MIT Media Lab

The Wiesner Building's Atrium

The MIT Media Lab in the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology engages in education and research in the digital technology used for expression and communication. It was founded in 1985 by MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte and former MIT President Jerome Wiesner (now deceased) and opened its doors in the Wiesner Building (designed by I.M. Pei), or the E15 building at MIT in 1985. The Media Lab receives substantial funding from a consortium of commercial partners, who gain access to the intellectual property generated at the lab.

Research

The Media Lab focuses on interdisciplinary research. The research generally does not involve directly developing core technologies, but rather developing applications of those technologies, or combining those technologies in new and interesting ways. Indeed, several of the projects at the Media Lab are almost purely artistic in nature. Core technology projects exist (see Center for Bits and Atoms), but are a minority at the Lab.

A large number of research groups focus on topics related to human computer interaction. While this includes traditional user interface design, most groups working on this take a broader view. Several groups are working on adding sensors and actuators of different sorts to common objects in the environment, to create "intelligent objects" that are aware of their surroundings, capable of predicting the user's goals and emotional state, and so can assist the user in a more effective way. An example of this type of research can be found in the work of Prof. Ted Selker whose research into context awareness ranges from the electronic voting machines [1] to hybrid search engines.

The Media Lab also does research into integrating more computational intelligence into education. While this again includes education on computers, it mostly focuses on developing "smart" educational toys. A number of groups are pursuing hybrid art-engineering projects, in developing new tools, media, and instruments for music and other forms of art.

Several groups are working on the physics of computation. This includes quantum computing, as well as other modes of computation. One group, for instance, is developing a hydraulic computer, in which computing is done with flowing water rather than electricity.

One of the founding focuses of the Media Lab is technology for the developing world, such as the Fab Labs at the Center for Bits and Atoms and the Hundred Dollar Laptop project.

Several groups work on traditional artificial intelligence projects.

Academics

The Media Laboratory has only a master's and PhD program and no undergraduate program. Admissions to the graduate program is a two stage process. Students are first admitted into the Master's Program, and after two years, can apply for the Ph.D program. A new Media Lab Freshman program was recently developed.

Accomplishments

In January 2005, the Lab's chariman Nicholas Negroponte anounced at the World Economic Forum a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop, a technology that could revolutionize how the world's children are educated.

Publications from Media Laboratory Faculty and former students include Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte, Affective Computing by Roz Picard, FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktopby Neil Gershenfeld, Design by Numbers by John Maeda, Designing Sociable Robots by Cynthia Breazeal, and Adventures in Modeling: Exploring Complex, Dynamic Systems with StarLogo by Vanessa Stevens Colella, Eric Klopfer, Mitchel Resnick.

As of 2005, the Media Lab is responsible for filing for about 100 patents.

The MPEG-4 SA project developed at the Media Lab made Structured Audio a practical reality.

Large numbers of Media Lab-developed technologies made it into sponsor products, in particular for toy companies (e.g. Lego Mindstorms developed), as well as some IBM laptops. Again, this needs to be researched and documented.

In 2001, MIT Media Lab collaborated to create two spinoffs, these were Media Lab Asia and Media Lab Europe. Media Lab Asia, based in India, was a result of cooperation with the Government of India but eventually broke off in 2003 after disagreement. Media Lab Europe, based in Dublin, Ireland, was founded with a similar concept in association with Irish universities and government. Media Lab Europe closed in January, 2005.

Created collaboratively by the Computer Museum and the Media Lab, the Computer Clubhouse, a worldwide network of after-school learning centers, focuses on youth from underserved communities who would not otherwise have access to technological tools and activities.

There are several Media Lab industry spinoffs. This includes:

eInk, which makes slow, high-resolution, paper-quality displays
Sensible Technologies, which makes Heptics.
First Mile Solutions, which brings communications infraestructure to rural communities
nTag Interactive, which makes interactive name tags
Mobule, an application for mobile phones that can instigate interactions between people.
Squid Labs, engineering consulting company
ThingMagic, specializes in RFIDs and embedded computers
Wireless 5th Dimensional Networking, Inc. [2], which developed the first hybrid search engine

http://www.media.mit.edu/publications/ has a section "Annual report to the president" that shows major achievements on a year-to-year basis.

Criticism

Since sponsors have greater intellectual property rights to research done at the Media Lab than at other academic institutions, the lab has taken some flack for being an industry front-end, rather than an academic institution. Students, though they will own any patents on their work, share access to IP with the sponsors. The Media Lab has been criticized for not having an undergraduate degree program, but this criticism is deceptive and somewhat out-of-date. The lab has a growing Freshman Year program, which gets undergraduates involved in the Media Lab community early and encourages them to get involved in research. In addition, it generally is the most active participant in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), a program that supports undergraduates' work on academic research projects.

The Media Lab also receives some criticism about the quality of the research. In terms of academic criticisms, the Media Lab has been accused of acting more like an industry lab than an academic lab. Some think the Media Lab engages in research that is technically simplistic and mathematically non-rigorous. Much of this is based on a misunderstanding of the objectives of the research. People have often criticized the Media Lab for using simplistic or previously developed algorithms or engineering techniques, whereas the research was meant to develop higher level concepts (machine-user interaction, etc.), or apply existing technology in a novel way to a new field. A notable portion of the research of the Media Lab is artistic in nature, rather than engineering or scientific work, and as a result is misunderstood by the scientific and engineering communites. Many members of the Media Lab come from non-technical backgrounds, and view technology as a tool towards accomplishing goals in their fields, rather than as an end to be developed in itself.

The Media Lab has an efficient sponsor relations department. In addition, Negroponte, the founder of the Media Lab, is also one of the founders of Wired Magazine. Much of the flack comes from impressions based on either seeing the articles in isolation, or in some cases, comparing the contents of the articles to the contents of the actual research at the lab.

Funding Model

Funding for the Media Lab works differently from most academic institutions in that the Media Lab receives a great deal of corporate sponsorship. Rather than accepting funding on a per-project or per-group basis, the Media Lab asks sponsors to fund general themes of the lab. Sponsors have some access to all the work done at the lab, and the money goes into a common pot that is then divided internally at the Media Lab. In this way, researchers at the lab can pursue more radical, risky projects that would otherwise not be able to find funding.

In addition, specific projects and researchers are funded more traditionally through government institutions including NSF and DARPA. Also, consortia with other schools or other departments at MIT, such as the Center for Bits and Atoms, are often able to have money that does not enter into the common pool.

External links

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