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Creating videos of the futureNovember 28, 2016Living in a dynamic physical world, it’s easy to forget how effortlessly we understand our surroundings. With minimal thought, we can figure out how scenes change and objects interact. But what’s second nature for us is still a huge problem for machines. With the limitless number of ways that... -
Meeting of the minds for machine intelligenceNovember 22, 2016Surviving breast cancer changed the course of Regina Barzilay’s research. The experience showed her, in stark relief, that oncologists and their patients lack tools for data-driven decision making. That includes what treatments to recommend, but also whether a patient’s sample even warrants a... -
Entanglement bonanzaNovember 18, 2016Quantum computers promise huge speedups on some computational problems because they harness a strange physical property called entanglement, in which the physical state of one tiny particle depends on measurements made of another. In quantum computers, entanglement is a computational resource,... -
Making computers explain themselvesNovember 15, 2016In recent years, the best-performing systems in artificial-intelligence research have come courtesy of neural networks, which look for patterns in training data that yield useful predictions or classifications. A neural net might, for instance, be trained to recognize certain objects in digital... -
Was your vote counted? Our crypto expert weighs inNovember 15, 2016Voters can then go to an online database that lists their encrypted receipt and shows that it matches up with the one they picked up at the ballot box. Watch Professor Rivest explain the concept on Numberphile: -
Teaching Hong Kong students to embrace computational thinkingNovember 15, 2016CoolThink@JC, a four-year initiative of The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, was launched today to empower the city’s primary school teachers and students with computational thinking skills, including coding. Developed through a collaboration with MIT's Computer Science and Artificial... -
Enabling wireless virtual realityNovember 14, 2016One of the limits of today’s virtual reality (VR) headsets is that they have to be tethered to computers in order to process data well enough to deliver high-resolution visuals. But wearing an HDMI cable reduces mobility and can even lead to users tripping over cords. Fortunately, researchers from... -
Driverless-vehicle options now include scootersNovember 07, 2016At MIT’s 2016 Open House last spring, more than 100 visitors took rides on an autonomous mobility scooter in a trial of software designed by researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the National University of Singapore, and the Singapore-MIT Alliance... -
Faster programs, easier programmingNovember 07, 2016Dynamic programming is a technique that can yield relatively efficient solutions to computational problems in economics, genomic analysis, and other fields. But adapting it to computer chips with multiple “cores,” or processing units, requires a level of programming expertise that few economists... -
CSAIL founder Robert Fano honored at 11/4 memorialNovember 01, 2016Robert “Bob” Fano, a professor emeritus in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) whose work helped usher in the personal computing age, died in Naples, Florida on July 13. He was 98. -
CSAIL welcomes 6 new EECS facultyOctober 28, 2016CSAIL welcomes six new faculty members to MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)! The new faculty include Adam Belay, Stefanie Mueller, Max Shulakar, David Sontag, Ryan Williams and Virginia Vassilev Williams. Adam Belay will join as an assistant professor in... -
Finding patterns in corrupted dataOctober 27, 2016Data analysis — and particularly big-data analysis — is often a matter of fitting data to some sort of mathematical model. The most familiar example of this might be linear regression, which finds a line that approximates a distribution of data points. But fitting data to probability distributions... -
Making computers explain themselvesOctober 27, 2016In recent years, the best-performing systems in artificial-intelligence research have come courtesy of neural networks, which look for patterns in training data that yield useful predictions or classifications. A neural net might, for instance, be trained to recognize certain objects in digital... -
Making it easier to collaborate on codeOctober 25, 2016Git is an open-source system with a polarizing reputation among programmers. It’s a powerful tool to help developers track changes to code, but many view it as prohibitively difficult to use. To make it more user-friendly, a team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (... -
MRIs for fetal healthOctober 24, 2016Researchers from MIT, Boston Children's Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital have joined forces in an ambitious new project to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to evaluate the health of fetuses. Typically, fetal development is monitored with ultrasound imaging, which is cheap and... -
CSAIL computer vision team leads scene parsing challengeOctober 20, 2016This week a team from CSAIL’s computer vision group co-hosted the first Scene Parsing Challenge at the 2016 European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) in Amsterdam. The challenge was focused on scene recognition, and using data to enable algorithms to classify and segment objects in scenes.... -
Prepping a robot for its journey to MarsOctober 20, 2016Sarah Hensley is preparing an astronaut named Valkyrie for a mission to Mars. It is 6 feet tall, weighs 300 pounds, and is equipped with an extended chest cavity that makes it look distinctly female. Hensley spends much of her time this semester analyzing the movements of one of Valkyrie's arms. As... -
Ankur Moitra named a 2016 Packard FellowOctober 20, 2016Ankur Moitra, the Rockwell International Career Development Associate Professor of Mathematics, was named a 2016 David and Lucile Packard Fellow. Each of this year’s 18 award recipients will receive a five-year, unrestricted research grant totaling $875,000. “The mathematics department is extremely... -
Epoch Foundation celebrates nearly 20 years of collaboration with CSAILOctober 17, 2016In 1998 there were no iPhones, no touchscreens and no Facebook, but there was the beginning of an idea. That idea was for MIT’s best and brightest computer scientists to join forces with a group of forward-looking global businesses, with the goal of helping invent the future of computing. Almost 20... -
Professor Emeritus Whitman Richards dies at 84October 17, 2016Whitman Richards '53, PhD '65, professor emeritus of cognitive sciences and of media arts and sciences and principal investigator in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, died on Sept. 16 after a long battle with myelofibrosis. One of the first four PhD graduates of the... -
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Cambridge Cyber Summit convenes industry, academia, and governmentOctober 13, 2016On Oct. 5, MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) hosted a summit that brought together cybersecurity experts from business, government, and academia to talk about better ways to combat cyber-threats directed at companies and countries. Co-organized by the Aspen... -
Designing for 3-D printingOctober 11, 20163-D printing has progressed over the last decade to include multi-material fabrication, enabling production of powerful, functional objects. While many advances have been made, it still has been difficult for non-programmers to create objects made of many materials (or mixtures of materials)... -
CSAIL spin-off helps launch Mayor Walsh's "Boston's Safest Driver" contestOctober 05, 2016Boston’s roads may be getting a little safer, thanks to drivers’ mobile phones. Traditionally one of the biggest sources of driver distraction, a new competition from the city of Boston is putting mobile phones to work to measure and improve users’ driving. CSAIL spin-off Cambridge Mobile... -
3-D-printed robots with shock-absorbing skinsOctober 03, 2016Anyone who’s watched drone videos or an episode of “BattleBots” knows that robots can break — and often it’s because they don’t have the proper padding to protect themselves. But this week researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) will present a new method... -
Automated screening for childhood communication disordersSeptember 22, 2016For children with speech and language disorders, early-childhood intervention can make a great difference in their later academic and social success. But many such children — one study estimates 60 percent — go undiagnosed until kindergarten or even later. Researchers at the Computer Science and... -
NSA Director Admiral Michael Rogers to open Cambridge Cyber Summit 10/5September 21, 2016It was announced today that National Security Agency Director and US Cyber Command Commander Admiral Michael Rogers will open our upcoming Cambridge Cyber Summit October 5, in conversation with The Aspen Institute’s President and CEO, Walter Isaacson. Join us to hear insights from Fort Meade as the... -
Cache management improved once againSeptember 21, 2016A year ago, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory unveiled a fundamentally new way of managing memory on computer chips, one that would use circuit space much more efficiently as chips continue to comprise more and more cores, or processing units. In chips... -
Y. Bryce Kim PhD `17 wins NSF awardSeptember 21, 2016This month CSAIL PhD candidate Yongwook Bryce Kim ‘17 received the National Science Foundation (NSF) Award for Young Professionals Contributing to Smart and Connected Health at the 38th Annual IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference (EMBC’16). The theme of the conference was “empowering... -
Detecting emotions with wireless signalsSeptember 20, 2016As many a relationship book can tell you, understanding someone else’s emotions can be a difficult task. Facial expressions aren’t always reliable: a smile can conceal frustration, while a poker face might mask a winning hand. But what if technology could tell us how someone is really feeling?... -
An autonomous fleet for AmsterdamSeptember 19, 2016MIT has signed an agreement to engage in research collaborations with the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS) in the Netherlands. The collaboration’s flagship project will be co-led by Daniela Rus, director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence... -
Faster parallel computingSeptember 13, 2016In today’s computer chips, memory management is based on what computer scientists call the principle of locality: If a program needs a chunk of data stored at some memory location, it probably needs the neighboring chunks as well. But that assumption breaks down in the age of big data, now that... -
CSAIL director Daniela Rus on robots, AI & how to get girls into codingSeptember 12, 2016CSAIL Director Daniela Rus sat down with Forbes Magazine to discuss robotics, artificial intelligence, and inspiring other women in the field of computer science. “Our goal is to invent the future of computing. We want to use computer science to tackle major challenges in fields like healthcare and... -
CSAIL to host “Cambridge Cyber Summit” with CNBC & Aspen Institute 10/5September 12, 2016Today the Aspen Institute, CNBC, and MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) announced the first-ever “Cambridge Cyber Summit” on October 5 at Kresge Auditorium on the MIT campus. The one-day summit will bring together C-suite executives and business owners with public and... -
Heads of NSA, FBI, Akamai to discuss cybersecurity at CSAIL summit w/CNBC & Aspen InstituteSeptember 11, 2016The Aspen Institute, CNBC, and MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) are organizing the first-ever “Cambridge Cyber Summit” on October 5 at Kresge Auditorium on the MIT campus. The one-day summit will bring together C-suite executives and business owners with public and... -
How machine learning can help with voice disordersAugust 29, 2016There’s no human instinct more basic than speech, and yet, for many people, talking can be taxing. One in 14 working-age Americans suffer from voice disorders that are often associated with abnormal vocal behaviors — some of which can cause damage to vocal cord tissue and lead to the formation of... -
This app will make you a safer driverAugust 25, 2016In April CSAIL researchers led the launch of EverDrive, an app aimed at improving people's driving by measuring habits like speeding, acceleration, hard turning, harsh braking and phone distractions. This week the team's spinoff company, Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT), crunched the... -
Solving network congestionAugust 23, 2016There are few things more frustrating than trying to use your phone on a crowded network. With phone usage growing faster than wireless spectrum, we’re all now fighting over smaller and smaller bits of bandwidth. Spectrum crunch is such a big problem that the White House is getting involved,... -
Researcher named to Tech Review’s 2016 “Under 35” listAugust 23, 2016CSAIL researcher Dinesh Bharadia was just named by MIT Technology Review to their annual list of the top innovators under the age of 35, joining the likes of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and major leaders from Apple, PayPal and other tech companies.... -
Programmable network routersAugust 23, 2016Like all data networks, the networks that connect servers in giant server farms, or servers and workstations in large organizations, are prone to congestion. When network traffic is heavy, packets of data can get backed up at network routers or dropped altogether. Also like all data networks, big... -
NASA launches $1 million challenge to program space robotsAugust 17, 2016In the spring CSAIL received a six-foot-tall, 300-pound humanoid robot that NASA hopes to have serve on future space missions to Mars and beyond. This week, NASA formally opened registration for its Space Robotics Challenge, which involves research teams programming Valkyrie for a variety... -
MIT team: over 4,000 gas leaks in Boston may have gone unrepaired last yearAugust 11, 2016Gas leaks are bad news for many reasons. They contribute to greenhouse gas buildup, disproportionately contribute to methane emissions, and can be physically dangerous to the people around them.But according to a team led by a CSAIL data scientist, utility companies like National grid and... -
Simit programming language can speed up simulations 200x, reduce code 90 percentAugust 10, 2016Computer simulations of physical systems are common in science, engineering, and entertainment, but they use several different types of tools. If, say, you want to explore how a crack forms in an airplane wing, you need a very precise physical model of the crack’s immediate vicinity. But if you... -
Cybersecurity paper on government backdoors earns 2016 EFF awardAugust 09, 2016A team from CSAIL has been awarded the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) 2016 Pioneer Award for their paper “Keys Under Doormats” on government backdoors and data security. EFF instituted the award in 1992 to spotlight those dedicated to expanding freedom and creativity in the technology sector.... -
Protecting privacy in genomic databasesAugust 09, 2016Genome-wide association studies, which try to find correlations between particular genetic variations and disease diagnoses, are a staple of modern medical research. But because they depend on databases that contain people’s medical histories, they carry privacy risks. An attacker armed with... -
Where do America's worst drivers live?August 08, 2016In April CSAIL researchers led the launch of EverDrive, an app aimed at improving people's driving by measuring habits like speeding, acceleration, hard turning, harsh braking and phone distractions. This week the team from Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT) crunched three months of numbers to... -
Reach in and touch objects in videos with “Interactive Dynamic Video”August 02, 2016We learn a lot about objects by manipulating them: poking, pushing, prodding, and then seeing how they react. We obviously can’t do that with videos — just try touching that cat video on your phone and see what happens. But is it crazy to think that we could take that video and simulate how the cat... -
Professor Emeritus Seymour Papert, pioneer of constructionist learning, dies at 88August 01, 2016Seymour Papert, whose ideas and inventions transformed how millions of children around the world create and learn, died Sunday at his home in East Blue Hill, Maine. He was 88. -
First major database of non-native EnglishJuly 29, 2016After thousands of hours of work, MIT researchers have released the first major database of fully annotated English sentences written by non-native speakers. The researchers who led the project had already shown that the grammatical quirks of non-native speakers writing in English could be a source... -
App detects light for the visually impairedJuly 26, 2016We humans rely on light for a profoundly wide range of activities, from aiding circadian rhythms, to regulating mental health, to the simple task of figuring out if our Wi-Fi router is on.But for those who are blind or visually impaired, locating sources of light can be a difficult process.... -
New movie screen allows for glasses-free 3-D at a larger scaleJuly 25, 20163-D movies immerse us in new worlds and allow us to see places and things in ways that we otherwise couldn’t. But behind every 3-D experience is something that is uniformly despised: those goofy glasses. Fortunately, there may be hope. In a new paper, a team from MIT’s Computer Science and...
