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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Friday officially opened the doors to its MIT Media Lab Complex, the school's most famous interdisciplinary program.

The new building, designed by architect Fumihiko Maki and his Maki and Associates firm, broke ground in 2007. But the Media Lab's quest for expansion has actually been 12 years in the making, according to Adele Naude Santos, dean of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning.

Fumihiko Maki, a winner of the Pritzker Prize for architecture, was present at the opening event but did not speak publicly. Instead, he left Dean Santos, … Read more

This year's Lemelson-MIT Student Prize has gone to a man who has his intellectual fingers in the pots of biotechnology, genetics, sensor technology, applied mathematics, and even evolutionary linguistics.

Erez Lieberman-Aiden, graduate student at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, has been awarded the 2010 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize. His body of work to date includes inventing a 3D mapping tool and using it to discover new info about the inner workings of the human genome, developing a sensor-laden sneaker to assist the elderly, and co-developing a mathematical method for tracking widespread and complex evolutionary changes in things … Read more

British materials firm Peratech is developing artificial electronic skin for robots at MIT's Media Lab that will allow machines to know where they have been touched and with what degree of pressure. So you could tickle, back-slap, or caress your favorite robot, and it would know the difference.

Peratech is using its "quantum tunnelling composite" (QTC) material to create touch-sensitive skin for intelligent machines at MIT. QTC is a low-cost, flexible, and electrically conductive material that would give robots a new means of interacting with people.

Made of spiky metallic nanoparticles and silicone rubber, QTC works by … Read more

After spending most of January in East Africa testing his invention, MIT mechanical engineering doctoral candidate Amos Winter has unveiled the Leveraged Freedom Chair, which is something of a desk chair/mountain bike hybrid--"something you can comfortably sit in all day and maneuver around the office, but also use to efficiently commute to and from work."

If you're wondering if you can maneuver in the chair while charging your iPad, this one's not for you. Winter and a team of MIT undergrads and international design collaborators designed the LFC "for people who grew up … Read more

MIT has demonstrated a laser that's built from germanium and that works at room temperature, a move the university said could be useful for high-speed optical data pathways within computers.

Lasers today are widely used to transmit large amounts of data over long distances, but the technology isn't economical for short-haul trips. However, many researchers are investigating ways to integrate lasers directly with conventional computer chips in an effort to reduce those costs and make high-speed communications more widespread.

Today's lasers typically are made from gallium arsenide and other expensive materials that have to be attached to computing chips after each component has been separately manufactured. In a paper to be published in Optics Letters, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers said Thursday they made the germanium lasers work using a technology called indirect-band-gap semiconductors that other researchers thought wouldn't work. And the germanium technology is more easily integrated during manufacturing with today's chips. … Read more

BOULDER CREEK, Calif.--I have seen the world's first microcomputer, and it is not the Altair.

For years, any serious discussions about the earliest microcomputers had to include the Altair 8800, the creation of Albuquerque, N.M.'s Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS). That computer, as has been well chronicled, inspired legions of hobbyists, including Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who, upon seeing the Altair on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, began a mad rush to create Microsoft BASIC, their first smash hit and the beginning of their empire.

But it turns out … Read more

Ford this week announced it is partnering with MIT's AgeLab on a project to identify specific stress-inducing driving situations, monitor a driver's reaction to the situations using biometrics, and evaluate methods to incorporate new stress-reducing features into the next generation of Ford products. The six-month effort will begin in January and will focus on human interaction with a specially equipped 2010 Lincoln MKS.

Ford's goal for the program is to take this a step further by creating the most comfortable driving environment possible so that the driver is always relaxed and calm.

By using the Lincoln MKS, … Read more

The clever folks at MIT have developed a smart wheel that could give bicycle riders a 21st century boost.

Unveiled Tuesday at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, MIT's new Copenhagen wheel is trying to do its part to help the environment by making bike riding easier and more enjoyable.

The wheel's battery can store energy as you step on the brakes and then return that power back to help you climb a hill or boost your speed. A sensor inside the hub measures your effort when you ride. As you pedal forward, the sensor tells the wheel's electric motor to give you a boost. When you hit the brakes, the motor regenerates, slowing you down and recharging the batteries. The goal behind this design is to encourage people to bike farther distances, relying less on gas-guzzling transportation.

"Over the past few years we have seen a kind of biking renaissance, which started in Copenhagen and has spread from Paris to Barcelona to Montreal," said Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT Senseable City Laboratory and the Copenhagen Wheel project, in a statement. "It's sort of like 'Biking 2.0'--whereby cheap electronics allow us to augment bikes and convert them into a more flexible, on-demand system."

Beyond giving you an energy boost, the wheel has other secrets in its bright red hub. Using sensors and a Bluetooth connection, the wheel can talk to an iPhone mounted on the handlebars. Through an iPhone app, you can check your speed, direction, and distance traveled. The wheel can also monitor traffic conditions and smog and even keep track of your bicycling buddies.

The Copenhagen wheel embeds all the required electronics inside the hub, so no other gadgets need to be added to the bike frame. A special spoking method devised by the team also lets you install the hub on any rim.

Any existing bike can be retrofitted with the wheel. In fact, the MIT team sees it as a plug-and play-device, one that any bike owner should be able to easily install as a back wheel.… Read more

MIT's Riley Crane only found out about DARPA's red balloon challenge a few days before it started. Yet his team went on to win the contest through its savvy use of the Internet.

The challenge posed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency asked people to find the coordinates of 10 red weather balloons floating above the U.S. in one day. Since no one individual could plot the location of all 10, participants had to figure out how to work with others to solve the puzzle.

Team MIT's strategy was to build a Web site designed … Read more