Future

Creating a good customer experience increasingly means creating a good digital experience. But metrics like pageviews and clicks offer limited insight into how much customers actually like a digital product. That’s the problem the digital optimization company Amplitude is solving. Amplitude gives companies a clearer picture into how users interact with their digital products to help them understand exactly which features to promote or improve. “It’s all about using product data to drive your business,” says Amplitude CEO Spenser...

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Laurence R. Young ’57, SM ’59, ScD ’62, the Apollo Program Professor Emeritus of Astronautics and professor of health sciences and technology at MIT, died peacefully at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Aug. 4 after a long illness. He was 85. A longtime member of the MIT community, Young was widely regarded for his pioneering role in the field of bioastronautics, the study of the impact of the space environment on living organisms, focusing in particular on the...

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After a summer of billionaires in space, many people have begun to wonder when they will get their turn. The cost of entering space is currently too high for the average citizen, but the work of PhD candidate Martin Nisser may help change that. His work on self-assembling robots could be key to reducing the costs that help determine the price of a ticket. Nisser’s fascination with engineering has been a consistent theme throughout a life filled with change....

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With the addition of computers, laser cutters have rapidly become a relatively simple and powerful tool, with software controlling shiny machinery that can chop metals, woods, papers, and plastics. While this curious amalgam of materials feels encompassing, users still face difficulties distinguishing between stockpiles of visually similar materials, where the wrong stuff can make gooey messes, give off horrendous odors, or worse, spew out harmful chemicals. Addressing what might not be totally apparent to the naked eye, scientists from...

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The following press release was issued today by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Researchers from MIT, the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have developed a new way to deliver molecular therapies to cells. The system, called SEND, can be programmed to encapsulate and deliver different RNA cargoes. SEND harnesses natural proteins in the body that form virus-like particles and bind RNA, and...

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The MIT-Japan Program has announced the establishment of the Patricia Gercik Memorial Fund. The endowed fund will provide supplemental stipends to students seeking internships in Japan. Gercik served as managing director of the MIT-Japan Program for almost three decades and introduced hundreds of MIT students to Japanese culture, history, and in-country internship experiences. MIT-Japan is a part of (and was the prototype for) the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) — the Institute’s pioneering global internship program. Gercik...

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The MIT Libraries celebrated the outstanding contributions of its employees in June with its 2021 Infinite Mile Awards ceremony. The online ceremony had a summer camp theme and featured an art and crafts showcase, funny pet photos, and recorded performances by the libraries’ band, The Dust Jackets.  Awards were presented to individuals and teams in the categories listed below; recipients are listed along with excerpts from the award presentations. Bringing out the best Serving as interim music librarian while...

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Squirting a jet of water through a drop of liquid may sound like idle fun, but if done precisely, and understood thoroughly, the splashy exercise could help scientists identify ways to inject fluids such as vaccines through skin without using needles. That’s the motivation behind a new study by engineers at MIT and the University of Twente in the Netherlands. The study involves firing small jets of water through many kinds of droplets, hundreds of times over, using high-speed...

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Emissions from shipping activities around the world account for nearly 3 percent of total human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, and could increase by up to 50 percent by 2050, making them an important and often overlooked target for global climate mitigation. At the same time, shipping-related emissions of additional pollutants, particularly nitrogen and sulfur oxides, pose a significant threat to global health, as they degrade air quality enough to cause premature deaths. The main source of shipping emissions is the...

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Work on MIT’s Strategic Action Plan for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion started last fall, and the plan’s first draft was released in late March 2020. Powered by inputs and feedback from three dozen community engagement sessions and a steady stream of email responses from students, staff, faculty, postdocs, alumni, and others, the plan is being revised and updated over the summer with hopes for a fall release. The development of the strategic plan is being led by Institute Community...

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If you gave students around the world the power to study and manipulate genes in a test tube, what would they do with it? MiniPCR bio first began selling its portable, inexpensive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machines in 2013. The machines allow users to multiply specific strands of DNA in minutes, following along with experiments through a phone app. Since then, the founders have been amazed at the amount of learning and research that has come from the devices....

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The transition toward a more sustainable, environmentally sound electrical grid has driven an upsurge in renewables like solar and wind. But something as simple as cloud cover can cause grid instability, and wind power is inherently unpredictable. This intermittent nature of renewables has invigorated the competitive landscape for energy storage companies looking to enhance power system flexibility while enabling the integration of renewables. “Impact is what drives PolyJoule more than anything else,” says CEO Eli Paster. “We see impact...

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The urgent need to cut carbon emissions is prompting a rapid move toward electrified mobility and expanded deployment of solar and wind on the electric grid. If those trends escalate as expected, the need for better methods of storing electrical energy will intensify. “We need all the strategies we can get to address the threat of climate change,” says Elsa Olivetti PhD ’07, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Associate Professor in Materials Science and Engineering. “Obviously, developing technologies for grid-based...

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For the more than 5 million people in the world who have undergone an upper-limb amputation, prosthetics have come a long way. Beyond traditional mannequin-like appendages, there is a growing number of commercial neuroprosthetics — highly articulated bionic limbs, engineered to sense a user’s residual muscle signals and robotically mimic their intended motions. But this high-tech dexterity comes at a price. Neuroprosthetics can cost tens of thousands of dollars and are built around metal skeletons, with electrical motors that...

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Future Now, The IFTF Blog RSS Feed http://www.iftf.org/ News from the Future #60 https://mailchi.mp/iftf/news-from-the-future-issue-1479117 https://mailchi.mp/iftf/news-from-the-future-issue-1479117 <p dir=”ltr”><strong id=”docs-internal-guid-ee42e5b7-7fff-2069-a3d4-0ef41b8a18ba”><a href=”https://www.eventbrite.com/e/iftf-fast-futures-foresight-for-beginners-in-90-minutes-tickets-162485443335?aff=IFTFNewsletter0713%C2%A0″>Fast Futures</a></strong><br><strong id=”docs-internal-guid-ee42e5b7-7fff-2069-a3d4-0ef41b8a18ba”>Tuesday, August 10 | 10–11:30am PDT</strong></p> <p dir=”ltr”>Not sure how to start your futures-thinking journey?&nbsp;Want to get your colleagues or team members into futures thinking? Fast Futures is a 90-minute $99, introductory-level online learning experience that teaches participants to initiate their own creative foresight.</p> <p><a href=”https://www.eventbrite.com/e/iftf-fast-futures-foresight-for-beginners-in-90-minutes-tickets-162485443335?aff=IFTFNewsletter0713%C2%A0″>Register here. &gt;&gt;</a></p> <h4 class=”null” dir=”ltr”><br><strong>IFTF FORESIGHT TALK</strong></h4> <p dir=”ltr”><strong id=”docs-internal-guid-9269392e-7fff-ef66-e2b7-6a153a23e65b”>Freedom Dreaming in the...

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