Innovation at the MIT Media Lab

Barry Vercoe

MIT Media Lab

Mon Apr 19 15:10:00 NZST 2004 in Room 031, MSCS

Abstract

The MIT Media Lab was founded in 1985 in the belief that innovation stems from a clash of cultures and a clash of ingrained methodologies. Now a diverse lab of 35 PI’s and 180 graduate students, the Media Lab is supported by 85 industrial partners who have no expectations save that we will do something interesting. This presentation will take a brief look at the diversity that drives the lab, and some recent fallout in things like sensor networks, common sense understanding, radio-controlled nanoparticles, understanding music preference, quantum computing, teaching your chair to know when you’re bored, language acquisition by cognitive machines, musical query by humming, obedience training for synthetic dogs, viral radio communication, life-long kindergarten, audio spotlights, etc, etc.