One of the hottest topics in robotics is the field of soft robots, which utilizes squishy and flexible materials rather than traditional rigid materials. But soft robots have been limited due to their lack of good sensing. A good robotic gripper needs to feel what it is touching (tactile sensing), and it needs to sense the positions of its fingers (proprioception). Such sensing has been missing from most soft robots.

In a new study at the International Conference on Learning Representations, MIT researchers propose a kind of creativity test to see how far GANs can go in riffing on a given image.

As more artificial intelligence applications move to smartphones, deep learning models are getting smaller to allow apps to run faster and save battery power. Now, MIT researchers have a new and better way to compress models.

Engineers have discovered many ways of encoding curious exploration into machine learning algorithms. A research team at MIT wondered if a computer could do better, based on a long history of enlisting computers in the search for new algorithms. 

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) announced that MIT professors Ronitt Rubinfeld and Joshua Tenenbaum were among their new 2020 members. The new class of more than 250 members recognizes the outstanding achievements of individuals in academia, the arts, business, government, and public affairs.

A team from CSAIL came up with a method that dials us closer to more seamless human-robot collaboration. The system, called “Conduct-A-Bot,” uses human muscle signals from wearable sensors to pilot a robot’s movement. 

It can be hard to keep track of all the numbers, statistics, and charts swirling around the internet -- we’re inundated with information that can be rapidly disseminated and dissected. To carve through some of the sludge, here’s a selected highlight of recent computer science related efforts to fight COVID-19. 

Aclinical team in Boston has reported being able to monitor a COVID-19 patient remotely, thanks to a device developed at CSAIL that can monitor a patient’s breathing, movement and sleep patterns using wireless signals.

MIT researchers have designed a congestion-control scheme for wireless networks that could help reduce lag times and increase quality in video streaming, video chat, mobile gaming, and other web services.