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Top row, left to right: Matthew Caren, April Qiu Cheng, Arav Karighattam, and Benjamin Lou. Bottom row, left to right: Isabelle Quaye, Albert Qin, Ananthan Sadagopan, and Gianfranco (Franco) Yee (Credits: Photos courtesy of the Hertz Foundation).
CSAIL article

The Hertz Foundation announced that it has awarded fellowships to eight MIT affiliates. The prestigious award provides each recipient with five years of doctoral-level research funding (up to a total of $250,000), which gives them an unusual measure of independence in their graduate work to pursue groundbreaking research.

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PhD student Faraz Faruqi, lead author of a new paper on the project, says that TactStyle could have far-reaching applications extending from home decor and personal accessories to tactile learning tools (Credits: Mike Grimmett/MIT CSAIL).
CSAIL article

Essential for many industries ranging from Hollywood computer-generated imagery to product design, 3D modeling tools often use text or image prompts to dictate different aspects of visual appearance, like color and form. As much as this makes sense as a first point of contact, these systems are still limited in their realism due to their neglect of something central to the human experience: touch.

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Ray and Maria Stata Center exterior
External articles

"The net effect [of DeepSeek] should be to significantly increase the pace of AI development, since the secrets are being let out and the models are now cheaper and easier to train by more people." ~ Associate Professor Phillip Isola