MIT

New startup from Postgres creator puts the database at heart of software stack

MIT professor Mike Stonebraker has been at the forefront of database technology for more than 50 years. The former Turing Award winner invented the Ingres and Postgres databases and helped launch a nu

Researchers showcase a speedy new approach to printing metal

Metal 3D printing is already a multi-billion-dollar global industry. The additive manufacturing approach is poised to disrupt many facets of construction and will only continue to grow for the foresee

New MIT CSAIL study suggests that AI won’t steal as many jobs as expected

Will AI automate human jobs, and — if so — which jobs and when? That’s the trio of questions a new research study from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Labora

MIT scientists are working on a vibrating obesity pill

MIT likens a new vibrating capsule to drinking a glass full of water prior to eating. Dieticians recommend the latter as a method for sending signals to your brain to simulate the sensation of being f

Amazon and MIT are partnering to study how robots impact jobs

Mention automation and someone will invariably (and understandably) mention its impact on jobs. There are a lot of opposing views on the subject, of course, but the one thing everyone seems to agree o

How roboticists are thinking about generative AI

Reporting on tech requires a healthy dose of skepticism, hopefully tempered by some excitement about what can be done.

What is a liquid neural network, really?

The initial research papers date back to 2018, but for most, the notion of liquid networks (or liquid neural networks) is a new one. It was “Liquid Time-constant Networks,” published at the tail e

MIT develops a motion and task planning system for home robots

Why aren’t there more robots in homes? This a surprising complex question — and our homes are surprisingly complex places. A big part of the reason autonomous systems are thriving on warehouse

A claw machine does not a robotic gripper make

A refrain I hear from a lot of startups is that there’s “no need to rethink the gripper.” It’s something I appreciate from an economic standpoint. It’s expensive, resource intensive and both

Flipping is much easier than walking

I wrote about half of last week’s Actuator on Wednesday in an empty office at MassRobotics after meeting with an early-stage startup. I’m not ready to tell you about them just yet, but they’re d

This robot dog can play soccer on grass, mud and sand

Here’s a fun challenge: teaching a quadrupedal robot to successfully dribble a soccer ball. It is, in essence, a core component of RoboCup, the big international competition founded all the way back

‘Pan-variant’ COVID vaccine could defang future strains thanks to machine learning

A new approach to vaccines with a machine learning twist could put an end to boosters and seasonal variant shots, according to MIT researchers. This “pan-variant” vaccine would ignore the

Boston’s university-to-startup pipeline defies downturn to grow and diversify

The startup economy has grown and shifted since the turn of the century, and universities — stocked with a never-ending supply of smart, ambitious young people — have increasingly taken part. Bost

Autonomation

“Jidoka” is a new one to me. TRI (Toyota Research Institute) CEO Gill Pratt described the concept as “Automation with a Human Touch.” The anglicized version of the notion is “Aut

Swallowing this pill-shaped sensor could help you avoid invasive procedures

Ingestible robotics has been a fascinating and growing field for the last several years. We’ve already seen a handful of startups working to commercialize a technology that could allow for internal

Hype machines

The age-old question in my industry is, “Where are we in a given hype cycle?” For now, crypto news cycle dominance has, thankfully, died now, largely through its own self-destructive tende

Modular eel robots combine soft and rigid components

Here’s an interesting comment from MIT’s Alfonso Parra Rubio, “Treating soft versus hard robotics is a false dichotomy.” For, I suppose, obvious reasons, thinking around technology tends to be

Now AI can outmaneuver you at both Stratego and Diplomacy

While artificial intelligence long ago surpassed human capability in chess, and more recently Go — and let us not forget Doom — other more complex board games still present a challenge to computer

Automating the income gap

This is going to be another one of those “let’s ask ourselves some difficult questions” newsletter introductions, so if you’re in the U.S., I certainly won’t blame you for not giving

Researchers are building robots that can build themselves

Researchers at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms are working on an ambitious project, designing robots that effectively self-assemble. The team admits that the goal of an autonomous self-building robo
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