tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7013167573277352882024-03-18T23:21:16.404-04:00MIT Media LabUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-37313342136332983472014-05-29T13:08:00.000-04:002014-05-29T13:08:10.498-04:00The Media Lab Has Moved to MediumThe Media Lab has moved to a new blogging platform, <a href="https://medium.com/@medialab" target="_blank">Medium</a>. You can still access our archive of Blogger posts <a href="http://blog.media.mit.edu/" target="_blank">here</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-69109117483354458762013-12-31T11:01:00.000-05:002013-12-31T15:36:28.718-05:00MIT Media Lab Year-End Round-UpA sampling of the most amazing projects, the most exciting research, and the biggest news from the Lab in 2013.<br />
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Anthozoa</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">Photo credit: Yoram Reshef for Stratasys</td></tr>
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A 3D-printed ensemble created by <b>Professor Neri Oxman</b>, head of the <b>Mediated Matter group, </b>for Dutch designer Iris van Herpen’s collection, “Voltage,” at Paris Fashion Week. The 3D-printed skirt and cape, called <a href="http://web.media.mit.edu/~neri/site/news/news.php?id=3293558071601282960" target="_blank">Anthozoa</a>, were produced using Stratasys’ Objet Connex multi-material 3D printing technology. </div>
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CityScope</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: Jonathan Williams</td></tr>
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An urban design system that combines high-definition video projectors, advanced modeling and simulation technology, 3D projection mapping, and physical models, created by <b>Kent Larson </b>and a team from<b> </b>the <b>Changing Places group</b>. <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/research/groups/1458/cityscope" target="_blank">CityScope</a> provides a real-time, interactive data environment for understanding and designing relationships between people and places in cities.</div>
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Collaborative, Crowd-Sourced Symphonies</h3>
Led by <b>Professor Tod Machover</b>, the <b>Opera of the Future group</b> created new software tools to crowdsource music for collaborative music compositions in Toronto and Edinburgh.<br />
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<a href="http://toronto.media.mit.edu/" target="_blank">Toronto Symphony</a>: Concerto for Composer and City</h4>
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<b>Tod Machover</b>,<b> </b><b>Peter Torpey</b>, <b>Akito Van Troyer</b>, and <b>Ben Bloomberg</b> used Hyperscore and the <b>Social Computing group’s</b> DOG programming language to crowdsource and compose a symphony about Toronto.<br />
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<a href="http://edinburgh.media.mit.edu/" target="_blank">“Festival City”</a> at the Edinburgh International Festival</h4>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">Photo source: http://www.eif.co.uk/blog/festival-city-project<br />
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<p><b>Akito von Troyer </b>and <b>Tod Machover</b> created Constellation and Cauldron to gather and remix music<br />
samples contributed by citizens and lovers of Edinburgh.<br />
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Director’s Fellows Program </h3>
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The <a href="http://blog.media.mit.edu/2013/01/please-welcome-our-new-directors-fellows.html" target="_blank">Director’s Fellows</a> are a cohort of unique creators who bring inspiration and ideas to broaden the Lab community. They are an eclectic group, most coming from non-academic backgrounds, and are working with students and faculty on a number of exciting field projects.<br />
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E14 Fund</h3>
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<a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/media-lab-e14-fund-1023.html" target="_blank">The E14 Fund</a> is an independent investment fund that gives recent Media Lab alumni a “six-month runway” to entrepreneurship, in the form of startup support that includes a stipend, legal advice, meetings with venture capitalists, and more. The program also incorporates a way to put a portion of the profits from successful spinoffs back into MIT.<br />
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Ed Boyden Awarded the Brain Prize</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">Photo credit: Dominick Reuter</td></tr>
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<b>Professor Ed Boyden</b>, head of the <b>Synthetic Neurobiology group</b>, was one of six scientists awarded the Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Prize. He was <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/mits-boyden-to-share-prestigious-brain-prize.html" target="_blank">honored for his work in optogenetics</a>, a technology that makes it possible to control brain activity using light.<br />
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Focii</h3>
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A new technique that converts an ordinary camera into a light-field camera, from <b>Kshitij Marwah</b>, <b>Gordon Wetzstein</b>, <b>Yosuke Bando</b>, and <b>Professsor Ramesh Raskar</b> of the <b>Camera Culture group</b>. <a href="http://www.kshitijmarwah.com/index.php?/projects/focii/" target="_blank">Focii</a> is a light-field camera attachment and software tool that can produce a full, 20-megapixel multi-perspective 3D image from a single exposure of a 20-megapixel sensor.<br />
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FreeD</h3>
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A carving tool designed by postdoc <b>Amit Zoran</b> of the <b>Responsive Environments group</b>. <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/smart-tools-1122.html" target="_blank">FreeD </a>allows the user to control the carving process while aided by a computer guidance system that is preprogrammed with the desired three-dimensional shape.<br />
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Immersion</h3>
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An email metadata visualization tool from <b>Daniel Smilkov</b>, <b>Deepak Jagdish</b>, and <b>Professor César Hidalgo</b> of the <b>Macro Connections group</b>. <a href="https://immersion.media.mit.edu/" target="_blank">Immersion</a> scans a user’s email account and creates a portrait of networked connections based on the From, To, Cc, and Timestamp fields.<br />
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inFORM</h3>
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An interactive dynamic display table from <b>Sean Follmer</b>, <b>Daniel Leithinger</b>, and <b>Professor Hiroshi Ishii</b> of the <b>Tangible Media group</b>. <a href="http://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/inform/" target="_blank">inFORM</a> is a Dynamic Shape Display that can render 3D content physically, so users can interact with digital information in a tangible way. inFORM can also interact with the physical world around it, for example moving objects on the table’s surface. <br />
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Joe Jacobson Wins the Exner Medal </h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">Photo credit: <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; text-align: start;">Shuguang Zhang</span></td></tr>
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<b>Professor Joe Jacobson</b>, head of the <b>Molecular Machines group</b>, was honored with a <a href="http://www.wilhelmexner.org/" target="_blank">Wilhelm Exner Medal</a> for his contributions to microelectronics. The Exner Medal is awarded to scientists and researchers whose work has directly impacted business and industry. </div>
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MACH</h3>
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An automated conversation coach that helps with interview skills, social interactions, and conversational skills from <b>Ehsan Hoque</b> of the <b>Affective Computing group</b>. <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/automated-coach-could-help-with-social-interactions-0614.html" target="_blank">MACH</a>, or My Automated Conversation CoacH, is a software program that simulates face-to-face interactions in different social and professional contexts, and offers feedback to improve performance.<br />
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New Faculty: Kevin Slavin and Sputniko!</h3>
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Two new faculty members joined the Lab in 2013: <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/people/slavin" target="_blank"><b>Kevin Slavin</b></a>, head of the new <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/research/groups/playful-systems" target="_blank"><b>Playful Systems group</b></a>, which explores how the systems that increasingly run our lives can be brought to the foreground through games, narratives, and visualizations; and <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/people/sputniko" target="_blank"><b>Hiromi Ozaki,</b></a> also known as Sputniko!, whose new group <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/research/groups/design-fictions" target="_blank"><b>Design Fictions</b></a> will explore the social, cultural, and ethical implications of new technologies.<br />
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The Privacy Bounds of Human Mobility</h3>
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<p><b>Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye</b> of the <b>Human Dynamics grou</b>p and <b>Professor César Hidalgo</b> of the <b>Macro Connections Group</b> used 15 months of data from 1.5 million people to show that 4 points—approximate places and times—are enough to identify 95 percent of individuals in a mobility database. These findings have been recently used to understand the use of metadata by the NSA and have been cited in numerous media reports and <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2013/0611/Solution-to-NSA-overreach-put-people-in-charge-of-their-own-data" target="_blank">editorials</a>. Their paper, “Unique in the Crowd: The Privacy Bounds of Human Mobility,” was <a href="http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130325/srep01376/full/srep01376.html" target="_blank">published in <i>Nature</i></a>.<br /></p>
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Science Fiction to Science Fabrication</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: Guillermo Bernal</td></tr>
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A class instructed by <b>Dan Novy</b> of the <b>Object-Based Media group</b> and <b>Sophia Brueckner</b> of the <b>Fluid Interfaces group</b>, exploring the relationship between science fiction and speculative/critical design as a means of encouraging the ethical and thoughtful design of new technologies. Students built projects based on concepts from sci fi and <a href="http://scifi2scifab.media.mit.edu/" target="_blank">blogged about their work</a>. The class was featured in an interview with the instructors in <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/why-todays-inventors-need-to-read-more-science-fiction/279793/" target="_blank"><i>The Atlantic</i></a>.</div>
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Scratch 2.0</h3>
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A new version of the programming language for kids from the <a href="http://blog.scratch.mit.edu/2012/11/meet-scratch-20-development-team.html" target="_blank"><b>Scratch Team</b></a> in the <b>Lifelong Kindergarten group.</b> <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/scratch-two-released-0514.html" target="_blank">Scratch 2.0</a> provides updates to the Scratch programming language and online community that enables kids (ages eight and up) to create their own interactive stories, games, music, and animations for the Web. A new, cloud-based version includes ways for youths to create new types of projects and work together in new ways. In November, the Nominet Trust in England included Scratch on its list of <a href="http://www.socialtech.org.uk/" target="_blank">"The World’s Most Inspiring Social Innovations Using Digital Technology."</a><br />
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Seat-e</h3>
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A solar-powered park bench that charges your phone from <b>Nan Zhao</b> of the <b>Responsive Environments group</b>, visiting scientist <b>Sandra Richter</b> of the <b>Changing Places group</b>, and MIT alum <b>Ines Gaisset</b>. The <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/11/05/seat-can-recharge-phones-connect-web/y1ErvQGeKbaAC644RRqceN/story.html" target="_blank">two seat-e benches</a> installed on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway provide power to recharge mobile phones, a wi-fi Internet connection, and light at night.<br />
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The Silk Pavilion</h3>
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An exploration of the relationship between digital and biological fabrication from <b>Professor Neri Oxman</b>, <b>Jorge Duro-Royo</b>, <b>Carlos Gonzalez</b>, <b>Markus Kayser</b>, and <b>Jared Laucks</b> of the Mediated Matter group. <a href="http://matter.media.mit.edu/environments/details/silk-pavillion" target="_blank">The Silk Pavilion</a> comprises a dome of CNC-deposited silk threads, onto which the researchers placed 6,500 silkworms at the bottom rim of the primary structure, spinning flat non-woven silk patches across the gaps in the dome. The silkworms were affected by spatial and environmental conditions such as the density of the existing silk threads and variation in temperature and sunlight; they migrated to darker and denser areas, creating a unique pattern of spun silk across the dome.<br />
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Smart Prosthetics</h3>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">Photo credit: Simon Bruty</td></tr>
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After the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, <b>Professor Hugh Herr </b>and the <b>Biomechatronics group</b> informed the public on advances in smart prosthetics research and began working directly with some of those injured in the attack. Professor Herr wrote an <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/05/03/how-bionics-can-change-the-lives-of-the-boston-bombing-victims/?mod=google_news_blog" target="_blank">op-ed for <i>The Wall Street Journal</i></a> about this work. </div>
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Smarter Objects</h3>
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A project that uses augmented reality technology to program physical objects and their interactions, led by <b>Valentin Heun</b> of the <b>Fluid Interfaces group</b>. <a href="http://fluid.media.mit.edu/projects/smarter-objects" target="_blank">Smarter Objects</a> allow users to imbue tangible objects with virtual interfaces, giving the virtual and physical worlds new ways to interact.<br />
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What We Watch</h3>
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A tool to examine who's watching what, when, and where, all over the world, created by <b>Ed Platt, Rahul Bhargava</b>, and <b>Ethan Zuckerman</b> of the <b>Center for Civic Media</b>. <a href="http://whatwewatch.mediameter.org/" target="_blank">What We Watch</a> collects data from Youtube’s Trends Dashboard to determine what videos are popular in any of 61 countries at any given time; it then compares the video trends in one country to those in other countries.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-70089042162178234412013-11-12T10:46:00.000-05:002013-11-12T10:47:30.280-05:00Heads Up on Fellowships for Solid<p>
This coming May 22-21, I'll be in San Francisco to co-chair <a href="http://solidcon.com/solid2014" target="blank">Solid: Software / Hardware / Everywhere</a>, a conference exploring what's next at the intersection of software and the physical world.
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This is an inaugural conference sponsored by O'Reilly Media, and we're encouraging everyone from grad students, to artists, to managers, to top-level execs to come and engage in a multidisciplinary conversation about what's coming next.
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To make sure that some of the best and the brightest (regardless of financial circumstances) are able to attend, we're offering ten Solid fellowships to any full-time student or independent innovator who is working on a project within the scope of Solid.
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Each fellow will receive:
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<li>$1,000 stipend</li>
<li>A free pass to attend Solid</li>
<li>Assistance with travel expenses to the conference</li>
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You can <a href="http://solidcon.com/solid2014/public/cfp" target="blank">get more info and apply here</a>; the deadline is January 15 (11:59 PST).
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If you're <a href="http://solidcon.com/solid2014/public/cfp" target="blank">interested in being a presenter</a>, there's a December 9 deadline for sending in a proposal, which will be reviewed by a diverse programming committee. The process is open to anyone. And if your proposal is accepted, you will get a free pass to the entire event.
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More to come as we get closer to the event.
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<hr>
<em><a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/people/joi" target="blank">Joi Ito</a> is Director of the MIT Media Lab.</em>
Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-38254996504419788102013-10-03T12:38:00.001-04:002013-10-04T10:22:42.719-04:00Welcome New Students!<p>
Perhaps the most important annual event at the Media Lab is the infusion of new talent each September. As a new semester gets underway, new students bring to this Lab a rich and vibrant set of experiences and ideas that renews our spirit of possibility. This year, we welcome one of the largest contingent of masters' students in the history of the Lab—47 bright individuals who will be embarking on a journey of unleashing their creativity and smarts during the next two years. We couldn't be more thrilled for them.
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If you're a new student settling down at the Lab, initially you can feel a lot like a child in a candy shop at one end and also feel a teensy bit overwhelming at the other. A dazzling array of courses, spellbinding research across MIT, and an enthusiastic community on campus can be both endlessly interesting and daunting at the same time. But we have not a shred of doubt that you are going to do great things while you're here. It's sort of like a convex optimization formulation in machine learning—you are positioned to succeed by converging on your objectives. So, as you begin your journey here at MIT, we thought we'd share a few snippets with you.
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<ol>
<li><b>Reject the impostor syndrome</b> | Your admission to the Media Lab was not by accident. You were selected from hundreds of competent and competitive folks. Please do not doubt your abilities. It can feel intimidating to be surrounded by extraordinary people, but never second guess your own abilities and talents.</li>
<li><b>Focus on super health</b> | Being a graduate student at MIT is a bit like being an athlete, where health and fitness are of paramount importance. Please triple down on positive habits that elevate your well-being. We want you to conquer the diathesis-stress model by optimizing healthy diet, exercise, and sleep. You'll find it only amplifies your creativity and the effectiveness of your research trajectory.</li>
<li><b>Talk to the polymaths</b> | The Media Lab is filled with faculty members who are not only pioneers in their own fields, but also have deep expertise in other fields. It is a function of our antidisciplinary approach to things. Some of our best experiences have been deep and astute discussions with our brilliant faculty.</li>
<li><b>Spread your wings further</b> | One of the most powerful aspects of being a Media Lab student is that there are very few required classes. You are free to take any class at MIT and can cross-register at Harvard as well. It's resulted in some long-lasting collaborations for many former and current students. If you are on the cusp of a spin-off, the world is at your command in terms of mobilizing resources here at MIT.</li>
</ol>
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There are few places on this planet like MIT—from the invention of single-electron transistors to formulating information theory, the scientific acumen, gravitas, and impact that has emanated from this great campus still gives us goosebumps. We're all so lucky to be here. MIT's capacity to inspire and lead is perennial. Now you are a part of this family and every magical attribute of it, and we couldn't be more excited about you and the work that you will be crafting during your stay here.
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<em>
<b><a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/~kdinakar" target="blank">Karthik Dinakar</a></b> is a PhD student in the Media Lab's Software Agents and Affective Computing groups.<br>
<b><a href="http://biragojones.org/" target="blank">Birago Jones</a></b> is the president of the MIT Media Lab Alumni Association<Br>
<b><a href="http://www.maximizingprogress.org" target="blank">Joost Bonsen</a></b> is a lecturer in the Media Lab's Human Dynamics group<Br>
</em>
</p>Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-79019699621724757512013-08-16T11:54:00.000-04:002013-08-16T11:54:36.253-04:00Repertoire Remix: The Sounds of Edinburgh
<p>
Composer <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/people/tod">Tod Machover</a> is creating a "collaborative symphony" called <i><a href="http://edinburgh.media.mit.edu" target="_blank">Festival City</a></i>, to premiere on August 27 at the <a href="http://www.eif.co.uk">Edinburgh International Festival</a> (EIF). The work is a sonic portrait of Edinburgh—city and festival—created with input from those who love the city. Machover has been soliciting audio samples of, and stories about, the city, as well as providing tools created by members of the Opera of the Future research group at the MIT Media Lab that will allow everyone to help shape the composition.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://www.media.mit.edu/images/rep-remix/tech-bb.jpg"><br>
On Tuesday, July 9, 2013, Tod Machover and his team <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/jul/08/tod-machover-festival-city-interactive-project" target="_new">presented a one-time-only event to further shape <i>Festival City</i></a>. Participants in the live-stream event helped to select musical elements from the repertoire of pieces performed at the EIF since its inception in 1947, and pianist Tae Kim combined these repertoire fragments together in real time in constantly evolving ways, following input from online participants.</p>
<p>The simple web interface, <a href="http://edinburgh.media.mit.edu/scores/" target="_new">Cauldron</a>, showed a colored bubble for each composer selected; participants could "stir" with their mouse on the screen, and the closest "composer bubble" grew in size. At the same time, Machover was controlling a second interface to determine how the composer-fragments related to one another. Input from online participants and Machover immediately changed the size, appearance, and behavior of the bubbles, thus creating Kim's "score" for the improv session, which he followed and performed in real time.</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/3i4VYdoSwug" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>Over 1,000 people participated in the hour-long Repertoire Remix project on <i>The Guardian</i> website. Aside from participants from Edinburgh and Cambridge/Boston, we were pleased to see participants from all over the UK: Aberdeen, Basingstoke, Bristol, Canterbury, Chester, Cornwall, Coventry, Inverness, Leeds, London, Macclesfield, Manchester, Newcastle, Norfolk, Norwich, Nottingham, Shropshire, Sussex, and Sheffield. People also joined from all over the world: Brazil; Toronto, Canada; Beijing, China; Paris, France; Stuttgart, Germany; Kinsale, Ireland; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; California, Indiana, and New York, USA; Thailand; and Turkey.</p>
<img alt="" src="http://www.media.mit.edu/images/rep-remix/tech-avt.jpg">
Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-41479636986659827122013-07-22T13:00:00.000-04:002013-07-22T13:00:05.324-04:00Google Glass and the Eyewitness/Journalist GapBefore <A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/edward-snowden">Edward Snowden leaked documents</A> that revealed widespread NSA monitoring of digital communications, the introduction of <A HREF="http://www.google.com/glass/start/">Google Glass</A> encouraged people to talk about surveillance. In the wake of revelations of massive data collection by an opaque government agency, <A HREF="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57573387-93/seattle-dive-bar-becomes-first-to-ban-google-glass/">concerns about Google Glass-wearing patrons recording private conversations in bars</A> seem minor in comparison. But a recent video has reopened conversation about Google Glass, surveillance, and privacy at a moment where cameras are pervasive.<br><br>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4isOSntnpo8?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<A HREF="https://twitter.com/ChrisBarrett">Chris Barrett</A>, a PR professional who is one of the few thousands beta testers of Google Glass, posted a video on YouTube on July 4, announcing, "This video is proof that Google Glass will change citizen journalism forever." The video, which Barrett shot on the boardwalk in Wildwood, New Jersey, features the tail end of a fist fight and the arrest of two participants by local police. <A HREF="http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/05/i-filmed-the-first-fight-and-arrest-through-google-glass/">Discussing the video with Venture Beat</A>, Barrett explained the benefit of Google Glass in filming these events: "I think if I had a bigger camera there, the kid would probably have punched me. But I was able to capture the action with Glass and I didn't have to hold up a cell phone and press record."<br><br>
Despite Barrett's fear of being assaulted, I noticed that many of the other witnesses of the fight also decided to film events with their phones, and none were menaced by the police or the brawlers. Google Glass, capable of surreptitiously recording video, is less a revolution than an extension of an existing trend: we all carry cameras and, when something out of the ordinary happens, we record it.
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<IMG SRC="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/settled.png">
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Randall Munroe, one of the Internet's most astute social commentators, has <A HREF="http://xkcd.com/1235/">already thought through one of the key implications of pervasive cameras</A>: if 10 million tourists with camera phones haven't photographed the Loch Ness Monster, we can probably finally declare it a myth. But the most thoughtful commentator on the implications of pervasive cameras is a man who's been wearing a camera for years: Steve Mann.
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<A HREF="http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~mann/">Dr. Steve Mann</A> is a professor at the University of Toronto, <A HREF="http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~steve/">an alum of the Media Lab</A>, and a pioneer in the design of wearable computer systems. Since 1981, he has been building and wearing computer systems that can record what he sees, as well as superimpose computer-generated imagery on his field of vision. Mann has logged tens of thousands of hours wearing different generations of his <A HREF="http://eyetap.org/">EyeTap</A> system, and has written eloquently about both how he uses the tool and how others react to him when he's wearing a camera.
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Mann coined the term "sousveillance," watching from below, as an alternative to "surveillance," watching from above. When the <A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/02/cctv-cameras-watching-surveillance">UK government deploys 1.85 million cameras to monitor city streets</A>, or the US government intercepts billions of communications, these powerful institutions send a message: consider yourself watched at all times and behave accordingly. Mann suggests that we might invert the paradigm by pointing the camera at institutions and authorities, reminding them that citizens are watching as well.
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Compared to the power of monitoring all digital communications in a nation, the ability to film police making an arrest initially seems like weak tea. (Even asserting rights to this form of sousveillance has required <A HREF="http://www.dmlp.org/blog/2011/victory-recording-public">protracted legal battles</A>, and <A HREF="http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/05/7-rules-for-recording-police">commentator Steve Silverman strongly discourages people from recording police surreptitiously</A>, as Barrett did.) But protesters in the Occupy movement took to live-streaming video from their encampments, both to share proceedings with people who couldn't be physically present, and to ensure that any police violence would be documented and broadcast. (Charlie DeTar, a doctoral student at the Media Lab, <A HREF="http://civic.mit.edu/blog/cfd/occupy-streams-map">produced a map visualizing these streams</A>.) <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper-spray_incident">The firing of Lt. John Pike</A>, the infamous "pepper-spray cop" who assaulted students at UC Davis, suggests that this documentation of abuse was effective.
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Sousveillance has also become a routine part of election monitoring in much of the world. Enabled by technologies like <A HREF="http://ushahidi.com/">Ushahidi</A>, which allows thousands of people to report on an event and place their reports on an interactive map, citizen monitoring of elections by photographing long lines at polling places or voting irregularities has become common practice in <A HREF="https://uchaguzi.co.ke/">much of the world</A>.
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When Barrett declares a revolution in citizen journalism due to Google Glass, he's thinking of this sense of sousveillance. With widespread use of Google Glass, it's more likely that abuses of power will be documented, as well as natural disasters and breaking news. But Barrett's video shows that there's a giant gap between an eyewitness account and a journalistic story. Yes, Barrett's video shows an arrest, but it doesn't help us figure out who was fighting and why, or what happened to the men after they were arrested. Pervasive cameras create more inputs for journalism, but they don't automatically answer the questions of who, what, where, and why that we expect of good journalism.
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When Mann discusses sousveillance, he often talks about another facet of the idea: by wearing a camera and pointing it at people, he forces people to think about the implications of being watched. People often react badly to Mann's sousveillance, complaining that his camera is an invasion of their privacy. Mann hopes that this discomfort at being watched will inspire deeper consideration of the ways people are watched by corporations and governments.
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Watching Barrett's video, it's easy to feel uncomfortable: for the people watching in the crowd who now feature in his film, and for the participants in the fight who've now been viewed by almost a million people online. Perhaps that discomfort will translate into a discussion of societal norms around cameras and lead to a legal or societal agreement that we don't record people without their permission—except in extraordinary circumstances.
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There's another possibility. If Google Glass and other wearable cameras become pervasive, the uncomfortable and provocative experience of being watched eventually disappears and we simply get used to the idea that public spaces are spaces in which we expect to be filmed. Before we accede to that possibility, it's worth having an extended conversation about the balance between the power we gain from sousveillance and the constraints that surveillance puts on our behavior.
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<i>Ethan Zuckerman is director of the <a href="http://civic.mit.edu">MIT Center for Civic Media</a>.</i>Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-15492993828000304822013-06-18T09:19:00.000-04:002013-06-18T09:22:01.551-04:00Welcome to New Faculty Member Hiromi Ozaki!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidqSUqzjinx_0ZxtkCR4IKAyQLWZArAxqvy-hHeM-qCGyRZ-ShKXA13Syj3sYeEi8vqhEdrIxFpunAMutokHWhSEWsh2XFksy2C_BLRKyrKNmcvvU54Zj1ctSHVmdUmNqDqZrDIQnabfA/s1600/hiromi-ozaki.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidqSUqzjinx_0ZxtkCR4IKAyQLWZArAxqvy-hHeM-qCGyRZ-ShKXA13Syj3sYeEi8vqhEdrIxFpunAMutokHWhSEWsh2XFksy2C_BLRKyrKNmcvvU54Zj1ctSHVmdUmNqDqZrDIQnabfA/s320/hiromi-ozaki.jpg" /></a></div><p><b>Hiromi Ozaki</b>, also known as Sputniko!, has joined the Media Lab as an assistant professor. An artist who uses design to explore technology's impact on everyday life–and to imagine the future–Ozaki’s art practice includes creating songs and music videos about products she has designed, which she posts on social networks and online video platforms to encourage discussion outside traditional academic spheres.</p><p>"Hiromi Ozaki's art provokes people to think about the social, cultural, and ethical implications of new technologies. We're looking forward to seeing what happens when she brings her great energy, imagination, and creativity to the Media Lab," says Professor Mitchel Resnick, head of the Media Lab's academic Program in Media Arts and Sciences.</p><p>Ozaki's cross-boundary work is emblematic of the Media Lab's antidisciplinary, collaborative environment, and her research at the Lab will explore storytelling and embrace the social, cultural, and ethical implications of technology created at the Lab. She envisions her research at the Media Lab as deeply symbiotic and collaborative with other Lab research groups, with the aim of stimulating and developing new technologies that will, in turn, encourage discussions both within and outside the MIT Media Lab, as well as to inspire and shape future Lab innovations.</p><p>"The key thing that excites me about Hiromi's work is that she elegantly synthesizes science, computation, networking, art, and design into beautiful "hacks" very appropriate to the contemporary medium of the Internet–social media, video, music and social commentary," says Media Lab director Joi Ito. "She's a true artist and producer that will connect to the Media Lab at many of its levels."</p><p>Hiromi Ozaki has presented her film and installation works at exhibitions such as Talk to Me (MoMA, New York, 2011), Transformation (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2010), Light of Silence (Aomori Museum of Art, 2012), and the Third Art & Science International Exhibition in Beijing (2012). She has received the “Passion without Borders” Award from the Japan National Policy Unit's Cabinet Secretariat (2012), an honorary mention in both Ars Electronica's Hybrid Art Category (2013) and Interactive Art Category (2012), and Jury Recommended Works at the 14th Japan Media Arts Festival (2011). Recognized as an active social media influencer in Japan, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) selected Ozaki as the youngest member of the Cool Japan Advisory Council (2012-2013). She received her MA in design interactions at the Royal College of Art, London. Prior to studying at the RCA, she received her BSc in mathematics and computer science at Imperial College, University of London.</p>Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-78089010730918620002013-05-24T10:59:00.000-04:002013-05-24T10:59:32.780-04:00People Analytics: Using Social Sensing Technology to Transform Organizations<p>People analytics is simultaneously an extremely old and new phenomenon. When we use data to uncover the workplace behaviors that make people effective, happy, creative, experts, leaders, followers, connectors, early adopters, and so on, we are using people analytics. Thousands of years ago, this data came from everyday observations of the world. By watching their peers interact with other people and react to changing conditions, people were able to make educated guesses about what made them effective and happy. Later, we augmented our senses using surveys and interviews. These methods allowed us to gather responses from thousands of people, establishing new metrics that were a bit more quantitative, but this did not herald any radical change in the way people run companies.</p><p><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q-tKvY0yadI/UZ9uSTJpEaI/AAAAAAAAADE/9vi-K59SydA/s1600/BenWaberbadge.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q-tKvY0yadI/UZ9uSTJpEaI/AAAAAAAAADE/9vi-K59SydA/s320/BenWaberbadge.jpeg" /></a>Today, people analytics is poised for a revolution, and the catalyst is the explosion of hard data about our behavior at work, drawn from a wide variety of sources. Digital traces of activity from email records, web browsing behavior, instant messaging, and all the other IT systems we use give us incredibly detailed data on how people work. Who communicates with whom? How is IT tool usage related to productivity? Are there work styles that aren’t well-supported by current technology? Although this data can provide amazing insights, it’s only the digital part of the story. </p><p>Data on the physical world is also expanding at a breakneck pace thanks to the rapid development of wearable sensing technology. These sensors, from <a href="http://www.sociometricsolutions.com/services.html#">company ID badges</a> to <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/phone-sensor-programming-1005.html">cell phones</a> to environmental sensors, provide reams of fine-grained data on interaction patterns, speaking patterns, motion, and location, among other things. Because most communication and collaboration happens face to face, this data is critical for people analytics to take that next leap forward and become a transformative organizational tool. By combining precise data from both real and virtual worlds, we can now understand behavior at a previously unimaginable scale. </p><p>Through my work with colleagues in the Media Lab’s <a href="http://hd.media.mit.edu/">Human Dynamics group</a>, we’ve developed a compelling set of case studies illuminating a new kind of people analytics. In particular, we’ve seen how slight changes in behavior–from <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/jobs/group-breaks-can-raise-workplace-productivity.html?_r=2&">changing when you take breaks</a> to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/09/living/secret-to-workplace-happiness">what lunch tables you sit at</a>–can make you happier, healthier, and more productive. Our work shows how people analytics transforms our understanding of socialization in the workplace, the impact of office layout, and even concepts as “soft” as <a href="http://www.sociometricsolutions.com/Tripathi%20-%20Burleson%20CSCW%202012%20-%20Final%20-Submission%20-%20Updated.pdf">creativity</a>.<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UICtnRulAic/UZ920qgPq4I/AAAAAAAAADc/t7AY-tV1ByI/s1600/Ben+Waber+Cover.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UICtnRulAic/UZ920qgPq4I/AAAAAAAAADc/t7AY-tV1ByI/s320/Ben+Waber+Cover.jpeg" /></a><br />
Looking to the future, we can use this knowledge to create fundamentally new ways of organizing people that will radically improve the way we work. Office layouts that respond to social context and real-time feedback on communication patterns and interaction styles are new levers enabled by people analytics that no one could have imagined. The years ahead will offer many new opportunities for people analytics that cannot possibly be anticipated. My new book, not coincidentally titled <i>People Analytics</i>, explores some of those limitless possibilities, their foundations in history, and some paths to the future. </p><hr> <p><i>Ben Waber is a visiting scientist at the MIT Media Lab, where he received his PhD. He is president and CEO of Sociometric Solutions, a management services firm that uses social sensing technology. His work centers around using real-time data flows to rethink management of people, physical architecture, corporate planning, and training, among other things. He is the author of <a href="http://web.media.mit.edu/~bwaber/"></a></i>People Analytics: How Social Sensing Technology Will Transform Business and What It Tells Us about the Future of Work. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-5086331325382671552013-05-10T10:47:00.000-04:002013-05-10T10:56:53.634-04:00May at the Media Lab: Upcoming Conversations<p>The academic year is reaching its end, but the <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/events/conversations" target="blank">Media Lab Conversations series</a> is still full-speed ahead. Our two upcoming events are open to the public; please join us here at the Lab for what promise to be serious and thoughtful discussions. If you can't attend in person, you can participate via webcast and on Twitter with hashtag #MLTalks.</p>
<p><img src="http://www.media.mit.edu/newsletter/shaka-damien-blog.jpg"><br>
On May 16, in collaboration with the <a href="http://www.bostonbookfest.org" target="blank">Boston Book Festival</a>, we welcome <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/people/ssenghor" target="blank">Media Lab Director’s Fellow <b>Shaka Senghor</b></a>, who will be in conversation with <a href="http://damienechols.com" target="_blank"><b>Damien Echols</b></a>. Their conversation will be moderated by Bob Oakes, host of 90.9 WBUR's Morning Edition. A compelling writer and speaker, Shaka Senghor’s story—which includes 19 years in prison—has become a tale of redemption and atonement. Damien Echols spent 19 years on death row after his murder conviction as one of the West Memphis Three. After his release in 2012, Echols wrote his memoir, <em>Life After Death</em>. This event is ticketed, with a portion of the proceeds going to support the Prison Book Program. <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/events/2013/05/16/media-lab-conversations-series-damien-echols-and-shaka-senghor" target="blank">More information about tickets is available.</a></p>
<p><img src="http://www.media.mit.edu/newsletter/noveck-blog.jpg"><br>
<a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/events/2013/05/29/media-lab-conversations-series-beth-noveck" target="blank">On May 29, we welcome <b>Beth Noveck</b>.</a> Professor Noveck’s work focuses on scholarship, activism, and teaching on the future of democracy in the 21st century. Specifically, her work addresses how we can use technology to create more open and collaborative government. With a grant awarded to New York Law School from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, she is collaborating with colleagues to create a research network on the impact of technology on democratic institutions. She’ll discuss these and other topics with Media Lab Director Joi Ito.</p>Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-2360006925359548772013-04-11T12:24:00.000-04:002013-04-11T16:50:23.110-04:00Why the Media Lab is Important for Science: A Neurotechnology Story<p>Last week at a White House event, President Obama announced his <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/04/02/fact-sheet-brain-initiative"><b>Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative</b></a>. Calling it "the next great American project," Obama allocated $100 million per year, starting in fiscal year 2014, for developing new tools to map the activity of the networks of the brain. In December of 2012 I contributed to a technology roadmap workshop for the initiative, and last week I was invited to participate in <a href=”http://www.web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/reseachers-join-obama-for-brain-initiative-announcement-0402.html”>the official White House launch</a>, along with other neuroscientists, engineers, and government officials.</p>
<p>The potential impact is huge. Understanding how sensations, decisions, emotions, and actions are generated by brain circuits has tremendous implications for understanding the human condition. Revealing the activity patterns associated with brain disorders, and their treatment, could help the one billion people worldwide who are afflicted with poorly treatable conditions ranging from epilepsy to Alzheimer’s. The technologies we develop in the Synthetic Neurobiology group at MIT, often in interdisciplinary collaborations, will provide key technology building blocks for this effort. These tools include <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hupHAPF1fHY">optogenetic tools for controlling brain circuits with light</a>, <a href="http://syntheticneurobiology.org/publications/publicationdetail/194/25"> microfabricated 3D brain-spanning neural interfaces</a>, and <a href="http://syntheticneurobiology.org/publications/publicationdetail/185/25">robots that automatically analyze single cells in the living brain</a>.</p>
<p>Our group is a joint enterprise across multiple MIT institutes, such as the Media Lab and the McGovern Institute, and many departments such as Biological Engineering and Brain and Cognitive Sciences. We also work closely with other institutes like the Allen Institute for Brain Science. It’s instructive to take a look at one of these environments, the MIT Media Lab, and how it has helped the relatively new field of neurotechnology thrive, perhaps in unexpected ways. The Media Lab provides an antidisciplinary environment where fields that don’t fit within existing disciplines can be incubated and nurtured by people who believe in them. Giving a field some protected time to develop and ultimately prove itself, and to derive its methodologies of thinking, doing, and evaluating, is important for enabling it to mature to the point of having impact on the world.</p>
<p>One important methodology in neurotechnology is to engage in co-equal collaborations. For example, the brain-spanning interfaces were developed in collaboration with the <a href=
“http://web.mit.edu/fonstad/www/home.html”>Fonstad lab at MIT</a>, and the single-neuron analysis robot was developed in collaboration with the <a href=”http://pbl.gatech.edu/”>Forest lab at Georgia Tech</a>. To help people create impactful neurotechnology inventions, we have developed courses ranging from those that teach basic principles, to those that <a
href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/neurotechnology-ventures-0402.html">mentor
people in the process of launching neurotechnology startup companies</a>. It wasn’t all fun and games—for example, we had to renovate old film studios and holography rooms into functioning bioengineering labs, which took years. But it has been said that entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity independent of the resources that you currently control. What you need is the right environment, and the potential to access resources and grow. The Media Lab lets us practice intellectual entrepreneurship, and over the last seven years, we have been able to accomplish this kind of growth, both within our group and in the field globally.</p>
<p>No field stays antidisciplinary forever. Technologies developed by our group are used all over the world. Our alumni and collaborators have been building new research groups, and startup companies, that are pushing the field of neurotechnology forward, both academically and from an industry-building standpoint. Certainly the White House announcement means that neurotechnology is in some ways going mainstream. The field is poised to grow and accelerate in ways not imaginable seven years ago. We are looking forward to helping build new technologies and new collaborative networks to make new technologies. And, always in the background is the question—prompted each time I walk down the hallways of the Media Lab complex—is it time to start incubating something new?</p>
<hr>
<i><a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/people/esb" target="blank">Ed Boyden</a> is Benesse Career Development Professor and Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab. He is the head of the Synthetic Neurobiology group, and has joint appointments with MIT's Departments of Biological Engineering and Brain and Cognitive Sciences. He is an investigator at the MIT McGovern Institute.</i>Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-83498784035856940472013-04-04T16:10:00.000-04:002013-04-04T16:10:44.681-04:00Of High-Speed Internet, Entrepreneurship, and Surprising Facts: the ML Conversations SeriesThe Media Lab’s <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/events/conversations" target="blank">2013 Conversations Series</a> is off and running, with two fantastic talks in the last two weeks.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitmedialab/8620385852/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Yancey Strickler MLTalks by MIT Media Lab, on Flickr"><img alt="Yancey Strickler MLTalks" height="240" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8263/8620385852_3e2c5ef488_m.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitmedialab/8597853033/" title="Susan Crawford talks with Andy Lippman and Ethan Zuckerman"><img alt="Mar28-2013" height="180" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8366/8597853033_bf3611bf92_m.jpg" width="240" /></a><br />
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On March 28, author Susan Crawford spoke with Ethan Zuckerman and Andy Lippman about her new book, Captive Audience, and the disparities in Internet speeds in the US caused by telecom companies’ monopoly. In Crawford’s view, "We should be able to take connectivity for granted - it should be ubiquitous, like the air we breathe." Instead, however, we’re faced with high costs and limited options, and yet none of the fastest cities in the world for Internet connectivity are in the US. <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/events/2013/03/28/media-lab-conversations-series-susan-crawford" target="blank">You can view the full archived talk online.</a><br />
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On April 3, Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler came by to chat with Joi Ito about crowdfunding and entrepreneurship. From Veronica Mars to the $5,000 projects that make up the bulk of Kickstarter’s 38,000 successfully funded enterprises, Strickler maintains that "the most important step is putting the idea out there." <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/events/2013/04/03/media-lab-conversations-series-kickstarters-yancey-strickler" target="blank">Watch the full archived talk online.</a>
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<br />
In related news, the Media Lab now has a curated page of projects that have been funded or are seeking funding on Kickstarter: <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/pages/mitmedialab" target="blank">http://www.kickstarter.com/pages/mitmedialab</a>. Be sure to check back periodically to see amazing projects from the Media Lab community!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-57682967606490172852013-03-11T10:36:00.002-04:002013-03-11T11:01:02.817-04:00Feedback from our SXSW party<p>We appreciate all of the feedback we’ve received about the party we hosted at The Parish Underground on Saturday night at SXSW. While we received a lot of positive responses, we want to address an issue with the wristbands that were given to people who came in the door. They were offensive and in no way reflect the sentiments of the MIT Media Lab. These wristbands were provided by the venue, and while we didn’t realize what was printed on them until after they'd been handed out, we should have prevented the situation from occurring in the first place.</p>
<p>The Media Lab is firmly committed to supporting women in the sciences, computing, arts, and engineering. We don't like – and certainly don't want to support or disseminate – offensive messaging. We appreciate those of you who noticed the wristbands and pointed them out to us; please accept our sincere apology.</p>Joi Itohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06533718416046818900noreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-12271672394584813812013-02-26T16:00:00.000-05:002013-03-19T13:00:16.370-04:00Q&A with Henry Lieberman about Cyberbullying<p align="left">Last week <em>The Atlantic</em> published <a href="ow.ly/hV9qd" target="_blank">“How to Stop the Bullies,”</a> a piece about the epidemic of bullying online and the response to this growing problem from social media site administrators, educators, researchers, and public groups such as Anonymous. <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/people/lieber" target="_blank">Henry Lieberman</a>, principal research scientist at the MIT Media Lab, was featured in the piece in a lengthy discussion of the work he and his grad students Karthik Dinakar and Birago Jones have done with cyberbullying. </p>
<p align="left">As explained in <a href="http://www.nowthisnews.com/news/the-scientists-working-to-end-cyberbullying/" target="_blank">this video from NowThisNews</a>, Lieberman and his team hope to use the algorithm they’ve developed to prevent instances of cyberbullying by giving users a warning about their language and an enforced pause before posting potentially harmful content. </p>
<p align="left">The article and the video provoked a flurry of response on Facebook and Twitter, with many asking for more details about the work. Here are his responses to the questions asked most often.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>What was your motivation for working to combat bullies when you first began this work?</strong><br /><br />
The project was started by my students <b>Karthik Dinakar</b> and <b>Birago Jones</b>, who were deeply moved by press reports of teens committing suicide and other heartbreaking stories. They saw an opportunity for natural language understanding and user interface design to help, and nobody in the academic community at the time was working on how to improve social network software to deal with the problem. </p>
<p align="left"><strong>How can we make the connection that cyberbullying affects students in school? (Sometimes children think it is separate from school and this gives them the freedom to say what they "want" to say.)</strong><br /><br />
Studies show that cyberbullying results in poorer performance in school for bullying victims, and surprisingly, for the bullies, too. We want to respect people’s freedom to say what they want, but kids should understand that if what you say hurts others, then it’s not cool, even if you “have the right to say it.”</p>
<p align="left"><strong>From my understanding, some web accounts cannot be set up until a certain age. How are children able to open accounts? Are there ways to hold those who provide services responsible?</strong><br /><br />
Some networks do have a minimum age limit, but kids get around it by using false identities. Some sites do insist on a credit card or other proof of adulthood or adult approval. No enforcement is perfect. But if kids do manage to join a network meant for older people, then they have to be held to adult standards of responsible behavior. </p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1hB5BBRP9svdOD1RoYnootNtNqNCrcbYADfTQIad2x_wjyE8AMjWZ32NJKUsIiSt5W_ExZyTD_gKdnpaKuNubsPKPQ21lF2Mh6IjrJknRIjBy5Q2DocfnzRchHL2da4iBTlos4dGqko4/s1600/softwareagents1.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1hB5BBRP9svdOD1RoYnootNtNqNCrcbYADfTQIad2x_wjyE8AMjWZ32NJKUsIiSt5W_ExZyTD_gKdnpaKuNubsPKPQ21lF2Mh6IjrJknRIjBy5Q2DocfnzRchHL2da4iBTlos4dGqko4/s320/softwareagents1.jpg" /></a>
<p align="left"><strong>Dr. L, what is the thinking process that's disrupted by the prompt to "reflect" before sending a mean message? Does the prompt have the potential to promote impulse control in general?</strong><br /><br />
Many times, bullying behavior starts out as users trying to be funny. Some users, innocently, try to be funny and wind up saying hurtful things. This is usually easy to fix, as a little bit of reflection will often cause the person to realize why it might be hurtful, and it’s easy for people to forgive others who didn’t intend harm. People who actually have an intent to hurt are more difficult to stop with a warning. Even there, though, reflection can sometimes convince them that hurtful comments would damage their own reputation or open themselves up to negative consequences.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>For the good doc: It seems like an assumption in this tech is that bullies act on impulse. Giving them pause to double check that they really want to send something is certainly a way to curb that impulse, but every bully I've ever met (or e-met) is usually on a rampage for at least a half hour or so. What research has your team done to suggest that an in-the-moment response to an in-the-moment problem is actually effective? Have you experimented with "holding" offensive posts for different periods of time?</strong><br /><br />
That would be a good experiment to try, but we haven’t yet done it. Anecdotally, we find that when bullying is recognized and “called out,” in the majority of cases, people tend to back off. I agree that this won’t stop a really hard-core bully.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Your software invites comparison to spam filters, which also employ algorithms to separate certain kinds of web content from others. How sound is that analogy? How is it different?</strong><br /><br />
Gmail can do such a good job with spam because it “crowdsources” the judgment of whether the message is spam. Spam is sent nearly identically to large numbers of people. It also has telltale words that can be identified. Bullying is more personalized and context-dependent. Sometimes bullying takes the form of racial, ethnic, or appearance stereotypes, and you need the knowledge of what those stereotypes are (without endorsing them) in order to recognize that it's taking place. So it is a challenging problem for us. But, like spam, it is a make-or-break issue for social networks. </p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYzQii-byhIT4L8IBjShhrXVxgFkHrJcI6z6QVNKJ2wRNNnsnhFLCUB5tfuk39Z6UuWYQF1MCHTh0ec_bibjmBu4hcnheHtQDvqSsqlvYcOhKzqXy1xUWu29qhrFe5oYkpEghpfpECpeU/s1600/softwareagents3.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYzQii-byhIT4L8IBjShhrXVxgFkHrJcI6z6QVNKJ2wRNNnsnhFLCUB5tfuk39Z6UuWYQF1MCHTh0ec_bibjmBu4hcnheHtQDvqSsqlvYcOhKzqXy1xUWu29qhrFe5oYkpEghpfpECpeU/s320/softwareagents3.jpg" /></a>
<p align="left"><strong>Isn't bullying an inherent part of our make-up? I have no scientific sources to back up my statement but I believe it's something that will always be around, like thieves and liars.</strong><br /><br />
That’s a misconception I’d like to strongly refute. Many people don’t bully and don’t experience it, so no, it’s not inevitable. Studies show that for both bullies and victims, negative effects such as doing worse in school, worse health outcomes, and rates of criminality are higher than those who have no involvement. See Emily Bazelon’s book, Sticks and Stones and the MTV/Associated Press survey on bullying. In 2011, we went to the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention, where President Obama said, “If there’s one goal of this conference, it’s to dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up. It’s not.” </p>
<p align="left"><strong>My question is: When do you anticipate the algorithm will be ready to implement on a large-scale social network, like Facebook or Twitter?</strong><br /><br />
We don’t know exactly when. We would like to collaborate with these companies to work on this. Some of our software is currently on MTV’s site <a href="http://www.athinline.org/overtheline" target="_blank">“Over the Line?”</a>, where it matches a user's story to other stories on the site that talk about similar experiences. Reading a story that matches your own personal experience can provide emotional support, and perhaps even useful advice about the situation.</p>
<p align="left">Thank you to everyone who submitted questions!</p>Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-53398695497657926092013-02-12T17:01:00.001-05:002013-02-12T17:01:10.068-05:002013 Health and Wellness Innovation HackathonDr. Lindi van Niekerk is a research officer at the University of Cape Town, South Africa's <a href="www.gsb.uct.ac.za/berthacentre" target="_blank">Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship</a>. She visited the Media Lab to participate in the <a href="http://newmed.media.mit.edu/health-and-wellness-innovation-2013
" target="_blank">2013 Health and Wellness Innovation Hackathon</a>, held from January 22 - February 1, 2013. In the following post, Lindi reflects upon her experiences as a member of a HWI hackathon team.
<hr>
<p align="left">Innovation is taking healthcare by storm in the USA, but the same wave has not yet hit our South African shores. As an MD from Cape Town, South Africa, I have become exceedingly interested in the role innovation could play in transforming an African healthcare system. South Africa, just like the United States, is facing a myriad of health challenges relating to the colliding of the epidemic of infectious disease, such as HIV, with chronic diseases of lifestyle. These diseases place extreme strain on a system struggling to provide affordable and effective healthcare to an 84% uninsured population.</p>
<p align="left">Now more than ever, we in South Africa require innovation from the ground up to transform challenges into new opportunities to deliver improved care to our patients and achieve better health outcomes. But how can we do this? There are no better leaders from whom to learn from than the MIT Media Lab and the Health and Wellness Innovation Hackathon organised by John Moore at the MIT Media Lab.</p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUiWa5oHK6Ieut7340LUZ9yRIjBuoiY69F4yD_EjvKDADa_0JV4_lbgrNT0TxIyLO6P-dWeR-YINRez_It1bN-Pvf_fDTQVINNRu9soMNu3jwWx_0NHwmZ1dbAA3QrgTKpECyVH-srzgo/s1600/hwi2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="239" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUiWa5oHK6Ieut7340LUZ9yRIjBuoiY69F4yD_EjvKDADa_0JV4_lbgrNT0TxIyLO6P-dWeR-YINRez_It1bN-Pvf_fDTQVINNRu9soMNu3jwWx_0NHwmZ1dbAA3QrgTKpECyVH-srzgo/s320/hwi2013.jpg" /></a></div>
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<em>From left: Health & Wellness Innovation organizer and Media Lab PhD student John Moore, MD; Lindi van Niekerk, MD; and Media Lab research affiliate Julius Akinyemi.</em></p>
<p align="left">For two weeks, I was able to surround myself with passionate innovators who worked in six project teams to address health challenges like HIV, epilepsy, hypertension, endometriosis, Parkinson’s, and cardiac failure. These teams pushed toward new frontiers in patient empowerment. In all health systems, we need to realise that our patients are competent interpreters of their own lives and that our role as innovators is to support them with the best means to do so.</p>
<p align="left">I joined a group of experts developing a mobile application to support HIV patients in managing their disease, a project well-suited to a priority need in South Africa. This diverse team of clinicians, software developers, biomedical engineers, health literacy experts, and behaviour-change experts had a range of knowledge and backgrounds that worked to catalyse innovation. The first few days allowed for a wonderfully messy and creative process of sharing new and fresh ideas on how patients can be supported with medication adherence. After exploring broadly, we were able to focus on the core components and got started on developing a prototype. From animated videos providing educational insights, to screen designs targeted at both patients and providers, to an incorporated point of care test, the HIVIVA application emerged.</p>
<p align="left">The product outcomes of such an innovation process are, of course, a benefit of attending a two-week event like this–but the relationships that result are arguably as great a benefit. I had the opportunity to form friendships and connections with such special people, including my teammates and members of the extended MIT family.</p>
<p align="left">My ability to attend the hackathon was made possible through the unique and exciting collaboration being established between MIT and the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation at the Graduate School of Business in Cape Town. In addition, the people of the MIT Media Lab–Julius Akinyemi, Joost Bonsen, and John Moore–gave value to my visit, as did my host Michele Oshima who kindly opened her home to me for two weeks.</p>
<p align="left">I departed MIT more excited than ever and filled with new enthusiasm to take the innovation process back to Cape Town. I look forward to creating a stimulating and enabling environment for our local innovators and entrepreneurs to uncover novel solutions to improve healthcare for our patients who need it most.</p>Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-58041796875625450112013-01-09T15:36:00.002-05:002013-01-09T16:51:56.912-05:00Please Welcome Our New Director's Fellows<p align="left">Everywhere I travel, I meet people who are doing groundbreaking, game-changing work in the most creative and innovative ways, from learning and education, to art and music, to activism, to sports, science, and film--and everything in between! There are people all over the world with less-than-traditional backgrounds (like me!) who would be great additions to the Media Lab community. We wanted to create a program to loop them in.</p>
<p align="left">Our new Director's Fellows initiative creates a way for these extraordinary individuals to take part in Media Lab research alongside our faculty and students. We're bringing a cohort of characters from a broad range of sectors and geographies to join us in doing collaborative research and to expand our growing global community. The fellows will not only work with the Lab's students and faculty, but also with each other.</p>
<p align="left">The <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/people/directors-fellows" target="_blank">first group of fellows</a> includes:
<ul>
<li>Director/producer <b>J. J. Abrams</b>;</li>
<li>Chess grandmaster <b>Maurice Ashley</b>;</li>
<li>Fashion designer <b>Christopher Bevans</b>;</li>
<li>Nairobi-based technologists/activists <b>David Kobia</b> and <b>Juliana Rotich</b>;</li>
<li>Open education advocate <b>Philipp Schmidt</b>;</li>
<li>Detroit community activist <b>Shaka Senghor</b>;</li>
<li>Maker movement advocate <b>Jeff Sturges</b>; and</li>
<li>Author and comedian <b>Baratunde Thurston</b>.</li></ul>
<p align="left">At the Media Lab, inventing the future is our focus. Moving forward, I believe a lot of that invention will come from sharing ideas and creating community. Over the past year or so, we’ve been working hard to come up with new, creative ways to do that. The fellows initiative is one way to open up the Lab up to the world, which will benefit both the fellows and the Lab community tremendously.</p>
<p align="left">What all the fellows have in common is that they’re leaders in their fields, and that they embody the Lab's uniqueness, impact, and magic. They're also all passionate about collaborating with the Lab. You should never be able to guess who the next new fellow will be by looking at the current roster.</p>
<p align="left">We’re really looking forward to the unexpected twists and turns these collaborations will take. Stay tuned!</p>
<p>P.S. A few people have mentioned that there is only one woman in the first cohort. We'll have a much better balance when we add the next batch.</p>
<hr>
<p align="left"><i>Joi Ito is Director of the MIT Media Lab.</i></p>
Joi Itohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06533718416046818900noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-83897143595794403122012-12-10T15:19:00.000-05:002012-12-11T11:19:12.941-05:00IG Detroit by Shaka Senghor<p><em>When we started planning a visit and project in Detroit earlier this year, we had only a few rough ideas of what to expect—and we ended up with every expectation challenged. We went to help, and ended up learning more than teaching. We want to keep working with our new friends and collaborators there, and we are continuing to discuss how and when to do this.</em></p>
<p><em>One of the people we met through the Innovators Guild Detroit project was Shaka Senghor. I won't go into his bio here, but if you Google him you'll see that his story is an amazing and inspiring one. He's also an awesome writer, and has written up some of his thoughts and impressions about the IG Detroit event. We wanted to share them with you so you could get a sense of what a non-Media Lab participant felt about the project. I look forward to your comments. —<a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/people/joi" target="_blank">Joi</a></em></p>
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<p>We looked more like a rock band than a band of innovators as we hustled into the large shiny black SUV. White, black, Asian, short, tall, casually dressed, it was all there–the only things missing were guitars, amps, a bass, and a dope lead vocalist. But we were no band–in fact we had yet to band together around the task at hand–and in essence this first ride through the gritty streets of Detroit would be our feeling-out period. We were getting to know each other against the backdrop of a city that had been labeled the rust belt capital or murder capital of the world depending on who was telling the story.</p>
<p>I felt a great deal of responsibility as an ambassador of Detroit. I knew that I had to show the complexities of Detroit if we were to succeed in our efforts as innovators. I didn’t want anyone to come away from IG Detroit with an unrealistic, romanticized idea of the challenges we face. As we made our way down Grand River Avenue, the stark contrast of poverty-entrenched communities that were only a few blocks away from wealthy enclaves was evident. By highlighting these contradictions I felt that the team members would be better equipped to understand how to approach the design challenges.</p>
<p>We drove block after burned out block and I watched the varied expressions of my passengers through the rear-view mirror. They ranged from disbelief and sadness, to intrigue and hopefulness. In my own eyes I saw a tinge of embarrassment for our city, for the people who call Detroit home, including myself. For the first time in a long time I looked at Detroit objectively, and it was painful to digest what was happening to my beloved city. However the pain was soothed by thoughts of what was underway.</p>
<p>As we traveled around Detroit, I felt compelled to give a voice to the societal fractures all around us, but where was I to begin? How could I sum up the tearing asunder of a city that at one time was a place of pride and joy? There was no easy answer and the gravity of it bore down on me. So instead, I simply said there is so much hope and potential here, and it was these simple words that set the tone for what I hoped IG Detroit would mean for that weekend. Though we had yet to sit down in our work space, I could see the wheels of innovation starting to spin.</p>
<p>Personally, this was one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences I have had. Being able to work with such humble, giving, thoughtful, and highly motivated people turned out to be the highlight of my weekend. The synergy of urban dwellers, tech geeks, authors, clothing designers, and design innovators proved my long-held belief that you see the best of humanity when artificial barriers are replaced by real-life experiences. The creative energy and inspiring spirits were contagious and brought our projects full circle. Over the course of what turned out to be a four-day weekend we tackled the following challenges:
<ul>
<li>DIY Lighting: Solutions that help citizens create outdoor lighting</li>
<li>Digital Community: Online infrastructure for connecting—offline and in-person</li>
<li>Air Monitoring: Citizen-powered systems for monitoring and reporting air quality</li>
<li>DIY Soil Safety: Creating ways for ordinary citizens to better understand their soil</li>
<li>Compost Rotation: Developing solutions for scalable urban agriculture</li>
</ul></p>
<p>We worked in small groups dispersed throughout <a href="http://omnicorpdetroit.com/blog/" target="_blank">OmniCorp</a>, located in the heart of Detroit’s Eastern Market. Each group had its own space to iterate on ideas that were shared at the inception of IG Detroit, but we all checked in on each other from time to time. We genuinely enjoyed each other’s company and had a blast each night when we wound down from our work day.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzaQxMGK6SP1aVdrMikvVe4YlnQR6Gqm2nFbooUixu7jGTe9-F-OfL1F5IhKx-m_UV1hSfuQGH5Pk38gKZvTHhj_6hIUPv72xGSy60wI5WQAoiUD_JTHjfF3pvGIu3TdH5Ys78Yw6x1Bg/s1600/IMG_3300.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="299" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzaQxMGK6SP1aVdrMikvVe4YlnQR6Gqm2nFbooUixu7jGTe9-F-OfL1F5IhKx-m_UV1hSfuQGH5Pk38gKZvTHhj_6hIUPv72xGSy60wI5WQAoiUD_JTHjfF3pvGIu3TdH5Ys78Yw6x1Bg/s400/IMG_3300.JPG" /></a><br />Digital Community team: Fame Brown, Erhardt Graeff, Haiyan Zhang, Shaka Senghor, Christina Xu, Tara Brown</div>
<p>When it was time to conclude our weekend and share our projects I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was very excited to see what innovations the other teams came up with, but on the other hand, I was a bit saddened that our weekend was coming to an end. I had made friends with people who I believe will be a part of my life for years to come. I had laughed and joked with designer Christopher Bevans and shared soul food with Haiyan Zhang and Erhardt Graeff. In addition to innovating we were creating a human experience that will have a lasting impact for years to come.</p>
<p>After we presented in front of the other groups and people from different areas of Detroit, I took time to talk to those in attendance to get a feel for what they thought. From what I gathered from talking with people who showed up on the final day, there is a great deal of hope and optimism about the future of IG Detroit. I could even sense from those who were cynical in the beginning that they were impressed by what we were able to accomplish in a relatively short amount of time. They were excited by our work and showed interest in working with us moving forward. It was a good sign that we are on the right path and I am looking forward to the next phase of IG Detroit.</p>
<hr>
<p align="left"><i>
<a href="http://dropagempublishing.com/" target="_blank">Shaka Senghor</a> is a community activist and writer based in Detroit, Michigan. He is the recipient of the <a href="http://bmecommunity.org">Knight Foundation's BME Leadership Award</a>. Follow him on Twitter: @ShakaSenghor</i></p>
<p align="left">IG Detroit was supported by a grant from <a href="http://www.knightfoundation.org">Knight Foundation</a>.</p>
Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-35499390147975504532012-11-20T12:36:00.000-05:002012-11-21T11:10:14.846-05:00Encouraging Innovation in Sierra Leone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjysacgHASboPwyEhFFgT6NoE_9YX6o89t3VIPjlcAnlZhZszCGBT8AeEFULrY3zgVM5-EaWk2IVs9VwbGNpGCERfh0EWIlp5C28gebbVFnhkCgky3hZ4AfypeRTyb5Qu0aNcAhX6tctn4/s1600/Kelvin_david_working_smile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="267" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjysacgHASboPwyEhFFgT6NoE_9YX6o89t3VIPjlcAnlZhZszCGBT8AeEFULrY3zgVM5-EaWk2IVs9VwbGNpGCERfh0EWIlp5C28gebbVFnhkCgky3hZ4AfypeRTyb5Qu0aNcAhX6tctn4/s400/Kelvin_david_working_smile.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>Kelvin Doe (left) and David Sengeh at the Media Lab. <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/2012/09/28/maker-faire-new-york-kelvin-doe/">Learn more about Kelvin.</a> (Photo: Paula Aguilera)</p>
<p>At the Media Lab, PhD candidate <b>David Sengeh</b> is helping to change the world by developing next-generation smart prostheses. But this self-professed technology geek is also making an impact halfway around the world in his native Sierra Leone, where he’s launched <a href="http://www.gmin.org/innovate-salone" target="_blank">Innovate Salone</a>, a national high-school innovation challenge. Innovate Salone is funded by <a href="http://www.gmin.org" target="_blank">Global Minimum Inc.</a>. “The idea,” says David, “is to encourage the country’s students to use their own ingenuity to solve some of their country’s most challenging problems–to lay the bedrock for national development.” The focus is on issues related to health, energy, education, agriculture, transportation, telecommunications, civic media, and engineering.</p>
<p><a href="http://whatsnext.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/14/diy-africa-empowering-a-new-sierra-leone/?hpt=hp_c3" target="_blank">Read what David says about the project on CNN</a>. [Update: <a href="http://bostinno.com/2012/11/20/kelvin-doe-vide-youngest-student-at-the-mit-media-lab/">here's another article</a>, with a great video of David and Kelvin working at the Media Lab.] Interested in becoming a sponsors or donor? Send email to info@gmin.org.</p>
Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-50635840354884401162012-11-16T11:07:00.000-05:002012-11-17T15:22:55.999-05:00Making Connections @ MozFest 2012<p>Is it even possible to describe the beautiful maelstrom of joy and creativity we experienced at the <a href="http://mozillafestival.org/">Mozilla Festival</a> last weekend? Three days of learning, design, and making across nine floors at Ravensbourne University left me feeling like I had fallen into a ball pit overflowing with magic beans from Jack and the Giant Beanstalk. Creative ideas were growing fast in all directions.</p>
<p>At the same time, the festival offered fascinating insights into how Mozilla facilitates their amazing community energy around transformational change towards an open Internet of makers.</p>
<b>Our Part in the Mozilla Festival</b><br />
<div align="center">
<span class="field-content"></span><br />
<div><iframe width="512" height="385" src="http://www.media.mit.edu/video/embed/moz-fest-2012-1108" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div></div>
<p>At the festival, the Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten group offered a variety of sessions on creative learning:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/ricarose">Ricarose Roque</a> has blogged about the session she led: a discussion about <a href="http://www.ricarose.com/diversity/designing-creative-technology-playgrounds-for-families-at-mozfest">Designing Creative Technology Playgrounds for Families</a> </li>
<li>Mitchel Resnick and the team from Lifelong Kindergarten led a session on Scratch 2.0 (Becca and Amira from DigitalMe's youth team made <a href="https://www.makewav.es/story/438505/title/theteamtryoutthescratchandthimblesession">an awesome video report about Scratch at Mozfest</a>)</li>
<li><a href="http://twitter.com/champika_f">Champika Fernando</a> led a learning lab about connecting <a href="https://thimble.webmaker.org/en-US/">Mozilla Thimble</a> and Scratch to program web pages</li>
<li><a href="http://twitter.com/sayamindu">Sayamindu Dasgupta</a> showed of his work on Maps and Cloud Data for Scratch</li>
<li><a href="http://twitter.com/ericrosenbizzle">Eric Rosenbaum</a> held a workshop on MaKey MaKey. Ravensbourne student <a href="https://twitter.com/selcukcura">Selcuk Cura</a> has uploaded videos of what people created ( <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68AsUuk9MFw">1</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6losZUfc_vM&feature=relmfu">2</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo5sai7rj9Y&feature=relmfu">3</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9eqK18Zrqc&feature=relmfu">4</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMUkCh3CI0M&feature=relmfu">5</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWE67iy7PhQ&feature=relmfu">6</a>).</li></ul>
<p>The Mozilla Festival also brings together a community of bloggers, journalists, and documentary film-makers to share idea and collaborate.<br />
<ul>
<li>I facilitated an amazing conversation of journalists, film-makers, coders, and activists on citizen video. Check out the extensive notes and links on the Civic Media blog: <a href="http://civic.mit.edu/blog/natematias/curating-and-repackaging-citizen-video-for-the-news-at-mozfest">Curating and Repackaging Citizen Video for the News at #MozFest</a>.</li>
<li>The Knight Foundation, who funds the Center for Civic Media, announced the <a href="http://civic.mit.edu/blog/natematias/acknowledging-connecting-and-growing-the-next-generation-friday-mozfest-plenary">2013 Knight-Mozilla Open News Fellows</a> and discussed <a href="http://civic.mit.edu/blog/natematias/supporting-transformational-innovation-in-the-news-mozfest-knight-foundation">new directions for Knight's grantmaking in digital innovation for the news</a>. </li>
</ul></p>
<p>During the festival, I enjoyed liveblogging with the Mozilla team, finding out <a href="http://civic.mit.edu/blog/natematias/learning-to-make-anigifs-and-earning-badges-at-mozfest">what young people made during the festival</a>, and documenting <a href="http://civic.mit.edu/blog/natematias/the-cinema-games-and-politics-of-webmaking-mozfest-sunday-morning">Joi's keynote on Sunday</a>. The high point for me was an amazing team effort with <a href="http://twitter.com/openmatt">Matt</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/modreplica">Rebecca</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/paul_clarke">Paul</a> and others to <a href="http://mozillafestival.org/demoparty/">photograph and document every project</a> during the festival's closing Demo Party. Inspiring!</p>
<p>I want to especially thank <a href="http://twitter.com/allengunn">Gunner</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/thornet">Michelle Thorne</a> for running a truly wonderful event, and for offering ongoing, supportive advice on how to facilitate great sessions.</p>
<p>
<b>Organizations as Networks</b><br />
Mozilla is one of the organizations I point to when I talk about what it means to be a network and a platform rather than just an institution. To illustrate what I mean, consider the story of PopcornMaker, a video editor for the open web.</p>
<p>During the Sunday morning plenary, <a href="http://twitter.com/remixmanifesto">Brett Gaylor</a> told the story of Popcorn.js, which started as a college student project. It has now been used in high-profile productions such as NFB’s <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2011/11/05/popcorn-1-0-launch-and-world-premier-of-one-millionth-tower/">One Millionth Tower</a>, PBS and NPR’s <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/10/11/adlibs/">2012 election coverage</a>, and <a href="http://popcornjs.org/demos">more</a>. In 2011, the creators of Popcorn.js brought it to the very first Mozilla Festival. A year later, they came to London to premiere One Millionth Tower. Now in 2012, PopcornMaker opens up open video creation to anyone on the web. Here's their story:</p>
<div align="center">
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="358" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" src="http://popcorn.webmadecontent.org/12t_" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" width="560"></iframe></div>
<p>This year, I'm taking away three big lessons from Mozilla and PopcornMaker:
<ul>
<li>Networked organizations facilitate moments for innovation to arrive from the edges to meet the inspiration and connections to succeed. At #MozFest 2011, the popcorn.js developers found film-making partners to develop projects like One Millionth Tower.</li>
<li>Networked organizations offer innovators the structure they need to build and ship good products. In addition to connections, Mozilla supported Popcorn through bug tracking, a release schedule, and publicity to turn a great idea into a solid technology.</li>
<li>Platforms turn great hacks into visionary, transformational paradigms. Popcorn.js was a library for software developers. By creating PopcornMaker, Mozilla is extending its vision for an open, writeable web to video online for anyone.</li>
</ul>
As a <a href="http://civic.mit.edu/blog/natematias/tinker-maker-enquirer-expert-doing-research-in-public-online">grad student</a> at the Media Lab, where <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/11/features/open-university">Joi is re-imagining the Lab as a network</a>, I'm excited to share inspiration and collaboration with such an amazing community. In all the creative unpredictability of the #MozFest's bag of magic beans, I think we're going to see some very tall trees grow.</p>
<p><b>Further Links</b>:
<ul>
<li>#<a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=mozfest">MozFest photos</a> on Flickr (Mozilla's favorites: <a href="http://mozillafestival.org/blog/favorite-photos/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mozilladrumbeat/favorites/">here</a>)</li>
<li>Rob Hammond's thorough <a href="http://rob-hammond.co.uk/mozfest-2012">Mozilla Festival Roundup post</a> (and <a href="https://bkmrx.com/user/rob/mozfest">bookmarks</a>)</li>
<li>"<a href="http://tiptoes.ca/?p=715">My Mozfest</a>" by Emma Irwin</li>
<li>Open Knowledge Foundation's <a href="http://blog.okfn.org/2012/11/14/data-expeditions-at-mozfest/">Data Journalism Expeditions</a></li>
<li>A reflection on <a href="http://therestartproject.org/2012/11/12/mozfest-pt-1-the-politics-of-making-the-future/">sustainability and open technology</a> by Janet Gunter</li>
<li><i>(add yours in the comments!)</i></li>
</ul>
</p>
<hr>
<p align="left"><i>
<a href="http://www.twitter.com/natematias" target="_blank">J. Nathan Matias</a> is a graduate student researching media consumption, creative learning, and community co-design at the Center for Civic Media.</i></p>J. Nathan Matiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00419958116259439762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-88486234400570927042012-11-02T10:04:00.000-04:002012-11-02T10:04:50.535-04:00Hurricane Hackers @ Media Lab<p align="left"><i>This post by Media Lab Director <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/people/joi" target="_blank">Joi Ito</a> originally ran on <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121101085048-1391-hurricane-hackers" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a>'s Thought Leaders blog.</i></p>
<p align="left">What do you get when you have a massive storm approaching, a bunch of <a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT Media Lab</a> hackers with the next day off stuck in their rooms waiting for the power to go out? You get #<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1SGcfQz13ce4FfB-QHKF3WLwxHoCRGBouuvZn-3aoX0k" target="_blank">hurricanehackers</a> of course.</p>
<p align="left">We learned a lot about this during the <a href="http://blog.safecast.org/" target="_blank">Safecast</a> launch after the 3/11 earthquake in Japan, and are seeing it now with #hurricanehackers.</p>
<p align="left">One of the most important principles of what we do at the Media Lab is "practice over theory" or "just build it". It's a very effective principle in rapid response to natural disasters and other things where the ability to "pull" from the network and collaborate quickly and effectively are essential. One of the key elements is to make sure that you use all of the effective tools for collaboration and communication so that you don't duplicate efforts and you quickly aggregate and pull people together. Most of the obvious ideas get started by everyone and trying to find unique ideas while pulling together parallel projects is key.</p>
<p align="left">One thing we quickly learned is that tools like Google docs and etherpad with their limit on the total number of participants were inadequate for the scale of collaboration we need. We ended up on Internet Relay Chat (IRC), the pre-Web text chat protocol that survives today as one of the primary modes of communication among hackers.</p>
<p align="left">We'll be hosting one of the number of <a href="http://crisiscommons.org/2012/10/30/sandycrisiscamp/" target="_blank">CrisisCamps</a> this weekend at the Media Lab. Please tune in or participate if you have time.</p>
<p align="left">#hurricanehackers in <a href="http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2012/10/hurricane-hackers-at-mit/" target="_blank">Wired</a>, <a href="http://boingboing.net/2012/10/29/another-rainy-day-fun.html" target="_blank">Boing Boing</a>, <a href="http://bostinno.com/2012/10/31/the-mit-media-lab-opens-their-doors-to-hackers-hoping-to-help-victims-of-hurricane-sandy/" target="_blank">BostonInno</a></p>
Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-86856356340958097402012-10-08T12:52:00.000-04:002012-10-08T12:52:04.087-04:00IG: Detroit Update<p>After a few days here in Detroit, the groups have made amazing progress on their challenges. The challenges were:</p>
<p align="left"><h3>CHALLENGES</h3>
<ul type="square">
<li>DIY Lighting: Solutions that help citizens create outdoor lighting</li>
<li>Digital Community: Online infrastructure for connecting—offline and in-person</li>
<li>Air Monitoring: Citizen-powered systems for monitoring and reporting air quality</li>
<li>DIY Soil Safety: Creating ways for ordinary citizens to better understand their soil</li>
<li>Compost Rotation: Developing solutions for scalable urban agriculture</li>
</ul></p>
<p>We'll roll out more details about each team's work over the next few weeks, but here's a preview.</p>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/8067003525/" title="Air Monitoring by Joi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8455/8067003525_f99b173e22_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Air Monitoring"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/8066910786/" title="Talking about air monitoring by Joi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8174/8066910786_2fa70a37e9_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Talking about air monitoring"></a>
<p>
Within a few hours of beginning our challenges, the <b>air testing team</b> (above) strapped a particulate sensor to a laptop and took it out to grab samples and talk to local residents about air monitoring. Their conversations revealed that there's a wide spectrum of perceptions about air and air quality. Their ultimate goal is to provide citizens with ways to regain agency over their air. Inspired by Detroit's vibrant graffiti culture, they have identified opportunities for both data collection and creative expression that make the invisible visible, via tools both to collect data and "tag" pollution.
</p>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitmedialab/8067439623/" title="1980-01-01 00.00.09-2 by MIT Media Lab, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8181/8067439623_c2f5c503c8_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="1980-01-01 00.00.09-2"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitmedialab/8067203564/" title="photo(15) by MIT Media Lab, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8322/8067203564_761bde8c3e_m.jpg" height="180" alt="photo(15)"></a>
<p>
The <b>lighting team</b>, (De)Constructing Light, (above) discovered through talking to residents that light and community are closely related. Without communication, a neighborhood is just a neighborhood; light is a pure form of communication that helps us form community and make connections. Offering people ways to reshape and personalize the things they care about and use every day makes them care about those things more. Educating residents about what's possible was an important first step, and more important than actually building a perfect light.</p>
<p>
In a workshop on Sunday at the Mt. Elliott Makerspace, the team showed a group of kids that finished objects are not always finished—we can take things apart and reuse them in different, and sometimes more useful, ways. They led the workshop through a project that involved taking apart and re-imagining a flashlight, teaching participants that disassembling an object can be a metaphor for empowerment.
</p>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/8064281285/" title="Compost team by Joi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8176/8064281285_04531357e8_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Compost team"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/8060323629/" title="Team Compost by Joi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8321/8060323629_17c54c16f5_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Team Compost"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/8064280286/" title="Joe and Nadya by Joi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8171/8064280286_0b154a7a21_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Joe and Nadya"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/8066909489/" title="David Mellis by Joi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8038/8066909489_d9a15a4b45_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="David Mellis"></a>
<p>
The <b>compost team, Black Gold,</b> (above) is educating and enabling people about home worm composting. They're also making available a community-wide composting system. The team decided use worms for a few reasons: they create usable compost as much as six times faster than aerobic composting, and they generate higher-quality compost; in addition, using worms for composting eliminates the need to flip compost, one of the more labor-intensive and difficult aspects of aerobic composting. Finally, the worms self-perpetuate, so they can be shared with friends and neighbors indefinitely.</p>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/8060445992/" title="Community team by Joi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8456/8060445992_1823e40ff3_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Community team"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/8067002486/" title="Detroit Digital Board by Joi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8320/8067002486_f1ee90ecb1_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Detroit Digital Board"></a>
<p>
The <b>community team</b> (above) is creating a network of billboards and interactive in-store displays in community hubs around Detroit, the Detroit Digital Board or D-board. The D-board will allow for richer information sharing within and across communities, by showcasing local events, community resources, and positive messages in public spaces. This project will allow Detroiters to inform themselves, changing the urban environment by conveying positive, community-focused information.</p>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/8060539773/" title="Soil samples by Joi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8311/8060539773_4aef3b0414_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Soil samples"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/8067014285/" title="CitySoil:Detroit by Joi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8316/8067014285_05260e1ab2_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="CitySoil:Detroit"></a>
<p>
The <b>soil team</b> (above) has created CitySoil: Detroit, a three-part plan to engage, educate, and share information about how to test soil and improve soil performance. They're working on ways to educate residents about what questions to ask about their soil; how to test the soil and what to look for in the results; and how to share this information with neighbors and other residents through tools like interactive maps and data visualizations.
</p>
Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-44014910788991314002012-09-24T15:49:00.000-04:002012-09-24T15:49:13.804-04:00Detroit Pre-Trip Report
<p align="left">This summer we started talking about forming a group for innovators, and decided to begin the initiative with a hands-on project in Detroit. We knew that things would grow and change, and that we'd need to be agile and flexible (two qualities important to fostering innovation). Members of the Media Lab team have <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitmedialab/sets/72157631614294810/">made a few trips to Detroit</a>, and a group of Detroiters came here to the Lab to see what we're about on our home turf.</p>
<p align="left">This event has changed from what we'd originally envisioned, and we're glad of that—we think that now it more accurately reflects the kind of work already being done in Detroit, as well as plays to the strengths of the Lab and our member company and event co-producer <a href="http://www.ideo.org">IDEO</a>.</p>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mitmedialab/8020686148/" title="Detroit by MIT Media Lab, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8457/8020686148_fc9885efac_m.jpg" width="181" height="240" alt="Detroit"></a>
<p align="left">This work builds upon <a href="http://www.http://knightfoundation.org">Knight Foundation</a>'s already existing commitment to foster information sharing and engagement in Detroit communities. Together, the Media Lab, IDEO, and Knight are excited to work on a series of design challenges with a mix of the Lab’s own special alchemical blend of uniqueness, impact, and magic.</p>
<p align="left">So what's next? We're heading back to Detroit October 5-8 for our first meeting, and to get things started we brainstormed with and listened to our new Detroit friends to come up with a few starting-off points that fit with the needs and concerns in their communities. We framed some challenges that will, we hope, empower all of us and create community. </p>
<p align="left"><h3>CHALLENGES</h3>
<ul type="square">
<li>DIY Lighting: Solutions that help citizens create outdoor lighting</li>
<li>Digital Community: Online infrastructure for connecting—offline and in-person</li>
<li>Air Monitoring: Citizen-powered systems for monitoring and reporting air quality</li>
<li>DIY Soil Safety: Creating ways for ordinary citizens to better understand their soil</li>
<li>Compost Rotation: Developing solutions for scalable urban agriculture</li>
</ul></p>
<p align="left">We'll have one team per challenge, with each team made up of Detroiters + Media Labbers + IDEO designers + expert friends + industry innovators. We envision the challenges as jumping-off points for the teams. Some might end up with a totally different result than the challenge, but the important thing is to look, listen, and learn from our surroundings and collaborators.</p>
<p align="left">We'll all be blogging, tweeting, and posting while we're in Detroit and after we get home, so that others can see what we're working on, meet our Detroit collaborators, and join the conversation. Our hashtag will be #IGDetroit.</p>
<p align="left">We’ll check back in again with a blog post before we head to Detroit, to share more details about some of the team members.</p>Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-72483031840278890872012-08-30T14:57:00.000-04:002012-09-10T11:32:48.556-04:00The Media Lab through Your Lens: Enter Our Photo Contest and Meet Joi Ito!<p>The Media Lab’s reach spans the entire globe thanks to our professors, students, alumni, and spin-off companies. We’re always excited to see our researchers developing technologies that promise to fundamentally transform our most basic notions of human capabilities. To celebrate the many projects that come out of the Media Lab, we present <b>The Media Lab through Your Lens</b> photo contest.</p>
<p>We’re looking for examples of the Media Lab in the world–through your pictures. All you have to do is snap a photo of anything that relates back to the Media Lab–for example, a Media Lab professor giving a presentation at an event, a mobile app developed at the Media Lab, or a technology or product developed by Lab researchers. We’ll leave it to you to be as literal or creative as you wish. The picture just has to tie back to the Media Lab. Here are the rules:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Who can enter?</b> Anyone who is not connected to the Media Lab (past or present).</li>
<li><b>What’s the timing?</b> The contest begins today, and will end on September <strike>10</strike> 17, 2012. [<i>We're giving you an extra week! We've received some terrific entries so far and can't wait to see what else we get!</i>]</li>
<li><b>How do I enter?</b> Send your photo(s) to contest [at] media.mit.edu and you’ll be entered, pending your photo’s adherence to the rules. We encourage you to send as many pictures as you like, but your name will only be entered once. Make sure to include your full name and email address, and how you would like the photo to be credited.</li>
<li><b>What does the winner receive?</b> If you submission meets the contest rules, you will automatically be entered into a drawing for a chance to win a tour of the Media Lab and lunch or dinner with Media Lab Director Joi Ito. <i>(Note: you will need to provide your own transportation to Cambridge, MA.)</i></li></ul></p>
<p>So what are you waiting for? Grab your camera, smartphone, or tablet and start sending us photos! You can check out our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mitmedialab">Facebook</a> and <a href="http://pinterest.com/mitmedialab/">Pinterest</a> pages periodically throughout the contest to see a collection of the photos submitted.</p>
<p>We can’t wait to see the Media Lab through your eyes!</p>
<hr>
<p><i>*All photos submitted for the contest become property of the Media Lab and as such can be distributed via Media Lab web pages and social channels. The MIT Media Lab has the right to disqualify any entrants submitting pictures that do not meet the guidelines or are stolen property.</i></p>Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-25804911070040549372012-08-15T14:59:00.002-04:002012-08-15T14:59:29.213-04:00Technology and the Track<p align="left"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyKiZomfbV5F-qAlk3bmFUlxq9wfVe4lxeHY4TJnwuMzKVi-KjgX3kX7KC54YfjnAIaJ_Eo73H047n3pjcmxqEWYmuwd9RFLvc5R7yCn1l11Iy3jWHXQdsFog1_XZK5leLT2tHyYPfiqs/s1600/HH-h20-wall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyKiZomfbV5F-qAlk3bmFUlxq9wfVe4lxeHY4TJnwuMzKVi-KjgX3kX7KC54YfjnAIaJ_Eo73H047n3pjcmxqEWYmuwd9RFLvc5R7yCn1l11Iy3jWHXQdsFog1_XZK5leLT2tHyYPfiqs/s320/HH-h20-wall.jpg" /></a></div> </p>
<p align="left">South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius just <a href="http://storify.com/medialab/making-the-impossible-possible">made history as the first double amputee to participate in the Olympic games</a>, and the first amputee to take part in track events. Born without fibulae, Pistorius had his legs amputated below the knee before he was a year old. </p>
<p align="left"><a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/people/herr">Hugh Herr</a> is an associate professor at the MIT Media Lab. An avid mountain climber, as a teenager he was caught in a blizzard while climbing in New Hampshire. After spending three nights outside in below-zero temperatures, he suffered severe frostbite and had to have both legs amputated below the knees. Not only did he walk again, he began climbing again using self-designed prostheses. [At left, Herr on the climbing wall at the Lab's h20 event. Photo: Webb Chappell]</p>
<p align="left">Herr was an expert witness in the court case that resulted in the reversal of the ban preventing Oscar Pistorius from competing in the Olympics. We asked him a few questions about the science behind how Oscar runs.</p>
<p align="left"><b><i>What kinds of challenges does <a href="http://www.oscarpistorius.com">Oscar Pistorius</a> have to overcome when racing with prosthetic legs?</i></b></p>
<p align="left">Hugh Herr (HH): Oscar faces three dominant problems when racing with the Cheetah prosthesis. First, the Cheetah springs are passive, and therefore do not change stiffness during a running step. Consequently, Oscar's vertical ground forces are compromised, negatively impacting his running speed—that is, he can't push off the ground as hard, which reduces how fast he can run.</p>
<p align="left">Second, Oscar's passive prostheses only return the energy that Oscar puts into them, actually less energy due to hysteresis. In contrast, the human ankle-foot complex is muscle powered and thus can propel a runner forward out of the running blocks during the acceleration phase of a race. Although the acceleration phase of the race has never been studied, it's likely that Oscar suffers from a lack of ankle power during this period of the race. </p>
<p align="left">Finally, Oscar's prostheses are attached to his residual limb using a prosthetic socket that can often be uncomfortable and unstable. When Oscar sweats, his biological leg would become attached less securely to the artificial leg, possibly causing a degradation of performance.</p>
<p align="left"><b><i>How are ‘Cheetah blades’ different from other types of prosthetics? How do they work?</i></b></p>
<p align="left">HH: The Cheetah prosthesis is designed specifically for running, and not for other activities such as walking. The Cheetah is shaped like a 'C' and is made from carbon composite, a highly elastic material for storing and releasing spring energy.</p>
<p align="left"><b><i>Do you think we’ll see other athletes like Oscar competing in the Olympic Games moving forward?</i></b></p>
<p align="left">HH: Other persons with leg amputations may qualify for the Olympic games in the future, but it may be a very long time before another athlete is capable of qualifying. Oscar is a gifted and tenacious athlete.</p>
<p align="left"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcw/7713762302/" title="Oscar Pistorius by p_c_w, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8422/7713762302_5f343823e7.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Oscar Pistorius"></a><br />Oscar Pistorius runs in the 2012 Summer Olympics. Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/pcw/" target="_blank">Paul Williams</a> | <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/deed.en" target="_blank">CC BY-ND 2.0</a></p>
<p align="left"><b><i>What other kinds of prosthetics are being developed at the Media Lab?</i></b></p>
<p align="left"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrlyTTek19DO2JAV9lYYE3f6cd97gRkIuWXUrPxL_kjkbKlSkCUhklHvVfBHlwViqMkZUD2CK8MCicGwIYUVKwekpiexiqQxY4zlBm1KLJy7IXTDTGDMBpjvsiuMDNhyrzQkQ07ey30Mw/s1600/hh-prototypes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrlyTTek19DO2JAV9lYYE3f6cd97gRkIuWXUrPxL_kjkbKlSkCUhklHvVfBHlwViqMkZUD2CK8MCicGwIYUVKwekpiexiqQxY4zlBm1KLJy7IXTDTGDMBpjvsiuMDNhyrzQkQ07ey30Mw/s320/hh-prototypes.jpg" /></a></div></p>
<p align="left">HH: The Media Lab's <a href="http://biomech.media.mit.edu" target="_blank">Biomechatronics group</a> designs computer-controlled bionic limbs for walking and running. A recent invention is a powered ankle-foot bionic limb that has been shown to normalize the biomechanics and energetics of walking. [At left, Herr with a variety of prototyped prosthetics. Photo: Webb Chappell]</p>
Stacie Slotnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13990407714412764714noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-88057012316424883272012-08-07T11:57:00.001-04:002012-08-07T17:05:35.718-04:00Learning Through Connecting<p align="left">Much of the discussion about educational technology these days focuses on new ways to deliver instruction, through online videos and online courses. In our <a href="http://llk.media.mit.edu/" target="_blank">Lifelong Kindergarten</a> research group at the Media Lab, we have a very different approach to education and learning, developing technologies not to deliver instruction but to open opportunities for people to create, collaborate, experiment, and express themselves. With our <a href="http://scratch.mit.edu/" target="_blank">Scratch</a> programming software, for example, young people can create their own interactive stories, games, animations, and simulations, then share their creations with one another online. In the process, young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively – essential skills in today’s society.</p>
<p align="left">Last week, we had an opportunity to see how this learning approach is taking root in different parts of the world, as we hosted our third <a href="http://events.scratch.mit.edu/conference/">Scratch@MIT conference</a>. More than 400 educators, researchers, and developers from 31 countries came to the Media Lab for four days to share stories, plans, and visions about Scratch. </p>
<p align="left"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ki6nt0zdrteSFy1fz51bS8Ww_lf9peKELeDZ6uDp3SXkhy1O2w8WQwnjFrbYhyZ4tAZV4ZThrw1HUHPZAXVFq-szyAbp1HWSOhhnq3HEZSbNr7KQBuXrszxUC7GrNTjQvB1uz2T-mtda/s1600/Day3-keynote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ki6nt0zdrteSFy1fz51bS8Ww_lf9peKELeDZ6uDp3SXkhy1O2w8WQwnjFrbYhyZ4tAZV4ZThrw1HUHPZAXVFq-szyAbp1HWSOhhnq3HEZSbNr7KQBuXrszxUC7GrNTjQvB1uz2T-mtda/s400/Day3-keynote.jpg" width="400" /></a></p>
<p align="left">One unifying theme at the conference was the use of Scratch to encourage and support many different types of connections:</p>
<p align="left"><ul><li><i>Connecting with ideas</i>. In one of the <a href="http://events.scratch.mit.edu/conference/keynotes.html">keynote sessions</a>, five educators and five <a href="http://www.mommysbusy.com/my-9-year-old-son-was-a-keynote-speaker-at-mit/">third-grade students</a> from a school district in New York demonstrated how they are using Scratch as part of a “computational thinking” curriculum unit, highlighting how programming activities can provide opportunities for students to engage with important math, science, and engineering ideas. Students weren’t just learning Scratch; they were learning with Scratch.</li></ul></p>
<p align="left"><ul><li><i>Connecting with interests</i>. In session after session, it was clear that the best Scratch learning experiences happen when people have an opportunity to build on their own interests. There were examples of young people using Scratch to create simulations of environmental issues affecting their communities, games featuring characters from their favorite books, and animated stories with original soundtracks. </li></ul></p>
<p align="left"><ul><li><i>Connecting with the physical world</i>. Increasingly, Scratch projects are stretching off the computer screen, connecting to sensors, motors, and other devices in the physical world. A researcher from Ireland demonstrated a way to use Microsoft Kinect to control Scratch projects with body gestures, while researchers from Japan introduced a low-cost sensor board for controlling Scratch projects.</li></ul></p>
<p align="left"><ul><li><i>Connecting with people</i>. Many sessions at the conference highlighted the social nature of learning. Some presentations described how young people in different countries are collaborating on projects through the Scratch online community. Other presentations showed how educators are creating Scratch sub-communities within their countries.</li></ul></p>
<p align="left">Although the Scratch@MIT conference happens only once every two years, our research group is always working to nurture, sustain, and extend all of these connections. The <a href="http://scratched.media.mit.edu/">ScratchEd</a> website enables educators around the world to share stories, exchange resources, and connect with one another. And later this year, our group will launch a new generation of Scratch, called <a href="https://vimeo.com/41683547">Scratch 2.0</a>, that will enable people to create projects directly in the web browser, opening new opportunities for creativity and collaboration with Scratch.</p>
<p align="left"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKVydP129dgVFo-77CiDzr_UvieFQMx60WvfM2qAMbPX9ldHeD3A6MsxzSmUMrXOhWJ4PAiDYicbH-FLhU5lPu0UG0OThXGRsG20j3gQepy3gkaA77eHweHMvfhdE0UidcU2spnYugLSsn/s1600/conference-programs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKVydP129dgVFo-77CiDzr_UvieFQMx60WvfM2qAMbPX9ldHeD3A6MsxzSmUMrXOhWJ4PAiDYicbH-FLhU5lPu0UG0OThXGRsG20j3gQepy3gkaA77eHweHMvfhdE0UidcU2spnYugLSsn/s320/conference-programs.jpg" width="320" /></a></p>
<p align="left">
<hr>
<i><a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/~mres">Mitch Resnick</a> is Professor of Learning Research and Director of the Lifelong Kindergarten research group at the MIT Media Lab. </i><br /><br />
<i><a href="http://web.media.mit.edu/~kbrennan/">Karen Brennan</a>, a PhD student in the Lifelong Kindergarten group, chaired the organizing committee for the Scratch@MIT conference.</i></p>mreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07280223612913165631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-701316757327735288.post-14127458021477668872012-07-26T16:34:00.002-04:002012-07-26T16:34:53.260-04:00Compasses Over Maps<p align="left">At the Media Lab, I’ve been working on principles that define our DNA and our world view. One of these is <b>Compasses Over Maps</b>. The idea is that in a world of massive complexity, speed, and diversity, the cost of mapping and planning details often exceeds the cost of just doing something–and the maps are often wrong.</p>
<p align="left">We experienced this firsthand during our trip to Detroit over the weekend.</p>
<p align="left">In early July, <a href="http://blog.media.mit.edu/2012/07/innovating-innovation.html" target="_blank">we announced a new initiative: The Innovators Guild</a>. Our idea was to bring the best and brightest chief innovation officers on a field trip to work together with our students, faculty, and local innovators in a community and do an impactful hackathon. The plan was to do a one-time thing in a bunch of cities around different themes. Detroit was the first on our list.</p>
<p align="left">The general idea—the compass heading—was right, but the details were wrong in many ways. </p>
<p align="left">We knew we had to go in to listen, be humble, and not try to be top down and prescriptive, but we were surprised nonetheless.</p>
<p align="left">We met incredible people—smart, practical, passionate, driven, focused—doing amazing things. These people were tired of privileged “do gooders” coming in like tourists doing unsustainable superficial stuff and then just taking off or convening meetings and doing a lot of blah blah blah. “Are you here to blow smoke up our ass like everyone else?” There was a lot of baggage and they were skeptical, and rightly so. Detroit is “exciting” in many wrong ways to people who want to “help.”</p>
<p align="left">But before we innovated on anything, we needed to listen and build trust. We realized immediately that to do that we had to think long term and in a sustainable way, while working closely with the people on the ground. This wouldn’t be just a three-day hackathon, but rather a long-term project connecting us to a network of networks in Detroit. </p>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/7639431572/" title="Urban Farm by Joi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8433/7639431572_a840de884f.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Urban Farm"></a><br />
Brother Nature Farm in Detroit | Joi Ito Photo | <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en" target="_blank">CC BY 2.0</a>
<p align="left">We were amazed and humbled by the complexity of Detroit’s various networks, as well as their tensions and cohesion. Once we started making individual connections, we found that beneath the skepticism was a passion and cautious excitement. We discovered that there were definitely connections that could be cultivated into real relationships where we would learn, share, build, and grow together.</p>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/7639430520/" title="Greg by Joi, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8014/7639430520_67e8e7978d.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Greg"></a><br />
Greg of Brother Nature Farm | Joi Ito Photo | <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en" target="_blank">CC BY 2.0</a>
<p align="left">One of these relationships is with Jeff Sturges, our guide on the ground in Detroit. Jeff runs the <a href="http://www.mtelliottmakerspace.com/" target="_blank">Mt. Elliott Makerspace</a> in the basement of Church of the Messiah, and is just the first of many like-minded, creative individuals we anticipate inviting to the Media Lab as part of an ongoing collaboration.</p>
<p align="left">We are super excited about the future of the Innovators Guild and our engagement in Detroit. And while our map was wrong, we listened and pivoted to this new plan, which I think is even more exciting. We returned to Boston completely energized and inspired, and can’t wait to go back to Detroit with more of our team to see what kind of work we can do with our new friends.</p>
<p>
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<em><a href=”http://www.media.mit.edu/people/joi” target=”_blank”>Joi Ito</a> is director of the Media Lab.</em></p>Joi Itohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06533718416046818900noreply@blogger.com0