Media Lab Work in MIT 150 Exhibition
The 25-year history of the Media Lab's cutting-edge research is represented by nine projects in the MIT Museum's exhibition celebrating the Institute's 150th anniversary.
- Tech Night at the Pops, MIT Alumni Association and Boston Pops, 1896 to present
- CityCar Electric Vehicle, Smart Cities Group, MIT Media Lab, 2006–Present
- Visible Language Workshop, Muriel Cooper, 1975
- One Laptop per Child XO Laptop, Nicholas Negroponte, 2002
- Low-Cost Prescription Eyeglass Lens Fabricator, Saul Griffith, 2004
- PowerFoot One Prosthetic Foot, Hugh Herr, 2007
- "Minsky Arm," Marvin Minsky, 1967–1973
- Scratch, Mitchel Resnick, MIT Media Lab Lifelong Kindergarten Group, 2007
- Digital Holography, Stephen Benton, Spatial Imaging Group, MIT Media Lab, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 1985
And a tenth item:
- MIT Press’ Most Influential Publications, 1926–Present
On the list: Marvin Minsky's and Seymour Papert's Perceptrons (1969, 1987) and Nicholas Negroponte's The Architecture Machine (1970)
The Glass Infrastructure
This project builds an open, social information window into the Media Lab using 30 touch-sensitive screens strategically placed throughout the Media Lab complex. The experience of using these screens is optimized for guests and visitors who collaboratively explore and uncover the people, ideas, and connections behind the research of the Lab. The system also makes suggestions about who to meet, where they may be, and what projects and people—represented as "charms"—one ought to collect, trade, and share. An RFID infrastructure allows us to customize the experience for each visitor, allowing the visitor to save pointers to projects and people for future reference. This is a model for an open IT system that can be used anywhere; it is a framework for developing open-area and personally responsive access methods. Media Lab sponsor Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. donated the screens for this project.
Read more:
NETRA
MIT Media Lab researchers have created a quick, simple, and inexpensive way to use mobile phones to measure refractive errors of the eye, including nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, and age-related vision loss. Until now, these measurements have only been possible using specialized equipment operated by a trained professional.
This new system, called NETRA (Near-Eye Tool for Refractive Assessment), is a project of the Media Lab's Camera Culture research group. A small plastic device—which currently can be produced for less than US$2—is easily clipped onto a mobile phone screen. To use it, simply hold the device up to the eye, look into it, and use the phone’s keypad until two patterns overlap. This is repeated several times per eye, with the patterns at different angles. The whole process takes about two minutes, during which time software loaded onto the phone computes and provides the data needed to create a prescription.
The small size and low cost of the device make it especially well-suited for use in the developing world. As many as two billion people worldwide have refractive errors of the eye, and according to the World Health Organization, these errors, left uncorrected, are the world's second-highest cause of blindness.
Want to learn more? View the IDG News Service video, or read all about it in the MIT News, Fast Company, New Scientist, BusinessWeek, India Today, Fox Boston, and The Boston Herald.
