Ivan Casadevantre MS '15 and Hasier Larrea MS '15 co-founded ORI Living – a furniture company that uses electromechanics to develop furniture systems designed for space efficiency. “You have to make those small spaces feel and act as if they were much larger,” says Larrea. “And that’s when we started thinking about robotics, thinking about engineering, and how we bring all those technologies to make it possible to live large in a smaller footprint.”
MIT scientists have created RoboGrocery, a robot prototype that can pack a bag of standard groceries, reports Mack DeGeurin for Popular Science. Using an RGB-D camera equipped with computer vision technology and grippers with pressure sensors, RoboGrocery’s “ability to assess items, determine their delicacy, and pack efficiently without causing damage sets it apart from conventional robotic packers,” explains Prof. Daniela Rus.
Using multimodal sensing and a soft robotic manipulator, MIT scientists have developed an automated system, called RoboGrocery, that can pack groceries of different sizes and weights, reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch. Heater explains that as the soft robotic gripper touches an item, “pressure sensors in the fingers determine that they are, in fact, delicate and therefore should not go at the bottom of the bag — something many of us no doubt learned the hard way. Next, it notes that the soup can is a more rigid structure and sticks it in the bottom of the bag.”
Researchers from MIT have developed RoboGrocery, a soft robotic system that “can determine how to pack a grocery item based on its weight, size and shape without causing damage to the item,” reports Jennifer Kite-Powell for Forbes. “This is more than just automation—it's a paradigm shift that enhances precision, reduces waste and adapts seamlessly to the diverse needs of modern retail logistics,” says Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL.
MIT scientists have developed a “four-fingered robotic hand which is capable of rotating balls and toys in any direction and orientation,” reports Maisie Lillywhite for BBC News. “The improvement in dexterity could have significant implications for automating tasks such as handling goods for supermarkets or sorting through waste for recycling,” Lillywhite writes.
DragonBot, an AI tool developed by the MIT Personal Robotics Group, “is designed to teach children empathy and social skills,” reports Neil Sahota for Forbes. “These interactions, while mediated through technology, are invaluable in nurturing the social and emotional growth of children,” writes Sahota.
Cofounded by postdoctoral associate Wen Shuhao and postdoctoral fellows Ma Jian and Lai Lipeng, biotech startup Xtalpi "combines AI, quantum physics, cloud computing and robotic automation to find novel molecules that could be developed into new medicines,” reports Zinnia Lee for Forbes. “Xtalpi has also recently expanded into discovering new chemical compounds for applications such as agriculture, cosmetics, healthcare, as well as petrochemicals and new materials for electric vehicle batteries,” writes Lee.
Reporting in Portuguese, Correio Braziliense highlights researchers at MIT who have developed a new technique that uses light stimuli to benefit people with paralysis or amputations. “Our work could help bring the use of optogenetics closer to humans in the realm of neuroprosthetics that control paralyzed muscles and other functions of the peripheral nervous system,” says graduate student Guillermo Herrera-Arcos.
Researchers at CSAIL have created three “libraries of abstraction” – a collection of abstractions within natural language that highlight the importance of everyday words in providing context and better reasoning for large language models, reports Darren Orf for Popular Mechanics. “The researchers focused on household tasks and command-based video games, and developed a language model that proposes abstractions from a dataset,” explains Orf. “When implemented with existing LLM platforms, such as GPT-4, AI actions like ‘placing chilled wine in a cabinet' or ‘craft a bed’ (in the Minecraft sense) saw a big increase in task accuracy at 59 to 89 percent, respectively.”
Nature reporter Andrew Robinson reviews “The Heart and the Chip,” a new book by Prof. Daniela Rus and science writer Gregory Mone. The book “focuses on combining human and robotic strengths to pair ‘the heart and the chip’ in three interlinked fields: robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning,” explains Robinson.
MIT researchers have developed a wearable backpack with spider-like limbs to help astronauts maintain stability in space, reports Jess Thomson for Newsweek. The new technology, called Supernumerary Robotic Limbs (SuperLimbs), “could be crucial in future missions to the moon, where gravity is only a sixth of that on Earth and astronauts may struggle to clamber up again after a fall due to their unwieldy space suits,” explains Thomson.
Researchers at MIT have developed SuperLimbs, a pair of wearable robotic limbs that “can physically support an astronaut and lift them back on their feet after a fall,” reports Brain Heater for TechCrunch. “The system, which is still in the prototype phase, responds directly to the wearer’s feedback,” writes Heater. “When sitting or lying down, it offers a constructive support to help them get back up while expending less energy — every extra bit helps in a situation like this.”
MIT researchers have developed a new procedure that uses game theory to improve the accuracy and consistency of large language models (LLMs), reports Steve Nadis for Quanta Magazine. “The new work, which uses games to improve AI, stands in contrast to past approaches, which measured an AI program’s success via its mastery of games,” explains Nadis.
Writing for Forbes, Prof. Christian Catalini makes the case that when it comes to today’s digital infrastructure, from AI and robotics to financial services and digital marketplaces, “if the United States wants to continue to lead, it needs to create the right conditions for competition to thrive. Like in the early days of the internet, this starts with policymakers embracing and nurturing a novel architecture based on open protocols.”
Scientific American reporter Riis Williams explores how MIT researchers created “smart gloves” that have tactile sensors woven into the fabric to help teach piano and make other hands-on activities easier. “Hand-based movements like piano playing are normally really subjective and difficult to record and transfer,” explains graduate student Yiyue Luo. “But with these gloves we are actually able to track one person’s touch experience and share it with another person to improve their tactile learning process.”