CSAIL Spotlights
For as long as there have been computers, there has been coding. And with coding comes repetition—lots of it. That's always been the basic fact of a programmer's existence, even as computers have become ever more friendly from a user's perspective. That's where Sikuli comes in. The latest from CSAIL's User Interface Design Group, it's a programming tool that has the ability to see like a human being. Not only does it put the graphical user interface (or GUI) in the hands of programmers, but it may one day put programming in the hands of everyday computer users.
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In the public eye, computer scientists are often portrayed as dry, secluded – and almost always male. But behind the outdated stereotype, the lab is full of real world applications, exciting collaborations, and researchers of both genders who are working hard to advance the state of the field. For this profile piece, we take a closer look at the work and paths of some prominent female researchers.
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The human body and the systems that maintain it are, at their most basic, bundles of crackling electricity. Impulses, currents and waves can be found in every part of our world, and they offer much in the way of information if they can be properly read and interpreted. At the abstract level, Professor John Guttag and his research team are engaged in applied signal processing. But the marriage they have made between computer systems and medical research is vigorous and thriving. While it has already spawned impressive accomplishments, the most exciting opportunities to positively impact the practice of medicine lie in the team’s future.
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Quantum computing is one of the most fascinating – if counterintuitive – final frontiers in the computing world today. Saddled with technical limitations and the potential impossibility of their pursuit, experimentalists and theoreticians alike have found themselves beset from all sides by uncertainty. In professor Scott Aaronson’s view, this is where some of the most fascinating work occurs.
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Professor Anant Agarwal has a tendency to think big. One recent piece of work has just been donated to the MIT Museum after being documented in the 2007 Guinness Book of World Records as the largest microphone array on the planet – and that was just one component of a larger project. But while Agarwal is capable of thinking on a grand scale, he is also preoccupied with the challenge of how to make large things small, scalable, and revolutionary. The two paradigms intersect in the thorny, potentially very fruitful problem of multicore processing.
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The Ray and Maria Stata Center is a soaring, disorienting, quirky and controversial place to be. Concocted of glass, plywood, brick, cement, industrial steel, titanium, and a palette of paint directly out of Dr. Seuss, its winding staircases, tilted walls, and unexpected corners evoke a playful spirit of exploration that has in many ways been infectious. The building is home to the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, its largest occupant and one of the leading laboratories in the field. As one begins to look closer, a surprising picture emerges of how the building has shaped the lab that would give it its character.
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Early in the fall of 2008, students began gathering before a raised platform of fake grass. The artificial turf was adorned with evenly spaced tomato plants, nestled in sensible terra cotta pots. And while the small cluster of plants and grow lamps might have seemed incongruous under other circumstances, this was a garden with a twist: instead of being horticulturalists, the humans were there only to program and supervise. The caretakers of the plants would be entirely robotic.
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CSAIL Professor Madhu Sudan is thinking about communication. His project posits that communication is possible between beings with no common bond of language or shared history. Its direct substantiating case examines a theoretical instance of the third kind, placing extraterrestrials and their instruments in contact with humans and their computers in a quest for understanding. The scientific background of the work that Sudan and Brendan Juba have done is fascinating enough. But when the exceedingly far-reaching implications are taken into consideration, it raises exciting questions about the meaning of communication itself in the digital age and beyond.
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The field of robotics began relatively modestly. Its founders attempted to create simple machines capable of performing tasks or interacting with the world. But in doing so, the first roboticists opened the door to an amazing area of study, rich with possibilities for extraordinary contributions to the greater good.
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“We are in the midst of a robotics revolution,” explains Daniela Rus, a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Department at MIT and co-director of the Center for Robotics. “Many people view robotics as the next major disruptive technology; our work at the Center focuses on making the notion of pervasive, ubiquitous robotics a reality.”
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