WGBH reporter Gabrielle Emanuel speaks with Research Affiliate Catherine D’Ignazio about how she launched the Make the Breast Pump Not Suck Hackathon as a graduate student at MIT, and how the hackathon inspired new innovations in the breast pump industry. “In no other space of technology would the technology provide for such a terrible experience,” says D’Ignazio of the state of the breast pump.
Co.Design reporter Jesus Diaz writes that MIT researchers have developed a new technique to 3-D print photorealistic representations of objects. Diaz explains that this could have significant potential in education and scientific visualization: “While you can look at a 3D representation of data in virtual or augmented reality, looking at a real physical model is an experience that is hard to beat.”
Media Lab researcher Anushka Shah analyzes recent news coverage using the MIT Media Cloud on WBUR’s Here & Now. As an open source platform, the Media Cloud allows “people to have a stronger tool to be able to analyze and reflect in the media,” Shah says.
Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Scott Carlson speaks with Prof. Mitchel Resnick about his new book, which highlights the importance of kindergarten. Resnick explains that schools should create a more kindergarten-like environment for all students that enables “kids to follow their own ideas, to have their own agency, to make progress on problems and projects they really care about.”
Writing for The New York Times about educational technology, Prof. Cynthia Breazeal describes her research examining the importance of social cues in learning from technology. “If we want to use technology to help people learn, we have to provide information in the way the human mind evolved to receive it,” she explains.
In a Guardian article about how technology can be used to help refugees, Tazeen Dhunna Ahmad highlights MIT’s Refugee ACTion Hub (ReACT). ReACT is aimed at finding, “digital learning opportunities for a lost generation of children who, as a result of forced displacement, are losing their education.”
In this video, WCVB Chronicle host Anthony Everett visits Prof. Neil Gershenfeld at the Center for Bits and Atoms to learn about the global network of Fab Labs. Everett explains that Gershenfeld sees Fab Labs as places of “collaboration and networking and mentoring where ideas can literally take form. Where you don’t borrow, but make what you want.”
MIT’s School of Architecture + Planning has been named the world’s top architecture school by QS University Rankings for the third year in a row, reports Madeline Billis of Boston Magazine. MIT received a total of 98 points when judged on categories including academic and employer reputations and research citations from the previous year.
MIT researchers have found that flashing lights could potentially be used to stave off Alzheimer’s disease, writes Oscar Williams for The Huffington Post. “Light stimulation directed to the hippocampus, the part of the brain that processes memories, led to a reduction of…beta amyloid,” which is found in Alzheimer’s disease.
In this segment, Prof. Eric Klopfer works with Good Morning America to test the effectiveness of parental control software. After a group of children testing the software access a blocked site, Klopfer notes that if one child figures out how to bypass parental controls, “all their friends are going to find out as well.”
Barb Darrow writes for Fortune about the career of Prof. Emeritus Seymour Papert, who died July 31. “In the 1960s, when computers were pricey and huge, Papert saw them as a way to help children learn by doing. He developed the Logo programming language for children, who initially used it to program and animate a small robot turtle.”
Prof. Neil Gershenfeld speaks with Adam Shaw of BBC Horizons about how the fabrication labs he started at the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms have spread around the world. Gershenfeld explains that Fab Labs “are places where ordinary people can go and they can turn data into things and things into data,” adding that they are part of the maker revolution.
Tech reporters Drew Bent and Katherine Nazemi speak with MIT President L. Rafael Reif about the MIT Campaign for a Better World. “We want to be as strong as we can, but for a purpose, and the purpose is to do something good for the world,” says Reif. “That’s very uniquely MIT.”
WBUR’s Bruce Gellerman speaks with Prof. Carlo Ratti and research scientist Bryan Reimer about the potential impact of driverless cars on everything from traffic to the economy. Reimer says using autonomous vehicles will change, “how we move. It changes how packages are moved. It changes how we behave. It changes the future of old age. It changes everything.”
Prof. Edward Boyden speaks with STAT about winning the Breakthrough Prize and his research at MIT. Boyden explains that the technique he developed to examine brain samples is being applied to “bacteria, cancer, biopsies, virology questions. There’s a huge pent-up demand for ways of seeing large objects with nanoscale precision.”