Modern Geekhood

Hacked! Tetris on the Green Building

by Jay London on April 23, 2012

in Alumni Life,Campus Culture,Events,Hacks,Modern Geekhood

Photo: Erik Nygren '96, '97 MEng

Many newly admitted students got their first glimpse of MIT life during the 2012 Campus Preview Weekend, and current students played their part in introducing them to MIT’s most notable quirk: the hack.

On Friday evening, April 20, one side of the Cecil and Ida Green Building (Building 54) was transformed into a giant video game canvas, with students and alumni battling each other in a multicolor game of Tetris.

According to  IHTFP: The MIT Gallery of Hacks, the Tetris-on-the-Green-Building hack was an idea almost 20 years in the making.

 

From the MIT Gallery of Hacks:

MIT hackers have long considered “Tetris on the Green Building” to be the Holy Grail of hacks, as the side of the building is a wonderful grid for the game.

 

Daniel Kamalic '99 plays Tetris on the Green Building. Photo: Erik Nygren '96, '97 MEng

Players controlled the blocks from a console in front of the building and each game began with the word “TETRIS” scrolling across the building. If a player advanced to the second level, the block colors became paler, making it harder to identify a block’s shape. The third level was even more advanced, with block colors changing mid-game. Upon defeat, the blocks crashed to the bottom of the building.

Interested in seeing more MIT students playing Tetris? Check out our previous post of Burton-Conner residents who transformed the mats from Dance Dance Revolution into the controllers for a six-foot-tall, LED-illuminated game of Tetris.

{ 2 comments }

Is There Room In Your Garage For A Flying Car?

by Jay London on April 11, 2012

in Alumni Life,Design,Energy,Engineering,In the News,Modern Geekhood,Research,Transportation,Travel

Credit: Terrafugia

Are you thinking about purchasing the Transition® Roadable Aircraft, the two-seat flying car developed by a group of MIT alumni? If so, it’s important to remember one thing: retract the wings before pulling into the garage.

From The Associated Press via NPR:

Woburn, Mass.-based Terrafugia Inc. said (April 2) that its prototype flying car has completed its first flight, bringing the company closer to its goal of selling the flying car within the next year. The vehicle–dubbed the Transition–has two seats, four wheels and wings that fold up so that it can be driven like a car. Last month, it flew at 1,400 feet for eight minutes.

If you’re having visions of George Jetson, think again. The Transition lacks some amenities (no cup holders) and won’t help you avoid traffic–it needs a 1,700-foot runway to get off the ground. But it will give pilots the ability to use the same vehicle to fly in the air and drive on the road, potentially reducing the expensive costs and travel limitations that many personal aviation pilots face.


The Transition, which was introduced at the 2012 New York International Auto Show on April 5, currently retails at $279,000, reaches approximately 70 miles per hour on the road and 115 in the air, and runs off a 23-gallon tank of regular automotive fuel.

Terrafugia’s beginnings trace back to MIT. Co-founder and CEO Carl Dietrich ’99, SM ’03, PhD ’07 won the 2006 Lemelson Student Prize for Innovation for developing the Transition’s concept. Additional co-founders include Dietrich’s wife, Anna Mracek Dietrich ’04, SM ’06, the company’s COO and acting CFO; Samuel Schweighart SM ’01, PhD ’04; Alex B. Min ’91, MBA ‘07; and Arun Prakash MBA ’07. Roughly half of Terrafugia’s 20-person workforce is MIT alumni.

What’s your take? Is there a market for a flying car? Let us know on Facebook or in the comments section below.

{ 1 comment }

The Wind, Like You’ve Never Seen it Before

by Amy Marcott on April 9, 2012

in Arts,Design,Media,Modern Geekhood

Wind patterns from March 14, 2012.

Wind patterns from March 14, 2012.

Media Lab alumna Fernanda Viégas SM ’00, PhD ’05 and Martin Wattenberg, who lead Google’s “Big Picture” visualization research group in Cambridge, have created another stunning depiction of data—this time of wind currently flowing over the US. Wind map is quite mesmerizing once you start watching. Data is accurate to the hour.

Viégas and Wattenberg have created quite a name for themselves in the data visualization community. Viégas started her career looking at online communities. She joined with Wattenberg in 2003 to visualize Wikipedia, a project that revealed the self-healing nature of the community-generated encyclopedia. Prior to their gig at Google, the pair led IBM’s Visual Communication Lab, where they created the ground-breaking public visualization platform Many Eyes, then cofounded Flowing Media, Inc., a visualization studio focused on media and consumer-oriented projects.

They have also exhibited visualization-based artwork in New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art as well as the London Institute of Contemporary Arts.

Check out their collection of informative and artistic visualizations, including Web Seer, which plots the frequency of questions on Google (starting with “Why doesn’t he” or “Why doesn’t she…” for example) and Luscious, which distills magazine ads for luxury brands into abstract compositions.

{ 1 comment }

You Never Know What’s Lurking Around The Corner. Well, Until Now…

by Jay London on March 28, 2012

in Authors,Design,Engineering,In the News,Modern Geekhood,Research,Travel,Uncategorized

The Media Lab’s Camera Culture group, led by associate professor Ramesh Raskar and postdoctoral researcher Andreas Velten, has designed a camera that can see around corners. The research was published in a March issue of Nature Communications.

The camera’s system is similar to a periscope but, rather than using angled mirrors to redirect light, it uses a femtosecond laser and opaque surfaces.  To peer into a room outside of a camera’s line of sight, the laser emits quick bursts of light (measure in quadrillionths of a second) against the wall opposite an open doorway. The light reflects off the wall and into the doorway, bounces around the unseen room, and re-emerges.

From geek.com:

“MIT Media Lab utilizes a laser pulse to bounce photons off surfaces to see what the camera can’t. If the photons hit an object, they bounce back and reach the camera. In so doing, the camera can measure how far away the unseen object is.

The unit MIT labs has used has a time resolution of two picseconds, which means it can detect how far light has traveled with an accuracy of 0.6 millimeters.”

Video courtesy of Nature

The system is repeated several times, bouncing light off different spots on the wall and entering the room at various angles before returning to the camera. By comparing the times at which the light returns to the camera, the system can deduce the distance traveled by the laser. The end result is a low-resolution three-dimensional image that shows the geometry of the unseen area. The current prototype takes several minutes to form an image, but the Media Lab team is working to reduce it to less than 10 seconds.

The Camera Culture team also made headlines in December 2011 when they relased a trillion-frame-per-second video of a burst of light traveling the length of a plastic bottle.

{ 0 comments }

Tech Innovation on Display at South By Southwest Festival

by Jay London on March 26, 2012

in Design,Energy,Engineering,In the News,Media,Modern Geekhood,Research

The South By Southwest Festival (SXSW), held annually in March, focuses on innovative cultural breakthroughs in music, film, and interactive technologies. As a haven for burgeoning creators and prospective entrepreneurs, it’s no surprise that MIT’s presence was felt throughout the event.

MIT students, alumni, and faculty were honored and presented research at the festival, including three Institute-related groups who won SXSW Accelerator Awards, $4,000 prizes that recognize cutting-edge products released in the last year.

A list of MIT’s involvement at SXSW is below. Did we miss someone who was honored and/or presented? Let us know, and we’ll add it to our MIT@SXSW list.

Sandy Pentland '82

Media Lab Professor Sandy Pentland ’82, Nadav Aharony SM ’08, PhD ’12, ESD, graduate candidate Cody Sumter, and Alan Gardner ’05 won the Accelerator Award in the News-Related Technology category for Funf, an open sensing framework that allows Android developers to easily collect and use information recorded with a mobile device.

Anmol Madan SM ’05, PhD ’10 and Karan Singh MBA ’11, also of the Media Lab, took the Accelerator prize in the Health Technologies category for Ginger.io, a company which harnesses user data from mobile phones to make inferences about health and wellness.

Ash Martin MBA ’10 is co-founder of Viztu Technologies, which creates three-dimensional models of photos and videos and won the Accelerator Award in the Innovative Web Technologies category.

Principal research scientist Judy Brewer and Little Devices Lab program director Jose Gomez-Marquez were honored with a 2012 Dewey Winburn Community Service Award, which, according to SXSW, honors community activists who use new media technologies to help level the playing field between the haves and the have-nots in society.

As Director of the Web Accessibility Initiative at the World Wide Web Consortium, Brewer coordinates the development of consensus-based solutions to make the web accessible for people with disabilities.

Gomez-Marquez, the 2009 Technology Review Man of the Year, helped develop the Aerovax Drug Delivery System, a device for mass delivery of inhalable drugs and vaccines to remote populations, and the X out TB program (now Adhere.io), which uses novel diagnostics and mobile technology to increase tuberculosis therapy in developing countries.

Gomez-Marquez also received a SXSW Interactive Scholarship for his work on MEDIK, a medical device set designed for doctors treating patients in areas where electricity and other basic services are unavailable.

Peter Gloor, a research scientist at the Center for Collective Intelligence, presented “Coolhunting and Coolfarming with Social Media” during SXSW’s Interactive Session Spotlight and addressed topics on marketing and advertisements, and the factors and metrics that determine viral-ness or cool-ness.

SXSW selected six MIT-related proposals to be presented during the conference:

{ 0 comments }

After More Than 20 Years, 1980s Video Games Officially Hard

by Jay London on March 22, 2012

in Authors,In the News,Modern Geekhood,Remember When...,Research

If you ever felt guilty about spending too much time playing those old Nintendo video games and never achieving victory, you may have some relief. It’s official: those eight-bit video games were very hard, or at least mathematically difficult.

A research team that includes Professor Erik Demaine and doctoral candidate Alan Guo analyzed the computational complexity of classic Nintendo video games, including the first three Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, and the Legend of Zelda franchise. Their math-heavy study, “Classic Nintendo Games are (NP-) Hard,” discovered that many games fall into a category of mathematical problems called “NP-hard,” or equivalent to the most difficult solvable mathematical theory.

From SlashGear:

“Basically, the researchers mapped out every hazard, every bottomless pit, every flying enemy, every bullet bill, as a ‘city’ and discovered that, while there is a mathematical way to solve the most efficient route, it is pretty darn difficult.”

Look familiar?

The team, which also includes Free University of Brussels faculty member Greg Aloupis, asked one basic question: given the starting position, how difficult is it to reach the goal? They determined the games were very similar–each begins at a specific point with a task-completing objective –and are scaled-down versions of another problem, “NP-complete,” or computationally unsolvable. The NP-complete problems are simplified in the games, therefor reverting to NP-hard.

From The New Scientist:

“(It’s the) travelling salesman problem – finding the shortest route between a series of points – which is of real interest in the field of logistics, and also the knapsack problem, used in deciding how to allocate resources. So theoretically you could convert an example of either problem into a Mario level, and play the game to solve it. That approach would be fun, says Demaine, although it would probably be simpler to solve the satisfiability problem directly.”

{ 0 comments }

Do Not Read This While Driving. In Fact, Don’t Even Think About It.

by Jay London on March 20, 2012

in Engineering,Health,In the News,Modern Geekhood,Research,Transportation,Travel

Photo: Fort Rucker, MIT AgeLab

Lawmakers met in Washington earlier this month to debate guidelines that limit driver distractions and simplify electronic devices installed in vehicles, but new research at MIT suggests that drivers don’t need to text, Tweet, or program a GPS to potentially cause havoc on the road.

A group led by MIT AgeLab research scientist Bryan Reimer found that a driver’s ability to focus on a surrounding environment varies depending on the “cognitive demand” of a non-driving activity. Essentially, if a driver’s mind is focused on a non-driving topic, be it an electronic device or an argument at home, the driver’s mind scans the surrounding area for potential hazards much less frequently.

Reimer told USA Today:

“In the past, the emphasis was on whether you’re distracted or not distracted. This is too simple of a categorization. There are levels of cognitive demand, and those levels are statistically distinguishable. The level of thought going on has a relationship to how much a driver is aware of the driving environment.”

The AgeLab research team studied 108 volunteers in ages ranging from 20 to 69 driving a midsize sport utility vehicle on Massachusetts’ Route 93 north. They were given three cognitive memory tasks of varying difficulty. The researched was published in Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society in February.

From Wired:

The AgeLab’s test car was fitted with sophisticated sensors that made it possible for researchers to analyze a driver’s cognitive load. Reimer envisions cars of the future equipped with similar technology that can instantly recognize when a driver is in over his or her head. If a car can sense that a driver is exhibiting “tunnel vision,” a car could cue the driver to end a hands-free phone call.

Part of the Engineering Systems Division, MIT AgeLab works to transform technologies into practical solutions that improve how products are designed and services are delivered. In addition to the driving study, the AgeLab has created AGNES (a suit that approximates the motor, visual, flexibility, dexterity, and strength of a person in their mid-70s); AwareCar (a vehicle that monitors driver state); Miss Daisy (a driving simulator used for evaluating cognitive distraction and the effects of disease and medication); and Miss Rosie (a Volkswagen Beetle that evaluates a driver’s capacity for vehicle operation), among others.

{ 0 comments }

Cupcake Wars: ChemE Alumni Take the Cake

by Nancy DuVergne Smith on March 9, 2012

in In the News,Modern Geekhood

MIT siblings win Food Network contest. Photo: Carla Sims

MIT siblings win Food Network contest. Photo: Carla Sims

MIT alumni may be accustomed to winning contests, but Cupcake Wars? A brother-sister team, both chemical engineering grads, won a $10,000 first-place prize on a recent television episode of Cupcake Wars on Food Network.

The pair, Winnette McIntosh Ambrose ’98 and her brother Timothy McIntosh ’08, operate Sweet Tooth Lobby in Washington DC. The “lobby” in the name echoes familiar MIT gathering places like Lobby 7 and Lobby 10. Their treats range from French, gluten-free macaroons to gourmet cupcakes and European-style hot chocolate.

In a National Public Radio interview, McIntosh Ambrose described how they got started:

“First of all, we’re born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. We both came to the U.S. to study chemical engineering at MIT. And I had the opportunity, while I was doing my undergrad at MIT, to double-major in French language and literature, which took me to Paris at the Sorbonne. And that is where I became really mesmerized, captivated by the beauty, the craft of French patisserie.”

While she earned a PhD in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University and then worked in the medical technology industry, she taught herself to bake. About two years ago, she called on her brother to join her efforts in DC and, in 2011, they started their business.

Try their winning recipe from the Feb. 5, 2012, Cupcake Wars episode focusing on Chinese New Year:

 

 

 

{ 1 comment }

The Influence of MIT: Dispatches from the 2012 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

by Jay London on March 7, 2012

in Alumni Life,Athletics,Events,In the News,Media,Modern Geekhood,Research

Jeff Ma '94 (left) moderating the "Insider Trading: Sports Bookmaking and Gambling" panel.

It’s no surprise that the Sloan school hosts the world’s largest sports analytics conference. But MIT’s influence on the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference extends far beyond gracious hosting and the event’s Boston location.

MIT researchers, students, and alumni had a large presence throughout the conference. From big name panelists–conference co-chair Daryl Morey ’00, Jeff Ma ’94, and Robbie Allen ’96–to Major League Baseball player agent Scott Boras mentioning that the hiring of a MIT alumni 15 years ago was integral in translating advanced statistics to benefit his clients, MIT’s influence blanketed the event.

Media Lab researchers Santiago Alfaro (center) and Daniel Novy (right) discuss the SlamForce Net.

Media Lab research assistants Santiago Alfaro and Daniel Novy partnered with Peter Scott, vice president of Turner Sports, to present “Slam Force G’s: Quantifying the Force of a Monster Dunk.” The trio discussed SlamForce Net, a Media Lab-designed basketball net that calculates the force and speed of a basketball traveling through it. The net was used to measure the Sprite Intensity Meter during the 2012 NBA Slam Dunk Contest, and Alfaro and Novy were featured live on television during the contest.

Eugene Shen ’98 co-presented on positive and negative synergies in NBA basketball, which analyzed the skill categories of every NBA player in an effort to decide which players work best alongside each other on the court. A portfolio manager in New York City, Shen’s team used financial techniques to incorporate their data. He discussed the presentation on ESPN’s Numbers Never* Lie television show, which was broadcast live from the conference.

“Part of our motivation is to apply financial techniques to sports,” says Shen, who writes for the basketball website Hooponomics. “We found that when you evaluate players in basketball, it all depends on the players you already have on your team. When you have a stock, you want to see how that stock fits into your existing portfolio.”

Chris Walters presents "To Tank or Not to Tank"

Chris Walters and Tyler Williams, doctoral candidates in the Department of Economics, presented “To Tank or Not to Tank? Evidence from the NBA,” which asked two NBA-related questions: what is the value of receiving the first pick in the NBA draft, and do teams lose intentionally to secure higher draft positions? The duo used a fixed-effects methodology that teased out causal effects to determine the results.

Zaheer Benjamin ’01, director of financial planning for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, uses analytics to drive all aspects of business strategy, from dynamic ticket pricing to measuring the value of corporate partnerships. A conference spectator who has also worked for the NBA’s Orlando Magic, he sees MIT’s influence in sports analytics continuing to grow.

“Before the NBA, I worked in pharmaceutical analytics. I found that the approaches and disciplines of using data to make decisions–something I learned at MIT–is applicable across all industries. Two-third of teams have a dedicated analytics function on the business side, up from one-third a few years ago. The MIT brand is strong. It’s recognized as a solid business foundation with deep analytic expertise.”

For more information on the 2012 conference, see The 2012 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, a.k.a. ‘Dorkapalooza.’

{ 0 comments }

The 2012 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, a.k.a. “Dorkapalooza”

by Jay London on March 6, 2012

in Alumni Life,Athletics,Events,In the News,Media,Modern Geekhood,Research

Are you a sports fan? Have you ever wondered about cumulative win probabilities to predict NCAA basketball performance? How about an expected goal model for evaluating NHL teams and players? Perhaps you’ve always wanted to deconstruct a rebound with optical tracking data?

Daryl Morey (left) and ESPN's Tony Reali

If so, the 2012 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference was the place for you.

Founded by Daryl Morey MBA ’00, general manager of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, and nicknamed “Dorkapalooza” by ESPN sportswriter Bill Simmons, the conference covered topics from concussion treatment breakthroughs to the science of sports bookmaking and gambling.

Now in its sixth year, the 2012 conference featured over 2,200 attendees that included representatives from 73 professional sports teams, with over 70 panels and presentations blanketing two days.

Quotes from the some of the conference’s most candid panelists are below.

The "Franchises in Transition" panel, featuring Drew Carey (second from left) and Daryl Morey (far right).

Actor and game show host Drew Carey, a minority owner of Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders, brought a unique perspective. Every four years, the Sounders allow their fans to vote out or keep the team’s general manager.

“If you can vote for a president and mayor, you can vote for a general manager. Every other job in America requires performance and accountability to keep your job, so why shouldn’t a general manager have the same rules? A lot of owners don’t care if they win or not. They’re just in it to make money.”

Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball executive vice president, spoke about the evolution of professional sports leagues and today’s emphasis on boardroom analytics.

“Today, analytic people are more important than lawyers. Economics are now the most important part of a basic agreement between teams and players. If you spend more than you’re generating, it’s unsustainable. We need a full understanding of financials, as a way of deciding an appropriate share.”

Brian Burke, general manger of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs, is a noted dissenter of  “Moneyball,” the term used to describe the analytical approach to assembling a sports team, but was a conference favorite nonetheless.

“Everybody is looking for these Moneyball breakthroughs. I have yet to see anything that has value in terms of an alternative way of evaluating players. Nobody has ever won a championship with Moneyball. There’s more to this than looking at statistics and picking players out of a [expletive] hat.”

Burke succinctly described his negotiating strategy during the “Art & Analytics of Contract Negotiation” panel.

“I try to be a [expletive] all the time.”

ESPN basketball analyst John Hollinger discussed the difficulty of communicating the value of statistics to teams.

“Statistics as a coaching tool and as a communications tool are completely different. What you learn, and how you teach it, is critical. There’s a huge difference between analyzing data and implementing it.”

NBA analyst and former head coach Jeff Van Gundy humorously stressed the importance of analytics in coaching, to a certain extent.

“If I wanted to make a change when I was a coach, I’d find numbers to support that change…or I’d just make it up. Players don’t know the difference. As a coaching tool, statistics are different. I wouldn’t tell a guy, ‘You’re a 38 percent shooter after four dribbles, so dribble a fifth time, where you’re at 40 percent.’”

Tomorrow’s post will focus on the MIT effect at the conference, and the MIT-affiliated panelists, researchers, and attendees.

{ 0 comments }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →