Robotic furniture produced by MIT spinout Ori, which created a furniture system that reconfigures itself with the push of a button or voice commands, could be the solution to living in small spaces, writes Candace Jackson for The New York Times.
Keith Powers highlights Prof. Tod Machover’s new opera, Schoenberg in Hollywood,” in WBUR’s guide to the most innovative operas being performed in Boston this fall. Powers writes that in the opera, Machover “investigates the improbable but true story of Schoenberg, the leader of the Second Viennese School, who actually did flee to Hollywood to escape the Nazis.”
Smithsonian reporter Emily Matchar highlights how MIT researchers have developed a new system that enables data sharing between underwater and airborne devices. Prof. Fadel Adib explains that the technology could be used to “study marine life and have access to a whole new world that is still pretty much out of our reach today.”
Fortune reporters Aaron Pressman and Adam Lashinsky highlight graduate student Joy Buolamwini’s work aimed at eliminating bias in AI and machine learning systems. Pressman and Lashinsky note that Buolamwini believes that “who codes matters,” as more diverse teams of programmers could help prevent algorithmic bias.
CNBC reporter Catherine Clifford writes that MIT researchers have started a project to spotlight creative collaborations between humans and machines. Postdoctoral associate Pinar Yanardag explains that the project is aimed at showing the public that “we can work together with AI to achieve the most creative and productive outcomes.”
Prof. Neri Oxman, the recipient of the Design Innovation Medal at the London Design Festival, speaks with Financial Times reporter Annalisa Quinn about her work, which melds art and science. The “imbalance between innovations achieved in fields such as synthetic biology and the primitive state of digital fabrication in product and architectural design shaped my ambition,” Oxman shares with Quinn.
In an article for Wired, Prof. Joi Ito writes that our educational system needs to be more inclusive of different learning styles. “We need to revamp our notion of ‘education’ and shake loose the ordered and linear metrics of the society of the past,” Ito declares.
MIT Media Lab fellow and “bionic artist” Viktoria Modesta writes for a special CNN feature about how technology is changing what it means to be human. Modesta, who voluntarily amputated her leg due to constant pain, writes that “fusing my body with technology feels like a philosophical exploration of humanity. It is art.”
Boston Globe reporter Jeremy Eichler spotlights Prof. Tod Machover’s new opera, “Schoenberg in Hollywood,” which looks at the life and work of the composer Arnold Schoenberg. Eichler writes that the opera is “at once an earnestly admiring tribute and an unconventional biographic fantasia.”
Quanta Magazine reporter Natalie Wolchover spotlights how the work of Profs. William Freeman, Antonio Torralba and Ramesh Raskar is shedding light on how visual signals can be used to uncover information on hidden objects. Freeman explains that he is thrilled by the idea that “the world is rich with lots of things yet to be discovered.”
Boston magazine highlights Prof. Tod Machover’s new opera “Schoenberg in Hollywood” in their fall guide to the arts in Boston. Boston magazine notes that the opera is “about a brilliant composer fleeing the Nazis and landing in 1930s L.A.—you’ve never seen opera like this.”
Research affiliate Tim Hwang speaks with Aaron Mak of Slate about whether Google is suppressing conservative media outlets in search results. “I don’t think the question is whether or not it’s biased. All these systems embed some kind of bias,” explains Hwang. “The question is: Do we have transparency to how some of these decisions are being made?”
Prof. Fadel Abid speaks with IEEE Spectrum reporter Michael Koziol about a new system his research group developed to enable communication between underwater sources and the air. “We’re very interested in how deep and how high you can go,” says Adib. “Even from a theoretical perspective, we don’t even know what the limits are.”
FOX News reporter Jamie Rogers writes that MIT researchers have developed a new system that “helps solve a longstanding problem in wireless communication – how to send data directly from a submarine to a plane or drone.”
Molly Webster of WNYC’s Radiolab visits the Picower Institute to learn more about how researchers are investigating new techniques that might eventually be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Prof. Li-Huei Tsai speaks about her group’s work using flickering light to reduce the beta amyloid plaque found in Alzheimer’s patients, and graduate student Dheeraj Roy discusses his work recovering memories with light.