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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have successfully coated paper with a solar cell, part of a suite of research projects aimed at energy breakthroughs.

Susan Hockfield, MIT's president, and Paolo Scaroni, CEO of Italian oil company Eni, on Tuesday officially dedicated the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Research Center. Eni invested $5 million into the center, which is also receiving a $2 million National Science Foundation grant, said Vladimir Bulovic, the center's director.

The printed solar cells, which Bulovic showed at a press conference Tuesday, are still in the research phase and are years from being … Read more

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Dean Kamen, who best known as the inventor of the Segway scooter, has come to realize that people pose much tougher challenges than machines.

Kamen, who heads design and engineering company Deka Research and Development, said that in his many years of working in technologies, he has found that the time it takes to develop new products is often eclipsed by the time it takes to bring something to market. Among his many credits, Kamen lists many medical devices, including machines for home dialysis, Pap tests, stents, the iBot wheelchair, and its offshoot, the Segway.

But even though … Read more

BP Agrawal, founder of Sustainable Innovations, has won the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability.

The award goes to an individual's overall achievement in improving the lives of others through science or engineering innovation, not for one particular invention.

Agrawal has achievements in several areas. He started out in the corporate world working for big names like Hughes, ITT, GTE, General Dynamics, and Vecna Technologies bringing patented technologies to market. During his corporate stint, he patented a single-bit voice-processing technology that enabled voice over satellite, and a "self-healing" modem. He was also the associate editor of IEEE … Read more

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--As he has at each of the stops on his college tour, Bill Gates took time Wednesday morning to meet with a group of minority students whose university education has been funded by his family's foundation.

After a few photos were taken, the group of several dozen Gates Millennial Scholars here at Massachusetts Institute of Technology had a chance to speak with their benefactor. Most just wanted to say thanks, while a few had questions about how they could make a difference.

One student asked what Gates expected from the scholars.

"The dream is that it … Read more

Surround sound? That's old technology. How about surround vision?

The folks at the MIT Media Lab have developed a new system called surround vision that can let you follow objects outside of your regular TV screen by viewing them on smartphones and handheld Internet devices. Imagine you're watching a movie on your regular TV, and a car drives off the screen. You could follow and view that car as it drives away by looking at and pointing your smartphone or tablet in its direction.

The person leading this promising new project is Santiago Alfaro, a graduate student at the lab. To kick-start his testing, Alfaro attached a magnetometer to an existing handheld device. A type of digital compass, magnetometers are already used in smartphones like the iPhone to detect the direction the device is pointing. He then created the necessary software to sync the magnetometer with other sensors on the device.

After outfitting the handheld with motion sensors, Alfaro shot video on campus from three different angles--center, left, and right. Watching the TV screen straight on played video from the center. But by pointing the handheld to the left or right, Alfaro was able to view the footage shot from both side angles.

As a further test of the technology, Alfaro took advantage of the alternate takes found on many DVDs. He created a demo that let him switch between the final footage and the alternate takes and angles by changing the direction of the handheld device.… Read more

Ed Roberts, whose early Altair 8800 computer helped inspire Bill Gates and Paul Allen to start Microsoft, died Thursday. He was 68.

Though Roberts' name is less well known than some other computing pioneers, the Altair is widely credited as the first personal computer and for helping inspire the modern computer industry. Roberts established Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), which introduced the Altair in 1975. An article on the Altair in the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics caught the eye of a young Allen, who showed the story to Gates.

Gates and Allen quickly reached out to Roberts, … Read more

Scientists (and people prone to bumping into spider webs) have long noticed the stunning strength of the arachnid bug catchers. Now, a group of MIT researchers think they've unraveled the mystery of what makes the structures so sturdy, and they hope to emulate--and even exceed--them in a synthetic form.

The team has concluded, ironically, that the silk's strength results from an unusual arrangement of inherently weak hydrogen bonds--in other words, location, location, location.

This particular layout of tiny silk nanocrystals lets the hydrogen bonds work cooperatively to reinforce adjacent chains against external forces. The bonds break gradually, and … Read more

BOSTON--The MIT Energy Conference here on Saturday covered a little bit of everything--"China speed," climate change, financing gaps, government policy, nuclear and natural gas, and, of course, science experiments--as entrepreneurs, business people, and academics tried to get their arms around big-picture energy challenges.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has become a hotbed for clean-energy innovation over the past four years, attracting students and faculty to the field, some of whom have spun out promising companies.

At a showcase there, local companies and researchers working in wind, solar, biofuels, storage, and efficiency displayed some of their ongoing work. … Read more

BOSTON--If the green-tech industry had its equivalent of the iPhone, it would be the electric car, a product that has cachet with consumers. But it's still unclear what will drive sales of plug-ins: will it be consumers willing to pay more for a greener ride or government mandates for fuel efficiency?

Speakers on a panel about electric vehicles on Saturday at the MIT Energy Conference said that both consumers and government policies will drive electric and plug-in hybrid car adoption. But they also expect electric cars will be premium products desired both because they are cleaner than gasoline-only cars … Read more