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The MIT Media Lab (also known as the Media Lab) is a department within the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of multimedia and technology, the Media Lab was widely popularized in the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a series of practical inventions in the fields of wireless networks, field sensing, browsers and the World Wide Web. More recently it has focused on product design more generally, particularly for technologies that address social causes.Robert Weisman. "At Media Lab, less whiz, more bang: High-flying MIT unit refocuses on the practical", Boston Globe, August 12, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-11-21.
The MIT Media Lab in the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was founded by MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte and former MIT President Jerome Wiesner (now deceased) and opened its doors in the Wiesner Building (designed by I.M. Pei), or the E15 building at MIT in 1985. It grew out of the work of MIT’s Architecture Machine Group, and remains within MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning.
On February 1, 2006, Frank Moss assumed the role of Media Lab director. Under Moss\'s direction, much of the Lab\'s research has begun to coalesce as Media Lab 2.0, with an emphasis on work that aids the "disabled, disadvantaged, and disenfranchised" as the first-adopters of technologies that will ultimately benefit all of humankind. Moss succeeds previous directors Nicholas Negroponte and Walter Bender.
The Media Lab has approximately 70 administrative and support staff members. Associate Directors of the Lab are Pat Kennedy Graham (Operations) and John Maeda (Research). Pattie Maes and Mitchel Resnick are co-heads of the Program in Media Arts and Sciences. The Lab\'s Chief Knowledge Officer is Henry Holtzman.
"Inventing a better future" is the theme of the Media Lab\'s work. A current emphasis of Media Lab research, which encompasses the work of several research groups, is on human adaptability. This focus was highlighted by the May 9, 2007 symposium h2.0: new minds, new bodies, new identities. The event was hosted by John Hockenberry and featured Oliver Sacks, Michael Graves, Aimee Mullins, Michael Chorost, Susan Hockfield, among other speakers. The day-long program featured work that is blurring the distinction between "able bodied" and "disabled," demonstrating technologies at the neural-digital interface. Work represented emphasized the merging of technology with bodies and minds, altering the conceptions of human capability. New research initiatives were discussed, such as techniques to treat conditions such as Alzheimer\'s disease or depression, to sociable robots to monitor the health of children or the elderly, to the development of smart prostheses that can mimic—and even exceed the capabilities of—biological limbs.
This symposium provided many examples of work that is the next step in the so-called "digital revolution." Research projects at the Media Lab aim to have a deep impact on humanity at large. This work, while initially intended for those considered to be "disabled," will ultimately improve life for all humanity.
One of the founding focuses of the Media Lab was technology for the developing world, work that continues with projects such as the One Laptop per Child project and other work. Current projects at the Media Lab continue with this core value, which is expanded and enhanced by increased collaboration within the Media Lab itself, as well as across MIT and with the world at large.
Other research foci include machines with common sense, viral communications, "smart" prostheses, advanced sensor networks, innovative interface design, and sociable robots. Projects range from a program that can convert drawings to musical compositions, to wearable sensors for monitoring health, to electronic ink.
A large number of research groups focus on topics related to human computer interaction. While this includes traditional user interface design, most groups working on this take a broader view. Several groups are working on adding sensors and actuators of different sorts to common objects in the environment, to create "intelligent objects" that are aware of their surroundings, capable of predicting the user\'s goals and emotional state, and so can assist the user in a more effective way. An example of this type of research can be found in the work of Prof. Ted Selker whose research into context awareness ranges from the electronic voting machines[1] to hybrid search engines.
The Media Lab also does research into integrating more computational intelligence into learning activities. This includes software for learning but also "smart" educational toys such as programmable bricks like Lego Mindstorms and the PicoCricket.[2] A number of groups are pursuing hybrid art-engineering projects, in developing new tools, media, and instruments for music and other forms of art.
Research at the Media Lab is creative. There is much hands-on building of demos and prototypes, which are then tested extensively and put through many iterations to see what happens when they are used.
The Media Lab maintains a detailed Web siteresearch that is thoroughly updated several times per year.
The Lab’s primary source of funding comes from corporate sponsorship. The Media Lab is unique in that it is almost 100% industrially funded. Rather than accepting funding on a per-project or per-group basis, the Media Lab asks sponsors to fund general themes of the Lab; sponsor companies can then connect with Media Lab research in a way that is more spontaneous, but at the same time companies are guided by structured relationships with specific members of the Lab\'s faculty and research staff, who assist the sponsor companies in deriving the greatest benefit possible from their sponsorship of the Media Lab. The Media Lab is also exploring new methods for making a connection between sponsor businesses and Lab research.
In addition, specific projects and researchers are funded more traditionally through government institutions including NSF and DARPA. Also, consortia with other schools or other departments at MIT are often able to have money that does not enter into the common pool.
Companies sponsoring the Lab at the "consortium" level or higher have can share in the Lab’s intellectual property license-fee-free and royalty-free. Non-sponsors are precluded from making use of Media Lab developments for at least two years after technical disclosure is made to MIT and Media Lab sponsors. The Media Lab generates approximately 20 new patents a year.
The Media Arts and Sciences program is a part of MIT\'s School of Architecture and Planning, and includes three levels of study: a doctoral program, a master\'s of science program, and a program that offers an alternative to the standard MIT freshman year as well as a set of undergraduate subjects that may form the basis for a future joint major. All graduate students are fully supported (tuition plus a stipend) from the outset, normally by appointments as research assistants at the Media Laboratory, where they work on research programs and faculty projects, including assisting with courses. These research activities typically take up about half of a student’s time in the degree program.
The Media Arts and Sciences academic program has a very close relationship with the Media Lab. The majority of the Media Lab faculty are professors of Media Arts and Sciences. With very few exceptions, students who earn a degree in Media Arts and Sciences have been predominantly in residence at the Media Lab, taking classes and doing research. Some students from other programs at MIT, such as Mechanical Engineering, or Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, do their research at the Media Lab, working with a Media Lab/Media Arts and Sciences faculty advisor, but earn their degrees (such as MEng or an MS in EECS) from other departments.
The Media Lab is expanding with a new building[3] designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki. The 163,000-square-foot, six-story building will feature an open, atelier-style, adaptable architecture specifically designed to provide the flexibility to respond to emerging research priorities. High levels of transparency throughout the building\'s interior will make ongoing research visible, encouraging connections and collaboration among researchers.[4]
Work began on the building in mid-2007 and occupancy is scheduled for 2009. Construction had been delayed for several years by funding issues related to 9/11.
Media Arts and Sciences faculty and academic research staff are principal investigators/heads of the Media Lab\'s various research groups. They also advise Media Arts and Sciences graduate students, and mentor MIT undergraduates. Currently there are 32 faculty and academic research staff members, and two emeritus professors, Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert.
There are several named professorships in the Media Arts and Sciences program:
A full list of Media Lab faculty and academic research staff, with bios and other information, is available via the Media Lab Website.[5]
The MPEG-4 SA project developed at the Media Lab made Structured Audio a practical reality.[6]
Large numbers of Media Lab-developed technologies made it into sponsor products, in particular for toy companies (e.g., LEGO Mindstorms), as well as some IBM laptops[citations needed].
In 2001, MIT Media Lab collaborated to create two spinoffs: Media Lab Asia and Media Lab Europe. Media Lab Asia, based in India, was a result of cooperation with the Government of India but eventually broke off in 2003 after disagreement. Media Lab Europe, based in Dublin, Ireland, was founded with a similar concept in association with Irish universities and government. Media Lab Europe closed in January 2005.
Created collaboratively by the Computer Museum and the Media Lab, the Computer Clubhouse, a worldwide network of after-school learning centers, focuses on youth from underserved communities who would not otherwise have access to technological tools and activities.[7]
In January 2005, the Lab\'s chairman emeritus Nicholas Negroponte announced at the World Economic Forum a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop computer, a technology that could revolutionize how the world\'s children are educated. A non-profit organization, One Laptop per Child, was created to oversee the actual deployment, i.e., MIT will not manufacture or distribute the device.
The Media Lab Web site has a section "Annual report to the president" that shows major achievements on a year-to-year basis.
There are numerous Media Lab industry spinoffs. These include:
The Media Lab maintains a list of Media Lab spinoffs.
The Media Lab is made up of numerous research groups. Below is a description of each group and its project leaders.
This group studies how people behave and make day-to-day decisions, particularly in electronic environments. They investigate rationality, semi-rationality, bounded rationality, and just plain irrationality. They take an experimental psychology approach in trying to understand the reasons for different types of behaviors (such as choice, shopping, or procrastination), and attempt to build tools that reformulate the options available to people so that they can maximize their own happiness.[10]
This group explores the creative and technological applications and implications of audio and video communication systems in which intelligent processes "understand" the inputs, producing a scene description in terms of constituent objects and metadata. They also develop new hardware and software architectures for collaborating ecosystems of smart input and output devices, and novel display technologies, particularly 3-D. Students should have backgrounds in signal processing, machine vision, computer graphics, electro-optics, user interface, television production or post-production, and/or real-time programming.[11]
Our brains and nervous systems mediate everything we perceive, feel, decide, and do—and act as our ultimate interface to the world. An outstanding challenge for humanity is to understand the brain at a level of abstraction that enables us to engineer its function--repairing pathology, augmenting cognition, and revealing insights into the human condition. Boyden\'s group is inventing and applying tools for the analysis and engineering of brain circuits in both humans and model systems, with a current focus on devising technologies for interfacing to specific circuit targets, and controlling the processing within, with the hope that this research will help us better understand--and engineer improvements upon--the nature of human existence.[12]
This group develops robots that physically interact with, communicate with, and learn from people through social interaction. Inspired by animal and human behavior, their goal is to build socially intelligent, capable robotic creatures that partake in people\'s daily lives in rich and rewarding ways. Given the multi-disciplinary nature of this endeavor, their research explores novel mechanical designs, new sensing technologies (such as sensitive skin for robots), active perceptual systems (e.g., vision, auditory, tactile, etc.), speech recognition and synthesis, expressive motion, social learning (e.g., imitation, interactive games, scaffolding, etc.), and psychological modeling (attention, motivation, memory, decision making, etc.).
Computing Culture is an art and technology group, based on the premise that artists often invent new media out of necessity. Their research results in specific works of art, but also helps further an understanding of the relationships between art, technology, and cultural production. Some of the strategies they practice include interventions in contemporary consumer electronics, creating special events for public situations, and applying technical development to cultural agendas that wouldn\'t normally receive it. Their central interest is in physically embodied (rather than screen-based) work.[13]
Media Fabrics research focuses on a new paradigm: a semi-intelligent organism where lines of communication, threads of meaning, chains of causality, and streams of consciousness converge and intertwine to form a rich tapestry of creative story potentials, meaningful real-time dialogues, social interactions, and personal or communal art and story-making. The media fabric paradigm shapes how we see media construction, exchange, performance, and reflection.[14]
This group explores new directions in the design of virtual social environments. They look at questions relating to identity and society in the networked world: How do we perceive other people on-line? What might a virtual crowd look like? How can the underlying technology shape the evolution of on-line culture? Their emphasis is on design: we build experimental interfaces and installations that explore new forms of social interaction in the mediated world.[15]
This group explores the relationship between the content of information and its physical representation. This effort builds on basic work on the physics of information and computation (such as creating a molecular quantum computer, and analog coding circuits) to develop devices and algorithms for the interface between people and machines (including contact and non-contact sensing, and efficient real-time modeling), and finds application in collaborations ranging from creating virtuosic musical instruments to appropriate information technology for developing countries.[16]
We know from early Roman mosaics that physical rehabilitation and amplification technologies have been used during much of recorded history. Although the goal of constructing such technologies is not new, great scientific and technological hurdles still remain. Even today, permanent assistive devices are viewed by the physically challenged as separate, lifeless mechanisms and not intimate extensions of the human body—structurally, neurologically, and dynamically. The Biomechatronics group seeks to advance technologies that promise to accelerate the merging of body and machine, including device architectures that resemble the body’s own musculoskeletal design, actuator technologies that behave like muscle, and control methodologies that exploit principles of biological movement.
This group explores the Tangible Bits vision to design seamless interfaces between people, digital information, and physical environments, by giving physical form to digital information and computation so that users can directly manipulate information with their hands. They are designing tangible user interfaces that employ physical objects, surfaces, and spaces as tangible embodiments of digital information and computation exploiting the human senses of touch and kinesthesia. They also explore ambient media as reflections of digital activity at the periphery of human awareness.[17]
This group is developing novel chemistries and means for creating both logic and machines from molecular-scale parts. The group\'s composition is highly multidisciplinary comprising students with backgrounds in electrical engineering, physics, chemistry, and mechanical engineering.[18]
The home will soon become a center for health care, energy production, and work, but our places of living are poorly prepared for this future. Changing Places researchers investigate how new computational design, fabrication, and sensing tools can be used to create responsive, adaptable environments that will better accommodate complex new activities and ever-changing technologies. Researchers are focused on three application areas: health (proactive environments for healthy living), energy (scalable strategies for Net_0 houses), and mass customization (chassis/infill for places of living).[19]
Software agents are programs that act as assistants to a user of an interactive interface, in contrast to most conventional programs, which act as tools. Software agents are typically long-lived, semi-autonomous, proactive, and adaptive. This group builds prototype software agents in a wide variety of application domains, including text and graphical editing, web browsing, matchmaking, electronic commerce, groupware, and more.[20]
Great periods of innovation occur when the system intelligence is moved to the leaves. That effect is multiplied if the technological leap is in synchrony with social goals. Examples are autos versus trains, and PCs versus mainframes. We call such systems viral. They are defined by (nearly) infinite scaling, independent addition of elements, and incremental value as each element is added. This view of communications where additional nodes support each other instead of interfere is a new research domain whose applications range from wired to wireless to social and economic structures. This group explores this principle with respect to networks and radio: how can we build socially responsive networks that are unregulated, have no limit to their size or capability, and where each new node adds capacity to the whole? The tip of this iceberg is WiFi and Napster, but the generalizations bear out the theory that network capacity can grow with the number of members.
This group has a special interest in inventing musical instruments that "understand" the artistic intentions of the performer, allowing for the enhancement and extension of musical expression. They design these instruments for use by highly skilled performers, as well as for students, novices and amateurs. They also explore how new media technology can modify music itself, and how such concepts can in turn be applied to interactive intermedia art and entertainment forms, of which opera is a particularly sophisticated example. Current directions in the group are to develop creative experiences and "musical toys" for children from ages 6 to 12, and to design future performance spaces that measure and react to performer sound, gesture, and intention.[21]
The Physical Language Workshop designs tools for creating digital content in a networked environment, and the means by which the content can be leveraged as creative capital within an experimental online micro-economy that is called OpenStudio. Their primary impact targets are in the areas of general digital media service architectures, global e-commerce, distance education, and visual information display systems.
The goal of the Ambient Intelligence research group is to radically rethink our interface to the digital world by designing interfaces that are pervasive, intuitive, and intelligent. They investigate ways of augmenting the everyday objects and spaces around us, making them responsive to our attention and actions. The resulting augmented environments offer opportunities for learning and interaction and ultimately expand our minds.[22]
The Society of Mind research group focuses on imparting to machines the human capacity for commonsense reasoning. We account for many aspects of commonsense, imagination, and reasoning by analogy as resulting from negotiations among different cognitive processes that use different ways of representing knowledge.[23]
This group primarily investigates ways to improve and update the automobile and other transportation to make it more convenient, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly to use cars and motorcycles.
The Future of Learning program focuses on radically redefining the conceptual framework of education.[24]
This group develops new sensing modalities and enabling technologies that create new forms of interactive experience and expression. Their work is highlighted in diverse application areas, which range from interactive music systems and wearable computers to smart highways and medical instrumentation.[25]
Human communities are increasingly a mixture of people and machines, with technology like cell phones and e-mail strongly influencing how we interact and even who we are. The human design group focuses on inventing technology that can produce qualitatively better lives and societies, by both augmenting individual\'s capabilities and by providing better mediation for human networks. Example applications include: wearable devices for support of elderly in their homes, for coordinating emergency workers, or for coordinating health care in developing nations.[26]
This group is involved in basic research aimed at building computers that can sense, recognize, communicate, and respond intelligently to human emotion. Their work primarily involves signal processing, pattern recognition, and machine learning, but sometimes it involves designing new sensors (often wearable or tangible) and new means of adapting to or communicating with people (agent dialogues, regulatory computer designs, interface design).[27]
This group is developing new technologies that engage people (especially children and teens) in creative learning experiences. In particular, they are developing new programmable tools (such as computerized LEGO bricks) and media-authoring environments such as Scratch (programming language) that extend the range of what people can design, create, and learn. They try out the ideas and technologies in classrooms, museums, and after-school settings, focusing especially on under-served communities.[28]
The goal of this group is to create machines that learn to communicate on human terms. They focus on the problem of grounding the meaning of natural spoken language in perception and action. This is accomplished by developing new methods of knowledge representation and machine learning that enable machines to learn to talk about what they see and do. They work with state-of-the-art methods drawn from speech recognition / understanding, computational linguistics, machine vision, machine learning, and interactive robotics. Much of their work is inspired by models of human cognition and learning. They are actively applying their work to building a wide range of human-machine interfaces.[29]. See Human speechome project.
Their research focuses on voice in human-computer interaction, making digital audio recordings a viable hyperdocument medium and the role of computers in mediating human to human voice communication. They combine voice processing technologies (text-to-speech, recognition, time-scaling, etc.) to create conversational systems based on human communication techniques. They emphasize the user interface design issues specific to speech at the desktop, over the telephone, or in hand-held devices. Current emphasis is on speech for highly mobile applications and for applications in the home.[30]
This group investigates the integration of sensing, reasoning, and memory for user interfaces. They work to integrate virtual experiences relative to the contextual reality of situations, and they create scenarios for demonstrating context-aware computing. With sensors and embedded intelligence, they want to reduce or eliminate symbolic transcription as the pre-eminent form for describing things to computers.
The Music, Mind and Machine group is developing new audio technologies for future interactive media applications. This ranges from automatic sensing of features in existing audio content to extremely compact representations of sound for efficient transmission and control in a networked future.[31]
Over time, not all groups continue. Below is a description of groups that are no longer active.
The Visible Language Worksop founded by Muriel Cooper explored the design characteristics of information, interaction, motion and their relationships to technology.
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