Tag Archives: mit

A Faster Fourier Transform

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The principle of the Fourier transform, which dates back to the 19th century, is that any signal, such as a sound recording, can be represented as the sum of a collection of sine and cosine waves with different frequencies and amplitudes. This collection of waves can then be manipulated with relative ease—for example, allowing a recording to be compressed or noise to be suppressed. In the mid-1960s, a computer-friendly algorithm called the fast Fourier transform (FFT) was developed. Anyone who’s marveled at the tiny size of an MP3 file compared with the same recording in an uncompressed form has seen the power of the FFT at work.

via A Faster Fourier Transform – Technology Review.

A faster transform means that less computer power is required to process a given amount of information—a boon to energy-conscious mobile multimedia devices such as smart phones.

Note the higlighted statement.  Power consumption is trumping speed in modern computing devices.  Also Note:  The author of the linked to article isn’t me.

Jamming Grippers Combine to Form Robotic Elephant Trunk

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Jamming Grippers Combine to Form Robotic Elephant Trunk – IEEE Spectrum.

 

“Jamming” has to be one of the coolest new actuation techniques we’ve seen in the last couple years, and we’ve recently covered a bunch of fascinating implementations of it, including walking robots and grippers that can throw stuff. MIT may have just topped everyone by developing a robotic elephant trunk that’s strong, flexible, and, since it’s made mostly out of coffee grounds, absolutely dirt cheap.

The jamming technique was developed jointly at Cornell University, University of Chicago, and iRobot back in late 2010.

The elusive capacity of networks

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What makes that question particularly hard to answer is that no one knows how to calculate the data capacity of a network as a whole — or even whether it can be calculated. Nonetheless, in the first half of a two-part paper, which was published recently in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, MIT’s Muriel Médard, California Institute of Technology’s Michelle Effros and the late Ralf Koetter of the University of Technology in Munich show that in a wired network, network coding and error-correcting coding can be handled separately, without reduction in the network’s capacity. In the forthcoming second half of the paper, the same researchers demonstrate some bounds on the capacities of wireless networks, which could help guide future research in both industry and academia.

via The elusive capacity of networks – MIT News Office.

WordNet Perl Module

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This WordNet module (WordNet::QueryData) is a Perl interface to the WordNet database. WordNet is a database of word meanings and lexical relationships. It contains tens of thousands of words and numerous semantic relationships for each. For example, it can tell you that a limousine is a type of a car and that a car is a type of motor vehicle. It can also tell you that car and automobile have essentially the same meaning.

via WordNet Perl Module.

MIT Completes the “Holy Grail of Hacks,” Turning the Green Building into a Game of Tetris

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Home of the Institute’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Science, the Green Building lends itself as an ideal grid for the game. According to the IHTFP Hack Gallery, “MIT hackers have long considered ‘Tetris on the Green Building’ to be the Holy Grail of hacks.”

via MIT Completes the “Holy Grail of Hacks,” Turning the Green Building into a Game of Tetris [Slideshow + Video] | BostInno.

Solar ‘towers’ beat panels by up to 20x

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Now, a team of MIT researchers has come up with a very different approach: building cubes or towers that extend the solar cells upward in three-dimensional configurations. Amazingly, the results from the structures they’ve tested show power output ranging from double to more than 20 times that of fixed flat panels with the same base area.

via Solar ‘towers’ beat panels by up to 20x | ScienceBlog.com.

The Hidden Risk of a Meltdown in the Cloud

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There are well known problems of course. The most obvious relates to guaranteeing the security of data when it is stored on computers that that a user does not own and that many others can also access. But various solutions have emerged such as encrypting data before it is sent to the cloud. For that reason, the migration to the cloud is proceeding at full speed in many places.

That may be folly. Today, Bryan Ford at Yale University in New Haven says that the full risks of this migration have yet to be properly explored. He points out that complex systems can fail in many unexpected ways and outlines various simple scenarios in which a cloud could come unstuck.

via The Hidden Risk of a Meltdown in the Cloud – Technology Review.

Now Ford imagines the scenario in which both load balancing programs operate with the same refresh period, say once a minute. When these periods coincide, the control loops start sending the load back and forth between the virtual servers in a positive feedback loop.

MIT to open up some courses to global audience

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MIT to open up some courses to global audience — free, online

The program, called MITx, will represent the next evolution in online offerings, extending the university’s already well-established OpenCourseWare, which provides materials on about 2,100 courses that has been accessed by more than 100 million people. OpenCourseWare will continue, but MITx will be more interactive and provide a greater virtual classroom experience, providing access to online laboratories, student-to-student discussions, and greater interactivity. MIT also expects that MITx will eventually host a virtual community of millions of learners around the world.

 

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MIT creates diode for light, makes photonic silicon chips possible

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In the near term, though, garnet-on-silicon chips are likely to be used in networking — first in backbone routers, which are physically huge and very power hungry because of the current size of optical switching hardware, and then hopefully at home and in the office (100Gbps home networks!) Then, once the size of MIT’s diode for light is scaled down — it’s currently around 400nm long, some 20 times larger than a transistor — we might begin to see photonic circuits in computers.

via MIT creates diode for light, makes photonic silicon chips possible | ExtremeTech.