Commercial Version of the MIT Media Lab CityCar Unveiled in Brussels
A full-scale version of the stackable, electric CityCar, created by researchers at the MIT Media Lab and commercialized by a consortium of automotive suppliers in the Basque region of Spain, was unveiled at the European Union Commission headquarters on January 24, 2012. Branded "Hiriko," the vehicle incorporates all of the essential concepts of the MIT Media Lab CityCar: a folding chassis to occupy a small footprint when parked, drive-by-wire control, front entry and egress, the ability to spin on its axis, and “Robot Wheels” with integrated electric drive motor, steering motor, suspension, and braking. Since 2009, the Media Lab has collaborated with Denokinn, an industrial sponsor from Vitoria, Spain, and their partner companies to refine the design and technology of the CityCar to allow for its commercialization by industry.
 Mobility-on-Demand systems consisting of lightweight electric vehicles designed by the MIT Media Lab's Smart Cities research group. |
 The CityCar compared to traditional automobiles. |
Trillion-Frame-per-Second Video
MIT researchers have created a new imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of one trillion exposures per second. That’s fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of a burst of light traveling the length of a one-liter bottle, bouncing off the cap and reflecting back to the bottle’s bottom.
Media Lab postdoc Andreas Velten, one of the system’s developers, calls it the “ultimate” in slow motion: “There’s nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera,” he says.
Read the full article at the MIT News site.
Other recent coverage includes:
- MIT Researchers Capture the Speed of Light on Camera (TIME, 12/13/2011)
- MIT's trillion frames per second light-tracking camera (BBC, 12/13/2011)
Minecraft.Print(): Making the Virtual Real
Minecraft is a video game focused on creativity and building. Players build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D world–everything from a hut, to a train station, to a fully functional computer. Why can't we take those virtual creations, and bring them into the real world? Minecraft.Print() is our attempt to do so by creating a bridge between Minecraft and the real world, via 3D printers. A Minecraft player defines a 3D space to be printed, after which the software extracts the object, structure, or other creation from the virtual space and creates 3D-printable version. Minecraft.Print() takes advantage of the basic CAD functions of the game, thus allowing 10,000,000 (and counting) players to experience 3D modeling and printing–an area previously limited to those with more specific technical backgrounds.
