CSAIL Spotlights
The Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is a many- faceted driver of innovation. CSAIL Spotlights is intended to give a variety of windows into the lab, allowing it to be viewed with more detail in different ways. These stories highlight collaborative research and group partnerships. They look at ways in which the lab works in tandem with government and industry, and how our resources are brought to bear through outreach programs around the world. Here at CSAIL, we examine the world on many levels to see how our creativity and drive towards progress can effect positive change in the educational community and beyond. These features give the world a chance to look back at us.
You might not have to wait until 2062 to travel to work in an aerocar like George Jetson, thanks to work currently underway at CSAIL. An autonomous personal air taxi capable of ferrying you to Paris by 5pm with a flyover of London may sound futuristic, but it is a current project of CSAIL Principal Investigator Brian Williams and his Model-based Embedded and Robotic Systems (MERS) group.
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What if machines could think like us - comprehending social cues, visual prompts and spoken words just like a human would? For CSAIL Professor Patrick Winston, the Ford Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science and leader of the Genesis Group at CSAIL, uncovering the true nature of human intelligence is the next grand challenge.
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In 1974 Professor Peter Szolovits made a prediction: By the 1980s a majority of large hospitals would have adopted the use of electronic medical records. While the necessary technology did not progress as quickly as expected to allow for this transition, the U.S. government is currently making a major push to ensure that hospitals switch from paper folders stuffed with memos to a secure and efficient electronic system for collecting, storing and retrieving medical records. Now Szolovits, the leader of the Clinical Decision Making Group at CSAIL, is at the forefront of the movement to make health IT more effective and useful for both professionals and patients.
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In 2011, MIT celebrates a century and a half of excellence in education and technological innovation with a series of six MIT150 Symposia in which we will explore past milestones and look toward future advancements.
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Remember the Polaroid camera- that black box capable of spitting out an image within seconds of snapping the shutter? Once the star of social gatherings, a Polaroid camera now sits on a shelf in Bill Freeman’s office at CSAIL, a relic of a time gone by. The world of photography has transformed dramatically since Freeman worked for Polaroid in the field of electronic imaging during the 1980s. Digital cameras have since made photography an art form easily accessible to all, with images ready for viewing the moment they are captured, numerous computer programs available for editing and websites hosting platforms for millions to share their snapshots.
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It isn't everyday that a computer scientist wins one of the most coveted awards in aeronautics. But when Rick Cory started in Associate Professor Russ Tedrake's Robot Locomotion Group as a Ph.D. student, he wasn't out to conduct robotics as usual. "We were trying to think of a project that could push the limits of robot control," Cory explains. "And the idea came up of trying to build a robot that could fly like a bird. For me that was a very inspiring, fantastic idea."
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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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