Tag: Media Lab

Mixing beats, history, and technology

In a classroom on the third floor of the MIT Media Lab, it’s quiet; the disc jockey is setting up. At the end of a conference table ringed with chairs, there are two turntables on either side of a mixer and a worn crossfader. A MacBook sits to the right of the setup. Today’s class […]

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Engineers enable a drone to determine its position in the dark and indoors

In the future, autonomous drones could be used to shuttle inventory between large warehouses. A drone might fly into a semi-dark structure the size of several football fields, zipping along hundreds of identical aisles before docking at the precise spot where its shipment is needed. Most of today’s drones would likely struggle to complete this […]

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Creating smart buildings with privacy-first sensors

Gaining a better understanding of how people move through the spaces where they live and work could make those spaces safer and more sustainable. But no one wants cameras watching them 24/7. Two former Media Lab researchers think they have a solution. Their company, Butlr, offers places like skilled nursing facilities, offices, and senior living […]

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MIT students’ works redefine human-AI collaboration

Imagine a boombox that tracks your every move and suggests music to match your personal dance style. That’s the idea behind “Be the Beat,” one of several projects from MIT course 4.043/4.044 (Interaction Intelligence), taught by Marcelo Coelho in the Department of Architecture, that were presented at the 38th annual NeurIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems) […]

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New training approach could help AI agents perform better in uncertain conditions

A home robot trained to perform household tasks in a factory may fail to effectively scrub the sink or take out the trash when deployed in a user’s kitchen, since this new environment differs from its training space. To avoid this, engineers often try to match the simulated training environment as closely as possible with […]

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Monitoring space traffic

If there’s a through line in Sydney Dolan’s pursuits, it’s a fervent belief in being a good steward — both in space and on Earth. As a doctoral student in the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro), Dolan is developing a model that aims to mitigate satellite collisions. They see space as a public […]

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Images that transform through heat

Researchers in MIT Professor Stefanie Mueller’s group have spent much of the last decade developing a variety of computing techniques aimed at reimagining how products and systems are designed. Much in the way that platforms like Instagram allow users to modify 2-D photographs with filters, Mueller imagines a world where we can do the same […]

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Personal interests can influence how children’s brains respond to language

A recent study from the McGovern Institute for Brain Research shows how interests can modulate language processing in children’s brains and paves the way for personalized brain research. The paper, which appears in Imaging Neuroscience, was conducted in the lab of MIT professor and McGovern Institute investigator John Gabrieli, and led by senior author Anila […]

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Tiny, wireless antennas use light to monitor cellular communication

Monitoring electrical signals in biological systems helps scientists understand how cells communicate, which can aid in the diagnosis and treatment of conditions like arrhythmia and Alzheimer’s. But devices that record electrical signals in cell cultures and other liquid environments often use wires to connect each electrode on the device to its respective amplifier. Because only […]

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Lara Ozkan named 2025 Marshall Scholar

Lara Ozkan, an MIT senior from Oradell, New Jersey, has been selected as a 2025 Marshall Scholar and will begin graduate studies in the United Kingdom next fall. Funded by the British government, the Marshall Scholarship awards American students of high academic achievement with the opportunity to pursue graduate studies in any field at any […]

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MIT K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics celebrates Sierra Leone’s inaugural class of orthotic and prosthetic clinicians

The MIT K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics and Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Health (MOH) have launched the first fully accredited educational program for prosthetists and orthotists in Sierra Leone.  Tens of thousands of people in Sierra Leone need orthotic braces and artificial limbs, but access to such specialized medical care in this African nation […]

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A data designer driven to collaborate with communities

It is fairly common in public discourse for someone to announce, “I brought data to this discussion,” thus casting their own conclusions as empirical and rational. It is less common to ask: Where did the data come from? How was it collected? Why is there data about some things but not others? MIT Associate Professor […]

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New AI tool generates realistic satellite images of future flooding

Visualizing the potential impacts of a hurricane on people’s homes before it hits can help residents prepare and decide whether to evacuate. MIT scientists have developed a method that generates satellite imagery from the future to depict how a region would look after a potential flooding event. The method combines a generative artificial intelligence model […]

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A model of virtuosity

A crowd gathered at the MIT Media Lab in September for a concert by musician Jordan Rudess and two collaborators. One of them, violinist and vocalist Camilla Bäckman, has performed with Rudess before. The other — an artificial intelligence model informally dubbed the jam_bot, which Rudess developed with an MIT team over the preceding several […]

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“Wearable” devices for cells

Wearable devices like smartwatches and fitness trackers interact with parts of our bodies to measure and learn from internal processes, such as our heart rate or sleep stages. Now, MIT researchers have developed wearable devices that may be able to perform similar functions for individual cells inside the body. These battery-free, subcellular-sized devices, made of […]

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