Hasier Larrea MS ’15 - CEO of Ori, a company that creates expandable tiny apartments - writes for Newsweek about his journey and inspiration for developing expandable housing options. Larrea writes that Ori is focused on creating, “expandable urban apartments that are more flexible, functional, affordable and sustainable—in short, living spaces that can suit the amazing diversity of people who want to live in the world's most incredible cities.”
Prof. Cynthia Breazeal discusses her work exploring how artificial intelligence can help students impacted by Covid, including refugees or children with disabilities, reports Ryan Heath for Politico. “We want to be super clear on what the role is of the robot versus the community, of which this robot is a part of. That's part of the ethical design thinking,” says Breazeal. “We don't want to have the robot overstep its responsibilities. All of our data that we collect is protected and encrypted.”
Research scientist Barmak Heshmat, CEO and founder of MIT spinout Brelyon, speaks with TechCrunch reporter Haje Jan Kamps about the company’s work in immersive digital monitors. “Our logic is pretty simple: If we can give you even half of the immersion of headsets with a device that doesn’t have to sit on your face and works with all existing content, then that would be a much more compelling progression of your computer experience and thus a better bridge to the emerging metaverse,” says Heshmat.
Prof. Edward Boyden has developed a new imaging technique called expansion-revealing microscopy that can reveal tiny protein structures in tissues, reports The Economist. “Already his team at MIT has used it to reveal detail in synapses, the nanometer-sized junctions between nerve cells, and also to shed light on the mechanisms at play in Alzheimer’s disease, revealing occasional spirals of amyloid-beta protein around axons, which are the threadlike parts of nerve cells that carry electrical impulses.”
Prof. Dava Newman, director of the MIT Media Lab, speaks with Los Angeles Times reporter Samantha Masunaga about the delay of the Artemis 1 moon mission. “We don’t take chances, especially on such a huge, powerful rocket,” said Newman, a former NASA deputy administrator. “Everything has to work perfectly.”
MIT researchers will be conducting a series of experiments with implications for online social networks at the Burning Man festival this upcoming weekend, reports Jennifer A. Kingson for Axios.
Craig Ferguson, a full stack developer at the MIT Media Lab, has developed a mobile mental health game, dubbed Paradise Island, that sends users on real-life missions in exchange for rewards and is based on a type of therapy called behavioral activation, reports Elissaveta Brandon for Fast Company. “One of the goals behind the app is to teach people a lesson, to help them build skills and resilience,” Ferguson says. “If you do this enough, that reflection step is to make people realize ‘When I was feeling bad, I really didn’t think running would help, but it did,’ and remember that.”
Prof. Yoel Fink speaks with Washington Post reporter Pranshu Verma about the growing field of smart textiles and his work creating fabrics embedded with computational power. Fink and his colleagues “have created fibers with hundreds of silicon microchips to transmit digital signals — essential if clothes are to automatically track things like heart rate or foot swelling. These fibers are small enough to pass through a needle that can be sown into fabric and washed at least 10 times.”
Butlr, spinout founded by researchers from the MIT Media Lab, is developing sensors that utilize body heat to estimate office occupancy, reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. The new technology “uses thermal sensing AI to provide data on space occupancy and historical activity,” writes Wiggers.
Researchers at MIT have created a knit textile containing pressure sensors called 3DKnITS which can be used to predict a person’s movements, reports Charlotte Hu for Popular Science. “Smart textiles that can sense how users are moving could be useful in healthcare, for example, for monitoring gait or movement after an injury,” writes Hu.
Ariel Ekblaw, director of the Space Exploration Initiative and founder of the Aurelia Institute, speaks with Fast Company reporter Rachael Zisk about accessibility needs for human spaceflight and the next generation of space stations. “The goal of democratizing access to space is to allow more people around the world to see themselves in that future,” says Ekblaw.
The MIT Media Lab hosted the “Imagination in Action Web3 Summit,” which brought togethers entrepreneurs, investors, and thought leaders who believe we are on the verge of a tech revolution, reports Anissa Gardizy for The Boston Globe.
MIT researchers have developed FuseBot, a new system that combines RFID tagging with a robotic arm to retrieve hidden objects from a pile, reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch. “As long as some objects within the pile are tagged, the system can determine where its subject is most likely located and the most efficient way to retrieve it,” writes Heater.
TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater spotlights multiple MIT research projects, including MIT Space Exploration Initiative’s TESSERAE, CSAIL’s Robocraft and the recent development of miniature flying robotic drones.
Rob Morris PhD ’14 has dedicated his career to easing access to mental health services online, reports Shalene Gupta for Fast Company. “When you search for a flight on Google, you get directed to these options that make you instantly buy a flight,” he says. “The interface is beautiful. But when you look up mental health, it’s not great. I want to do for mental health what Google did for flights.”