say that Facebook shouldn’t make it easy to click that button to avoid certain painful memories,” she said. “But the reason we’re looking through those old love letters is we’re trying to work through our past.”
Brian Barrett writes for Wired about the new system CSAIL researchers developed to increase the speed at which websites load. “When there’s a lot of objects on the page, that’s where Polaris can really help, because it’s important to prioritize some over the others,” explains graduate student Ravi Netravali.
Reuters reporter Dustin Volz writes that during an MIT event, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced that the U.S. will begin sending digital trade experts to foreign markets. Pritzker also “discussed the Privacy Shield and other issues facing the transatlantic digital economy with Andrus Ansip, vice president of the European Commission's digital single market.”
Popular Science reporter Dave Gershgorn writes that MIT researchers have developed a new system that cuts down on the amount of time it takes for webpages to load. The system allows browsers to download web pages "more effectively, saving up to 34 percent of load time.”
CSAIL researchers have developed a new system that allows websites to load 34 percent faster than with a standard web browser, reports Charlotte Wilder for Boston.com. Wilder writes that, “the researchers tried out their code on 200 different websites, including Weather.com and ESPN, and found the load time was significantly less across the board.”
Christian Science Monitor reporter Jack Detsch writes about the “Cambridge 2 Cambridge” hackathon, which brought together students from MIT and Cambridge University to hack websites and discover built-in vulnerabilities. “It’s not a law of nature that machines are insecure,” says CSAIL’s Howard Shrobe. This hackathon “is the first step of piquing curiosity to fix it.”
Curt Nickisch reports for WBUR on the remarks Robert Hannigan, director of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, made at MIT on encryption and privacy. CSAIL’s Daniel Weitzner says that he feels that the fact that both Hannigan and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter spoke out against mandatory backdoors, is “a really significant shift in the debate.”
During his remarks at MIT, Robert Hannigan, director of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, called for greater collaboration between technology companies and governments, reports Tim Bradshaw for the Financial Times. Bradshaw writes that “Hannigan’s speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday came ahead of a proposed new public-private forum in the UK.”
In a talk at MIT, Robert Hannigan, director of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, expressed his hope that “technology companies and academic researchers will find ways to let government investigators get into encrypted devices without creating broad ‘back doors’ that undermine computer security,” writes Brian Bergstein for Technology Review.
Hiawatha Bray writes for The Boston Globe about the talk Robert Hannigan, director of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, delivered on encryption at MIT. Bray writes that Hannigan urged technology companies and governments to “develop a joint strategy that will provide police and intelligence agencies the data they need, while preserving the public’s right to digital privacy.”
Matt McMarland writes for The Washington Post that a CSAIL researcher has developed a computer system that can produce tweets that read like they are written by presidential candidate Donald Trump. McFarland explains that postdoc Brad Hayes “wanted a fun way to familiarize himself with some statistical modeling techniques for his research on human and robot interactions.”
Popular Science reporter Dave Gershgorn writes that postdoc Bradley Hayes has created an algorithm that tweets fragments of Donald Trump’s speeches. Gershgorn explains that, “the algorithm works by selecting a random letter, and then predicting what letter would normally come next, based on the original text.”
In a Forbes piece about historical technology developments that occurred during the week of February 22nd, Gil Press highlights how Prof. Emeritus Jay Forrester received a patent on Feb. 28, 1956 for magnetic core memory. Forrester’s invention “became the standard for computer memory until it was supplanted by solid state RAM in the mid-seventies.”
Wired reporter Emily Reynolds writes that researchers from MIT CSAIL have developed a new communication system that is designed to help humans and robots work together in emergency situations. The new system reduces the needs for communication by 60 percent, reducing the potential for information overload.
Boston.com reporter Hilary Sargent writes that MIT researchers have developed a new device that could help guide the visually impaired. Sargent explains that a prototype system the researchers developed “is about the size of a binoculars case and is designed to be worn around someone’s neck.”