Graphic by Christine Daniloff, via MIT News Office Sometimes when one of my remotes is missing, I interrogate the others: “Where’s your friend? I know you know something!” In the future, with wireless positioning systems, a version of that method might actually almost work. Researchers at MIT’s Wireless Communications and Network Sciences Group think networks of devices that communicate their positions to each other will... 

How can you make tiny, flexible materials that conduct electricity more efficiently than today’s batteries? You can engineer expensive, high-density carbon nanotubes. Or you can use the original nanobots, made by nature itself: viruses. An MIT group recently described an advance that brings us closer to the day when freaky, half-alive nanomachines assemble batteries you could wear. The research comes out of Angela Belcher’s  Biomolecular... 

There’s an app for almost everything. Now add one that can run calculations from a supercomputer on a Nexus One phone in real time and without the need for internet connectivity. Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Texas Advanced Computing Center have created an Android app that can take simulations from the powerful Ranger supercomputer and solve them further on the mobile phone. “The idea of using a phone is... 

The clothing of the future could be more than just fashion. MIT researchers are working to develop fibers that can hear and produce sound, and someday those could take the form of wearable electronics. “The ancients used clothes for the same reason that we do, which is thermal insulation and aesthetics,” Yoel Fink, associate professor of materials science and principal investigator at MIT’s Research Lab of Electronics, told... 

In a magic trick that only geeks can pull off, researchers at MIT have found a method to let users click and scroll exactly the same way they would with a computer mouse, without the device actually being there. Cup your palm, move it around on a table and a cursor on the screen hovers. Tap on the table like you would click a real mouse, and the computer responds. It’s one step beyond cordless. It’s an invisible mouse. The project,... 

Interacting with your computer by waving your hands may require just a pair of multicolored gloves and a webcam, say two researchers at MIT who have made a breakthrough in gesture-based computing that’s inexpensive and easy to use. A pair of lycra gloves — with 20 irregularly shaped patches in 10 different colors — held in front of a webcam can generate a unique pattern with every wave of the hand or flex…  Read More →

Better battery life is on the top of most people’s gadget wish lists. Now, a technology breakthrough from MIT offers hope for the mobile masses. Researchers say they have found a way to create batteries that can offer up to three times the energy density of current batteries, while being much lighter. That paves the way for portable devices that could both be lighter and have…  Read More →

Mechanical fireflies could help create a new kind of 3-D display, say researchers at MIT. Standing in for the bioluminescent beetles will be LED-fitted, remotely controlled micro-helicopters that can be choreographed electronically to display shapes and images as they hover in midair. The project, called Flyfire, would use RC helicopters similar to the toys sold at the mall today. “Each of the helicopters then acts as what we call a smart... 

Researchers at MIT have demonstrated the first laser that uses the element germanium. The laser, which operates at room temperature, could prove to be an important step toward computer chips that move data using light instead of electricity, say the researchers. “This is a very important breakthrough, one I would say that has the highest possible significance in the field,” says Eli Yablonovitch, a professor in the electrical…  Read More →