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Next Generation Computing

Part 1: Science of Computing

Part 2: Human-Centered Computing

Part 3: Computing Environments

Questions & Answers

Prof. Rosalind W. Picard, SM '86, PhD '91 Director, Media Laboratory's Affective Computing Research Group

Randal Pinkett '98, PhD '01 CEO, Building Community Technology Partners, Inc.

Brygg Ullmer SM '97 Designer of tangible user interfaces

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Looking to MIT for the next generation of computing advances is a good bet. The Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS), the Artificial Intelligence Lab, the Media Laboratory, and the Research Laboratory of Electronics are global leaders in this field. The LCS Timeline, for example, notes milestones such as the development by its researchers and alumni of the ARPANet, the Internet, the Ethernet, the World Wide Web, time-shared computers, the first commercial spreadsheet, and RSA encryption. Next generation highlights:

• Laboratory for Computer Science is designing the information architectures of the future through research ranging from information infrastructure and distributed systems to human-machine interaction and through the World Wide Web Consortium, which sets standards for the evolution of the Web.
• Project Oxygen, a joint effort of LCS and the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has spawned a brace of new technologies including handhelds, wall and trunk computers, a novel net, built-in speech understanding, knowledge access, collaboration, automation, and customization.
• The Media Lab explores the intersection of computation and the arts. Research topics range from software agents to wearable computers; affective computing to tangible media.
• An online video presents fifty years of contributions to computing by the Research Laboratory of Electronics, ranging from the 1940s to today's work on topics from nanostructures to retinal prosthetics.

Faculty and students from the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department are among the core researchers in these labs. Nearly a quarter of the undergraduates and 800 graduate students are enrolled in EECS, which aims at these pivotal technologies for the 21st century: the manipulation and communication of information, molecular and atomic structures, and biology.

This month, openDOOR samples next generation projects:

• Science of Computing: Spoken Language Systems, Cryptography and Information Security, Image-Based Rendering, Flesh and Machines, Wearable Computing, Computational Prototyping, Microphotonics.
• Human-Centered Computing: Affective Computing, aesthetics + computation, Elroy, Software Agents, Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics, Nomadic Radio.
• Computing Environments: Project Oxygen, Networks and Mobile Systems Cricket, Intelligent Room, Counter Intelligence, An Interactive Dinner at Julia's, Tangible Media, Digital Nation, Auto-ID Center.

Poll: Which next generation computing project from MIT would you most like to use today? Blogdex Affective Jewelry Nomadic Radio Cricket Intelligent Room