In This Edition

People, Information, and Mediating Technologies

Part 1: Representing Information

Part 2: Moving Information

Part 3: Interpreting Information

Interviews

Cameron Marlow SM '01 Working on new communication technologies

Professor Joseph A. Paradiso PhD '81 Director of the Responsive Environments Group and co-director of the Media Lab's Things That Think Consortium

Andrew Pollack SM '77 Technology and biotechnology reporter for the New York Times

Han Shu '96, MEng '97 Contributed to the development of the technology of handwriting recognition, fully automated telephone number retrieval, face recognition, and speech recognition

Professor Sherry Turkle Founder and current director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self

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Andrew Pollack SM '77

Andrew Pollack SM '77
Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

Andrew Pollack received a master's degree in civil and environmental engineering from MIT in 1977. He has been a reporter for The New York Times since 1981, first covering information technology and now biotechnology.

How has the explosion of information on the Internet in the past decade changed your work as a journalist?

It hasn't changed the basic concept of reporting. But it has certainly made it easier to track down information, regulatory filings of companies, scientific papers, scientists, and phone numbers. Pre-Internet, some of these things were not always obtainable in a timely manner, which for a daily journalist can mean a few hours. Web searches are even a convenient way to check spellings of names. The drawback is you can end up reading so much superfluous material it can slow you down.

How has bioinformatics, using computers to manage biological information, changed the practice of medicine?

Bioinformatics has many meanings. It usually refers to managing, processing, and interpreting information about genes and genomics. In that realm it has certainly transformed medical research. A gene hunt that once took a post-doc months can now be done in a day by searching databases. Scientists are beginning to do computer simulations of cells and organs to, say, predict the effect of a drug. This is called in silico biology as opposed to in vivo (in living organisms) and in vitro (in the test tube). But I'm not sure this has had much effect on the way patients are treated today. That is yet to come as medicine guided by genetics takes hold.

How can individuals use this information explosion to gain useful medical information?

There are numerous web sites that provide patients with basic medical information, details of clinical trials and connections to other people with the same disease. Some care must be exercised in using these because they are not all equally reliable. But armed with such knowledge, patients are becoming more active in directing their own care with their doctors, rather than leaving it all to the doctor.

Cameron Marlow SM '01 "Webloggers are a great leading indicator of trends in the news simply by being part of a group that intends to keep each other informed." more...

Professor Joseph A. Paradiso PhD '81 "Graduate students come to my group to work at the frontier where sensor technologies meet the human-computer interface." more...

Andrew Pollack SM '77 "[The Internet] hasn't changed the basic concept of reporting. But it has certainly made it easier to track down information..." more...

Han Shu '96 "As we understand more about speech user interface, interacting with computers, cell phones, and other devices using speech will become commonplace." more...

Professor Sherry Turkle "...recently the pace and depth of technology's effects on identity have increased. The Internet has become a space for new forms of self-exploration and social encounter." more...