http://mitworld.mit.edu/ MIT World media in category 'Innovation/Invention'. en-us Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:34:21 GMT Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/723 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/723 Dries Buytaert relates a synopsis of his life with Drupal from its inception while a "typical geek" undergraduate in Antwerp in 1999 to the upcoming release of Drupal 7 with a particular emphasis on the community that has been created by the nature of an open source product. Drupal is "software to build websites with" intended for anyone to modify and improve then redistribute to its users.

Community is a recurring theme throughout his dialogue. When 40 users attended his first DrupalCon in 2004, Dries found it "shocking" that so many people would fly to Antwerp just to "talk about Drupal all day." When his shared server experienced the "Big Drupal Server Meltdown of 2005," he was further astounded by the community's response—Sun Microsystems donated an Enterprise server, the Open Source Lab offered hosting and administration services, and end users donated $10K.

The statistics are impressive. Websites using Drupal include Yahoo!, Sony Music, Google, MIT, Harvard, and, recently, The White House. There are thousands of developers, half a million websites, a quarter of a million downloads of Drupal core and over one million unique visitors each month.

Having created Drupal in brief spurts grabbed in hours here and there, Buytaert decided to devote himself full-time to Drupal after defending his PhD in 2007. With each incremental milestone creating opportunities for more improvements and problem solving, Buytaert now wanted to devote himself to providing the necessary commercial grade support. To that end, he created Acquia—a company based in Boston—to reduce the barriers to adoption and the problems related to starting big sites. Growing pains required the organization to think less from a developer's point of view and more from an end user's view with the goal of making Drupal easier to use. Users were now categorized as clients, site builders, or developers. Each "user" would have a different view of the site and each would require different tools for getting around.

Buytaert recognized that while Drupal is good at fixing small, incremental issues, it now needed to step back and take a more "holistic view" to improve overall usability. The newly hired management team worked diligently to change the information architecture, improving navigation and making it easier for any end user to find information quicker.

Using a series of screenshots, Buytaert delineates the specific feature modifications for each set of users that will be included in Drupal 7. He recognizes how important the work that is being done now will "define the future of Drupal and [its] ability to succeed and compete with other systems."

Even though Drupal 7 is not ready for release yet—it is in code freeze—Buytaert encourages users to become familiar with its new functionality and features. More than 500 users in the Drupal community have already contributed to patches and improvements as Drupal continues to evolve. ]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/716 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/716 In welcoming President Obama, MIT President
Susan Hockfield summarizes the vast array of energy innovation at MIT, including the MIT Energy Initiative and the student-led 1700 member Energy Club, and declares, "We share President Obama's view that clean energy is the defining challenge of this era."

In his introduction of President Obama, Professor Ernest Moniz, Director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), discusses global issues on clean energy, science and innovation, and credits Obama for expanding the nation's energy vision.

Barack Obama came to MIT not just to praise the Institute's leading edge energy research but to encourage all of America’s “heirs to a legacy of innovation” in their pursuit of discovery. The nation owes much of its prosperity to risk-takers and entrepreneurs, Obama said, and now, given the linked challenges of energy and climate change, we need such pioneers more than ever.

After visiting MIT labs working on more efficient solar cells and lighting, batteries “that aren’t built, but grown,” and offshore wind plants that function even when the air is still, Obama told a large crowd that as the nation inevitably transitions from fossil fuels to renewable energy, we’re counting on the kind of “innovative potential on display at MIT.”

Obama acknowledges the great challenges facing energy researchers and entrepreneurs. As traditional energy supplies become more precious, and energy demands grow, nations are competing to develop new ways to produce and use energy, said Obama, and the winner will lead the global economy. “I want America to be that nation. It’s that simple.”

His administration’s response has been to make massive investments in both clean energy and basic science. Obama aims these efforts at both the current recession, and the nation’s future economic health. Clean energy jobs today and research “to produce the technologies of tomorrow” will “lay a new foundation for lasting prosperity.” He hopes this comprehensive approach will culminate in legislation that will transform America’s entire energy system.

But Obama is under no delusion that all will embrace his plan. “The closer we get,” says Obama, the “more we’ll hear from those whose interest or ideology run counter to that much-needed action we’re engaged in.” What worries the president more, though, is a dangerous pessimism shared by many, “that our politics are too broken and our people too unwilling to make hard choices for us to actually deal with this energy issue.” Implicit in this argument, he says, is that America has lost its fighting spirit.

Obama rejects this argument “because of what I’ve seen here at MIT … and because of what we know we are capable of achieving when called upon ….” The nation that harnessed electricity and the atom is one that has always sought out new frontiers, “and this generation is no different.” Obama invokes the achievements of the past as a call to arms “in what is sure to be a difficult fight in the months and years ahead” -- to ensure that “we are the energy leader that we need to be.” ]]> Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/700 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/700 Real-world practitioners of systems engineering/engineering systems describe how the young discipline has shaped their very large enterprises.

For the past 10 years, David Lehman has been incorporating key systems engineering ideas within MITRE Corporation. Successes include getting project leaders to think about engineering solutions in the context of political and economic organization, and learning how to communicate these solutions better. MITRE has talked to defense acquisition managers in the field to extract data and create models that get disseminated to other managers. But Lehman is disappointed that Defense Department acquisition methods are still large-scale, and unresponsive to swiftly changing situations. He’d like to show program managers how “to step outside what they’ve been taught,” and create incentives for doing the right things rather than “sticking with regulations.”

Robert Skinner, Jr. wonders if engineering systems approaches can help with some pressing questions: the way to mix transportation and land use decisions in urban areas, for instance, or government pricing strategies for surface transport. One nettlesome issue involves the right scope of analysis, says Skinner. Should researchers be looking at the components of the transportation system, or the whole enterprise? “As we move downward, uncertainty increases and the role of social systems and social science enters into it; politics upper and lower case becomes more significant.” And he adds, “We’re sorely lacking in analogs in the policy world to transmit complex engineering concepts. If analysis gets too far out ahead of the public’s and decision-makers’ ability to absorb it, it all comes to naught.”

“Why are so many complex systems behind schedule and over budget?” asks Heinz Stoewer. A single line of code missing can cause system collapse, says Stoewer. And big problems can flow from human shortcomings in calculations, accounting or risk management. Stoewer believes another reason for failure is that program managers and systems engineers “are too process focused,” and not well enough aligned. They may lack sufficient depth in the key discipline of their projects, leading to faulty product design or production. To improve the chances of success, Stoewer emphasizes the importance of early phases: “I can tell you two dozen programs in trouble because they’re…making enormous efforts trying to get things right when they’re almost done.”

By 2020, Joel Moses hopes that engineering systems will be recognized “as having made significant contributions” to health care, energy, environment, financial services and the military. To achieve such an impact, the field should focus on “maybe the key issue” of system architecture. Each engineering field thinks of architecture in different ways and groups must communicate better with each other. Moses believes educators should teach “what makes for a good system architect,” and that “systems thinking is important, but not enough.” A good system architect sees things holistically. Moses notes as well, “the difference between designing a one-off versus a family of systems.”

]]> Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/695 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/695 Visiting the San Diego Zoo’s orangutans and chimpanzees inspires Patrick Henry Winston to ponder what makes humans different from our primate cousins. His field of artificial intelligence extends that question to thinking about how humans differ from computers. Winston’s goal is to “develop a computational theory of intelligence.”

Bridging the gap from people to machines requires a complex understanding of how we think. Winston asserts we think with our eyes, our hands, our mouth. Humans rely upon visual, motor, and linguistic faculties to learn and solve problems. Perceptual powers enable naming, describing, categorizing and recalling. In the aggregate, these processes are “commonsense,” a hallmark of cognition that Winston aims to vest in computer programs -- to endow transistors with the nuanced capabilities of neurons.

Crucially, we also think with our stories. Throughout childhood and formal education, we are taught via fairy tales, myths, history, literature, religion, and popular entertainment. Professional disciplines like law, science, medicine, engineering, and business are conveyed through stories too.

Recognizing patterns, relationships, and mistakes, as well as abstract concepts like revenge or success, helps us explain, predict, answer questions. The delicate processes of extracting knowledge and capturing meaning may appear seamless or instinctive in the evolved mind, but must be parsed syntactically to “teach” a computer to achieve the same ends.

What might be practical applications “for systems that understood stories”? Winston suggests that decision-making in business and military strategy would benefit. And no less, comprehending cultures. If a computer program could derive clues from context, perhaps it could determine why “what plays in Peoria” doesn’t translate to Baghdad.

Early efforts to build a computational theory of intelligence focused on “symbolic integration…We figured out how to make programs do calculus by 1960…but computers remained as dumb as stones,” Winston says. When we progressed to building robots -- “things that move” -- language was still lacking. “We forgot that the distinguishing characteristic of human intelligence is that linguistic veneer that stands above our perceptual apparatus,” he remarks.

A paradox emerging from Winston’s study of how humans think is that “computers make us stupid.” For instance, when students are freed from taking notes, absence of “forced engagement” with the material hinders learning. He cautions that teachers confuse the “presentation of information with the delivery of information.” Too many words on a slide (or talking too fast) “jams the language processor” and impedes digesting content.

Winston summarizes with an appealing prescription for becoming smarter. “Take notes…draw pictures…talk and imagine…tell stories!” The very act of explaining to another elucidates a lesson for oneself. ]]> Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/690 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/690 Cooperation may be making us “a little bit too nice” when it comes to innovation, suggests Fiona Murray. She believes there’s nothing like competition for injecting energy into the process of solving key innovation problems, whether in business or society.

Murray is convinced competition make ventures “more effective, more global, more inclusive and more democratic,” all important dimensions for business in a flattening world. She describes the rapidly expanding R&D expenditures of India and China, including the vast numbers of Ph.D.s these nations are producing in science and engineering. The corporate sector has found building global R&D organizations and collaborations difficult. In this challenging environment, where the advantage goes to those firms snagging the best scientists, Murray believes “prizes are complementary mechanisms” for attracting global talent. Just like historic rivalries among great artists (Nb., Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese), or the race to discover the structure of DNA, “fierce competition” can yield “dramatic productivity” and innovation, especially when the right rewards are at stake.

Murray cites the 18th century competition to invent a mechanism for determining a ship’s longitude, which offered a 20 thousand-pound prize. She jumps to the present, with the X Prize Foundation and its various competitions to solve engineering challenges and societal problems, such as the three-person reusable spaceship, and a 100-mpg car -- each with a $10 million prize purse. But it’s not just the money. Recent studies show that prizes prove alluring when they focus efforts and resources on a problem that people are already studying, offering fame and “putting fun back into innovation.” The fascination skews rational calculations, with competitors often spending well beyond the amount offered to the winner.

Corporations should adopt the prize mechanism, believes Murray, to help generate new ideas (such as new applications for Google’s phone); or to help solve very specific problems. Campus competitions are up markedly, she notes, which might be a distraction for students at places like MIT. Start small and inside the organization first, creating a shared bulletin board and offering small prizes, she advises, which will “generate energy.” Then take competition beyond the company. And don’t forget, “the work must be fun” in order to “get a richer set of people to participate.” ]]> Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/689 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/689 Researchers are well along in designing a highly efficient, inexpensive solar cell, but the big barrier to the dissemination of solar power in society remains the problem of installation, says Marc Baldo.

As an engineer, Baldo expresses confidence that “we’re going to mow down” the problem of producing a great solar cell and making it cheap. His own lab has developed a unique approach that’s found enthusiastic support from the federal government and others. Unlike conventional solar cells that use a single material such as silicon to perform both functions of absorbing light and converting it into electricity, Baldo’s cell “separates the functions and optimizes both.” His solar concentrator utilizes inexpensive material like glass or plastic onto which a thin film of dye has been painted. Sunlight strikes this surface, and the dye, which can be “tuned” or colored to trap specific wavelengths of light, emits light back to solar cells along the edge of the plate. There are enormous advantages derived from this design: The glass or plastic (considerably cheaper than silicon) catches diffuse light, so there’s no need to track the sun, and it concentrates the sunlight much more efficiently than conventional solar cells.

But solar concentrators alone don’t signal the start of a new solar age. Baldo addresses the considerable uncertainty around the broad deployment of solar power. Installation costs for single homes appear formidably high, perhaps 2/3rd the cost of the entire system. Colossal solar fields that might replace fossil fuel burning plants must ship their energy across vast distances, losing electricity along the way. And right now the national power grid isn’t set up to handle the fluctuations in energy that large-scale intermittent energy sources such as solar or wind present. Clouds are a “big pain” for grid operators, says Baldo.

He believes the best start for solar will be in commercial and industrial installations such as the rooftops of factories, supermarkets or warehouses, sites where there’s no loss moving power around, and where managers are already seeking ways to save on lighting and refrigeration, including smart electronics. His cost-effective concentrators could find their way to such installations in several years.

In addition to solar concentrators, Baldo is researching biological models for making solar cells more efficient: He just received a $19 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study exciton circuitry in plants -- how plants capture light in packets of energy and direct the energy to where it’s needed. Says Baldo, “This exciton is the last, great unexplored territory in solar cells.” ]]> Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/687 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/687 In contrast to cardiovascular disease, few breakthrough remedies for psychiatric illness have emerged in the past half century. Edward Scolnick lays blame for this dismal situation on barriers to understanding the genetic basis behind such illnesses. But the research drought may be over, as the current revolution in human genetics opens wide a door into the molecular biology and brain physiology behind diseases like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

These common, chronic and disabling mental illnesses are complex, involving abnormal behaviors that vary in expression. They have also lacked the kind of quantitative tests that enable precise diagnosis. While science has demonstrated that the single biggest risk factor for both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder is genetic, it has not been able to design tools for exploring how the genetics relates to the evolution of the disease in people. But just in the last two years, with the sequencing of the human genome and maps of human genetic variation, ignorance has given way to major findings.

In schizophrenia and bipolar disease, researchers have discovered that gene deletions and duplications (called copy number variants) cause significant brain circuit mischief. They’ve also learned there are gene variants common to both diseases, as well as clusters of genes that malfunction. Scolnick describes diverse research at MIT, proceeding at a “breakneck pace,” that uses this genetic information “to delve into the malfunctioning of brain circuits.”

Scientists have applied functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the brains of ordinary people and schizophrenia patients, and discovered that the schizophrenic’s brain in a resting state is hyperactive. Other researchers found that schizophrenics generate the gamma brainwaves involved with higher mental activities in a different manner than control subjects.

Another MIT lab has begun to manipulate specific brain circuits using optical technology -- shining different wavelengths of light at special interneurons that regulate the firing of other neurons, and which are postulated to have a critical role in the malfunctioning of schizophrenics’ brains. Two other MIT labs are examining the biochemical disruptions due to altered genes, and developing “safe, specific chemical inhibitors” that might yield potential treatments for schizophrenia and bipolar illnesses. In Japan, researchers are growing stem cells into brain cells, which may lead to precise experiments that relate genetic problems to malfunctions in brain wiring. Indeed, adding up this research, a central biochemical pathway central to the pathogenesis of psychogenic illness seems to be emerging, knowledge that “can be exploited to understand illness and to find drug treatments.” ]]> Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/686 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/686 How much energy does it take to turn on a lightbulb? Way too much in the U.S., where 22% of all electricity gets channeled into illuminating homes, businesses and thoroughfares. Vladimir Bulovic wants to end the exorbitant use of power for lighting, and simultaneously brighten our lives more pleasantly, with the application of nanostructure materials called quantum dots.

Incandescent bulbs, he tells the MIT Museum audience, are hugely wasteful, with just 5% efficiency converting electricity to light. Fluorescents do the job somewhat better, and light emitting diodes better still, but these more efficient bulbs often emit colors that feel harsh to the eye. Bulovic and other researchers have been designing a fix for both the color and power conversion problems, a new kind of photo cell based on special inorganic crystals called quantum dots. The size of a human hair sliced lengthwise 5,000 times (10 nanometers), these crystals fluoresce in precise, predictable colors at different sizes: bigger chunks look red, smaller ones look blue.

Bulovic has been experimenting with nanocrystal suspensions -- applying a thin film of quantum dot solution onto a surface that can be excited by shining light or by electricity. “By tuning mixtures of quantum dots, we can make…any color of the rainbow.” New sorts of lights, and displays with “fantastic responsiveness” and true blacks are emerging from this research, along with power consumption half that of today’s LCDs and plasma screens, and the potential of reducing energy use 20 fold down the road. Some versions of photo cells could be used in laptops, and the technology has the capacity to scale up fairly quickly.

The world, well on its way to 9 billion people (many of whom still clamor for electric power), and a climate crisis, desperately needs this kind of new technology, believes Bulovic. He wonders if nanostructure materials might help with some of the hurdles engineers have encountered in scaling up solar energy solutions. For instance, the silicon used in most photovoltaics could be made more efficient by using films consisting of nanostructures that capture spectra of light that silicon can’t. While solar won’t solve the world’s energy problems alone, it figures to be one very prominent solution, and Bulovic hopes nanotechnology will help generate energy independence, “in a controlled, clean way,” helping to “uplift the world.” ]]> Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/683 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/683 The situation facing our planet could hardly be more dire: There’s increasingly dangerous competition among nations for ever scarce energy resources, and climate change is racing ahead of predictions. Although Steven Chu believes “We are getting close to where it’s very nervous time,” he also sees “reason for hope.”

Just as science in the 1970s produced a “green revolution” in agricultural productivity, preventing mass starvation in a swelling global population, Chu is counting on transformative scientific and engineering ideas to achieve sustainable energy and cap climate change.

As chief architect of new policy, and with tens of billions of dollars to pump into his vision, Chu is targeting key areas. Number one on his list: energy efficiency and conservation. Since buildings use 40% of the nation’s total energy, designing more efficient homes and offices will make a big difference. There are “tune ups” possible for existing buildings, and software that can direct lighting, heating and cooling where it’s needed that can achieve 50% plus energy savings, and won’t break the bank. Says Chu, “This is truly low-hanging fruit, but we have to build the tools that allow architects and structural engineers to get on with it.”

On the supply side, Chu has his heart set on transformative technologies such as nanotech breakthroughs in solar power. He’s looking for ways to scale up biomass fuel production, now that synthetic biology can make microbes manufacture gas-like fuels. Noting in particular the work of MIT’s Dan Nocera, Chu says he “wants to use nature as an inspiration, but go beyond nature,” performing artificial photosynthesis to create new hydrocarbons. And as the U.S. and China continue dependence on coal, figuring out how to capture and sequester carbon from these plants figures “high on the list of things we must do.” He’s again hoping researchers will find some analog to nature’s ability to grab and neutralize CO₂.

The ideal environment for jumpstarting such urgent scientific efforts, believes Chu, is something like Bell Labs, where Chu himself worked. The Labs performed “mission-driven research” around communications and for U.S. war efforts, but along the way also developed the transistor, information theory, radio astronomy, and lasers, among many examples. These scientist-led labs emphasized exchange of ideas and rapid infusion of research funds to the most promising work. This led to inventions that in turn transformed the U.S. economy. Chu envisions energy lab equivalents that “deliver the goods” along with fundamental science, “so you can have the Nobel Prize and save the world at the same time.” ]]> Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/684 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/684 There are ample opportunities for new energy entrepreneurs, these panelists agree, but motivation and certain kinds of know-how play key roles in bringing new ventures to fruition.

Idealism led Christina Lampe-Onnerud to “go into the energy space” at 23, but “inertia” surrounding the energy business may intimidate today’s entrepreneurs. Her Boston-Power company, which makes “green” lithium-ion batteries, has forged good relations with policymakers, and now hopes that these politicians will be “brave enough” to “put frameworks out 20 years.” In addition to long-term policy changes, Lampe-Onnerud is counting on a continuous influx of good scientists and engineers to drive her company forward. She encourages everyone with new ideas or the capacity to provide leadership to respond “to the biggest opportunity and threat we have.”

Jacques Beaudry-Losique warns would-be energy entrepreneurs they’re up against a highly regulated environment. An offshore wind turbine might require 39 different permits, and it can take as long as 14 years to get approval for a transmission line. Beaudry-Losique promises that government is now working “to better align interests so we can move faster bringing these solutions to the table.” Energy entrepreneurs should arm themselves with experienced staff who can navigate regulatory channels. They should also build consortia and partnerships with foundations, government and university labs, other manufacturers and buyers. The administration “is making a huge commitment to energy efficiency and smart buildings” and views wind, solar, geothermal, biofuels, as “all hot.”

Compared to entrepreneurial ventures in IT and life sciences, clean energy startups demand “more money, more time and more late stage risk,” says Matthew Nordan. Biomass or coal gasification technologies might require a billion dollars for a pilot plant, which “is a level of risk so high that …investors won’t sign that check.” Many technologies intended to solve one problem end up creating another, or encounter bottlenecks as they scale up, such as the limited supply of precious metals required for the magnets of wind turbines. Some entrepreneurs find success in unique niches, though, such as those seeking to recover waste metal byproducts of tar sand operations. But Nordan warns of a big shake up, as the recent discovery of a massive pocket of natural gas in the U.S. will make competition even steeper for new energy contenders like solar and wind.

Robert Metcalfe finds a lack of “human capital” in current energy ventures. The talented CEOs “who have started five companies” are in short supply in energy, which also haven’t widely adopted partnering as a useful model. To Metcalfe, the energy problem “looks more and more like a networking problem,” which demands a smart grid with lots of storage. This should present entrepreneurs with novel areas to explore. Large utilities may prove obstructive: “We must find ways to get around them, …either recruit them or destroy them.” He’s optimistic there will be breakthroughs in such technologies as fuel cells, and that “when we solve energy, it will be cheap and abundant, and we will use much more of it.” ]]> Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/685 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/685 Nostalgia, anxiety and optimism mix in this panel devoted to imagining what lies ahead for the book, as publishing professionals and others discuss the impact of digital technology on the business.

Small Beer Press, Gavin Grant’s boutique Massachusetts publishing company, “is still in the business of producing paper objects.” But new technologies are transforming his work in several ways: He licenses some books via Creative Commons; releases others as downloads in a variety of ebook formats (generating these can be an expensive “hassle”); and deploys social media, in the form of blogs and Facebook-enabled communication, to publicize and attract passionate readers to the firm’s website. Grant sees Amazon and its Kindle as a bully driving readers toward best sellers, and is interested in the “hyperlocal” possibilities of the web for publishing: finding readers for his one-of-a-kind publications, and inviting them to peruse his non-mainstream book lists.

Agent Jennifer Jackson describes some intriguing direct marketing activities made possible by the web, including author-produced book trailers on YouTube, and an online media project undertaken by clients and other authors: a website consisting of episodes for a fictional TV show. Jackson also maintains blogs that she hopes provide “transparency” about her end of the business, a way to bridge “the great divide” between agents and authors. Her authors are concerned with digital piracy but Jackson feels wide distribution of an author’s work ends up generating more sales over time.

Robert Miller’s frustration with the trade publishing model-- in particular, astronomical advances to authors, and book return rates of 40% -- led to HarperStudio (a Harper Collins offshoot). His notion of “starting something from scratch” involves making digital and physical books available simultaneously to the reader. His first offering is a collection of previously unpublished pieces by Mark Twain that are available as individual books, or in discounted bundles with audio books and downloadable books. He celebrates the reduction in production costs in moving to digital, but he’s wary of the small but rapidly expanding ebook market, which he anticipates will impose a “downward pressure on prices,” a loss of revenue that will negatively impact his business.

Bob Stein envisions a wholesale evolution of the essence of books, from objects to “a place where readers and sometimes authors congregate.” His Institute on the Future of the Book hosts experiments in publishing, such as one where an author essentially blogs and moderates responses around a particular subject. Readers could someday collaborate with dead authors, adding chapters to finished books, for instance. He sees ebooks as transitional: “The experiments which have to do with increasing sales of book are interesting, and will prolong publishing but won’t invent the future of how humans work together to increase our knowledge, which is what publishing used to do.” These new expressive forms won’t emerge quickly. It took 300 years after the invention of the printing before the first novel was written, he notes, but inexorably, “we’re shifting the ways humans communicate with each other.” ]]> Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/679 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/679 Measured in human suffering, and by statistics, Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) presents a formidable specter: with incidence approaching 30 million worldwide and growing rapidly, it is now the sixth leading cause of death in the US. As life expectancy lengthens, AD is anticipated to triple in prevalence over the next few decades. The disease is found in nearly 50% of people age 85 and older. Triply higher medical costs are incurred by seniors with AD. These daunting facts give urgency and weight to molecular neuroscientist Li-Huei Tsai’s research.

Tsai begins her presentation with an historical perspective of Alzheimer’s, first documented in 1901 in Germany as “strange behavioral symptoms and loss of short-term memory.” Post-mortem examination of a patient’s brain showed “the hallmark pathological lesions: amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles.” Telltale manifestations include “forgetfulness, …confusion, disorganized thinking, impaired judgment,” difficulty expressing oneself, spatial and temporal disorientation, and incapacity in daily activities. Family members must often quit jobs to provide round-the-clock care. In the advanced disease, becoming bedridden engenders chronic infections, secondary conditions, and eventual demise.

Definitive clinical diagnosis can be elusive. Imaging techniques with radioactive tracers, using a compound that selectively binds with amyloid plaques, help to identify AD. Tsai describes several cognitive tests developed by fellow MIT researchers to aid in confirming the disease. One method assesses retention of verbal facts and geometric figures. Another diagnostic tool is functional MRI, pinpointing brain areas activated upon exposure to new versus repeated scenes, a challenge for memory. Both approaches reveal notable distinctions between AD patients and control subjects.

“Currently there is no treatment that can prevent, delay or reverse Alzheimer’s Disease,” says Tsai. FDA approved drugs that act upon neurotransmitters postpone cognitive deterioration by only a few months.

Using a transgenic mouse model, Tsai’s pioneering research seeks to target compounds that can preferentially manipulate proteins to assume a desired structure. Resulting cellular differentiation into neurons could help correct deficits of AD by augmenting brain volume in specific regions, thereby enhancing learning and memory.

Just as experimental mouse subjects perform better with “environmental enrichment…by keeping them very physically engaged,” Tsai recounts that “people with higher education, more active lifestyles” benefit cognitively as they age. As to the respective contributions of genetic and environmental factors, she believes “it’s really a combination.” Though treatment for Alzheimer’s will not be solely pharmaceutical, Tsai hopes to identify chemical compounds to ameliorate the characteristic brain atrophy that robs one of vitality and dignity. ]]> Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/675 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/675 According to Tonio Buonassisi, we’re “on the cusp” of achieving a competitive technology for capturing the limitless energy of the sun. Buonassisi, in conversation with an MIT Museum audience, describes how, with the work of MIT and other researchers, photovoltaics may finally be coming into its own.

Buonassisi describes solar cells as his “life’s passion” since age 16, but scientists have been laboring somewhat longer to figure out how to convert sunlight to useful power on Earth. In 1954, Bell Labs pioneered the first solar cell. It took 12 thousand dollars’ worth of these “to run an ordinary household toaster,” says Buonassisi. In spite of a great leap forward in the 1990s, with breakthroughs around the purification of silicon crystals and large subsidies for national industries in Japan and Germany, solar energy today constitutes just 1% of total electric generation worldwide.

The process behind solar cells appears straightforward, involving the sun’s light energy (photons) exciting electrons inside some substrate; the separation of positive and negative charges; and then the collection of those charges into an external circuit. Yet scaling up this industry to compete with coal and other fossil fuels has proven daunting. Buonassisi sees several hurdles to overcome: lower materials and processing costs, improved conversion efficiencies of cells, and better manufacturing yields. He says that it takes half a square meter-sized solar panel to power a 100-watt bulb, for instance, and it would require a land area equivalent to 1/3rd the size of Nevada to convert enough sunlight to electricity for the whole U.S. In some parts of the world with intense, year-round sun, solar makes sense already, but in the cloudy, wintry northeastern U.S., huge subsidies are still required to make a go of it.

Buonassisi is still optimistic: His own group removes impurities from materials that serve as wafers for solar cells, so cells can convert photons to electrons more effectively. While technological advances in photovoltaics research have not followed Moore’s Law, Buonassisi believes that research can “kick off the constraint” on efficiency and performance. By the end of the next decade, photovoltaics may be “hitting some big potential markets, hundreds of millions of people.” ]]> Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/671 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/671 Wielding numerous analogies for his audience of MIT students, Anant Agarwal makes the case that the next generation of computers, not to mention much of the technology in everyday life, will be built with smaller, simpler parts “combined in a clever way.”

Agarwal starts with Puerto Rico’s enormous Arecibo radio telescope, 400 meters in diameter, tuned to detect extraterrestrial life. Rather than being carved from a single gigantic material, the dish consists of “a whole bunch of tiles” adjusted to create a spherical surface. In the same way, CPU designers no longer make “one big honking processor,” says Agarwal, but lots of little processing elements called tiles or cores. This engineering movement, which MIT helped spark in the 1990s, has brought about multicore processors on chips, which overcome not just the number-crunching limitations of single processors, but their power drain as well.

Agarwal uses the example of eating ice cream: You really enjoy the first few spoonfuls, but by the 30th or 40th taste, “you’re tapped out.” By illustrating the marginal value of eating one more spoonful, Agarwal tries to get at the idea that once you’ve got a big processor, “making it bigger doesn’t give you much return.” In fact, as he shows with some math and graphs, having two or more processors works much better, including burning less power. He applies Moore’s law and predicts that beyond the four or more cores on chips we now have (he’s already developed a 64-core chip), we’ll be seeing 1000 tiles per chip in the next five years or so -- assuming we can overcome three big “P” challenges. There’s the performance hurdle of getting all those multicore chips to talk to each other and to the outside world without the gridlock found on a busy city street; power efficiency, which will require rethinking CPU architecture; and a very big programming obstacle, which may involve deploying an optical broadcast medium. Crack these, and “multicore could replace all hardware in the future,” claims Agarwal. ]]> Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/670 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/670 Just as digital technology has expanded the means of producing media, so has it increased the geographic range new media may travel. Locally generated content can zip around the world in a heartbeat. But, says moderator Henry Jenkins, “as a society we’re in a contradictory state in terms of having greater access to global content than ever before, but not having developed a conceptual framework to think about it very well.” These panelists attest to an unsettled time for global media.

At a recent Bombay conference celebrating the globalization of Indian film, Aswin Punathambekar saw international heavy-hitters, including Warner, Fox Searchlight, and Disney, all attempting to shape the future of the industry. Part of Indian film is still defined by the families that started the industry in the 1930s, but the last decade or so has seen dramatic changes, including attempts at fusing with Hollywood, and perhaps more dramatic, the explosion of new distribution channels through media piracy and imitation. Bollywood now exists outside of Bombay, says Punathambekar, in Karachi, Dubai, Beirut and Nigeria. The “culture of the copy” has come to define production and circulation of film and TV programs in these outlying hubs.

Two billion people watch Latin America’s telenovelas, long serial dramas featuring outsize villains and heroes. Carolina Acosta-Alzuru provides a tour through a global business that produces 12 thousand hours every year. Different regions feature different flavors. While Mexican telenovelas are “moralistic and melodramatic,” Venezuela’s programs appear suffocated by the censorship of the Chavez regime. Multinational broadcasters compete to distribute their products (distinguishable by differently accented Spanish) all over the world. They also fail to prevent bloggers and YouTube aficionados from placing episodes on the Internet. She laments the missed opportunity of telenovelas to teach and present the world in constructive ways.

Instead of movie theaters, Malawi features “video shows,” where men only watch pirated films on DVD, says Jonathan Gray. This impoverished nation produces neither original films nor TV programs, but people flock to see video copies of 20-year-old American action movies. Village music sellers neglect native musicians to hawk Dolly Parton CDs (she’s “as big as it gets,” says Gray). Country music is huge in Malawi due to American missionaries who passed through in the ‘70s. Gray believes it’s worth studying how media circulates not just spatially, but temporally, throughout the world.

Filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako acknowledges the appetite in Africa for western media. “It is a sad situation for my country, and in a larger way for the continent, because if images are a mirror, imagine you go every night to your home bathroom, and see somebody else in front of you.” He mourns the overwhelming “reculturization” of his countrymen via telenovelas and Bollywood, which prevent an actual appreciation of other cultures, and also obstruct an interest in authentic African life, including his own films. Sissako works out of France, and when he tries getting his native Mauritanian television to show one of his films, “they ask me to pay for it.” ]]> Wed, 06 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/666 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/666 Climate change poses perhaps the premiere threat to coming generations, says Martin Madaus, but to avoid its worst impacts, we must confront the issue now. To that end, Madaus exhorts business leaders to focus immediately on building environmental sustainability into their operations, as he has begun to do at Millipore.

The challenge is figuring out how to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at safe levels while expanding economies worldwide. In practice, reconciling these objectives involves squeezing more productivity out of each ton of carbon by a factor of 10. “The good news,” says Madaus, is that “this is actually doable.” Reaching this level of “carbon productivity” entails major public/private spending, but, says Madaus, “This is certainly a good investment, particularly when you consider the mitigation cost of climate catastrophe, which would be unbelievably expensive for all of us.”

While government must play a role in establishing regulations and incentives -- especially by imposing an unpopular but essential higher carbon tax -- industries of all kinds must integrate sustainability as a business practice. Madaus offers Millipore as an example of how “being at the cutting edge of environmentalism is a good business idea.” His company has focused on changes in products and packaging, and reducing waste in energy, water and waste.

In its biotech tool research and production facilities, Millipore figured out how to upgrade boilers, generators, lighting systems, compressed air piping, and use wind energy to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by 15% since 2006. “The amazing part of this, it was so doable, because there was so much inefficiency and waste of energy.” Millipore’s return on new infrastructure investment came in less than two years.

Millipore also developed compostable bio-plastic lab devices, recycling programs for customers, and paradoxically, a disposable product (replacing a large, stainless steel vessel), which ends up saving energy and water throughout its lifecycle. Beyond innovations in product lines and operational efficiency, Madaus says he wants “to make an impact on people’s lives so their habits change.” Millipore offers incentives for employee to use hybrid vehicles and to make their homes energy efficient, and encourages staff to come forward with ideas for sustainable living. “I wish we could make energy saving and eco-efficiency really cool and interesting; today it’s still viewed as a tool, a behavior change.”

These small steps are just the start, and Madaus sees a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases as entirely feasible -- and not just at Millipore. “If anyone tells you it can’t be done because they’re growing their company, they’re full of it.” ]]> Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/665 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/665 In 1986, Hyundai’s first export to the U.S, the $4995 Excel, developed embarrassing quality problems, and the company found itself grist for late night talk shows. But John Krafcik recounts with pride Hyundai’s turnaround, from laughingstock of the American auto market back in the 1980s, to seventh best-selling brand in the U.S., and fifth largest car maker in the world.

By 1998, Hyundai’s name was so tainted in the U.S. that its market share fell to .4%, and the company was on the verge of pulling out altogether. But instead, says Krafcik, Hyundai determined to redeem itself, and win back car buyers with a focus on quality design and manufacturing, and with “America’s best warranty.” The 10 year, 100 thousand mile power train guarantee the company put in place, says Krafcik, was “an incredible clarifier for the engineering team,” forcing them to design systems for “infinite life.” Hyundai’s “top down, hierarchical management approach” proved critical, too. Chairman Chung Mong Koo combines “Bill Gates, Barack Obama and the Pope,” and “when he says we must do something, the company aligns well around that goal.” In 2001, Chung declared that Hyundai needed to beat Toyota’s quality standards in five years.

Unlike BMW’s approach of challenging the car owner, says Krafcik, the more “humble” Hyundai engineers focused on ergonomic engineering. An “obsessive customer focus” meant getting cars at early stages in the hands of real drivers, and using feedback to improve designs. Indeed, unlike Toyota, which imposes an engineering freeze at a certain point in development, Hyundai resolved to adapt to suggestions even late in the car development game: “If there’s an imperative for a late quality change, the system is adaptable to that change.” Also, Hyundai chose to design and build cars where it sells them. The result speaks for itself, say Krafcik: Hyundai’s achieved strong, consistent quality performance, rivaling the industry leaders globally.

Current challenges for the company involve developing a proprietary hybrid solution (with a novel lithium polymer battery) to achieve 35 mpg by 2015; and confronting “residual brand issues.” The economic crisis, which has reduced the world’s appetite for cars, could prove advantageous for “agile” Hyundai, believes Krafcik, which has been positioning itself prominently in the downturn, by, for instance, saturating the Super Bowl and Academy Awards with ads. Huge recent gains in “brand perception” have “Hyundai on a roll”, and Krafcik expects that the company’s persistence and passion will pay off, despite the grim times. ]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/662 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/662 The Obama campaign owes its victory not to a single charismatic candidate, but to the efforts of a disciplined and motivated organization whose roots go back to landmark movements of the 1960s. Marshall Ganz, who cut his teeth on civil rights work and with Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers, describes how the principles and practices he learned around organizing and leadership played out in the most recent presidential election.

For Ganz, our time represents the end of “40 years of wandering in the desert,” the end of “the politics of disappointment.” We’ve arrived at an extraordinary moment of rapid change -- a time of both possibility and uncertainty -- with commensurate challenges to political leaders. But Ganz’s take, after years with progressive movements, is that leadership involves “taking responsibility to enable others to achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty.” Leaders recruit, motivate and develop others, constructing a community around common interests, and building capacity from within the community. And unlike businesses, which tend to rely on rigid hierarchies, and systems and procedures, effective volunteer-based organizations must engage and enable lots of people to become innovators, adaptive in the face of uncertainty.

This kind of “civic capital” is precisely what the Obama campaign cultivated and invested in, says Ganz. Thousands of people acquired the skills and practiced “the arts of leadership necessary to self govern in democracy.” Some unique conditions made this campaign so successful, including Obama’s story of hope, which drew on a persuasive personal narrative. There was also the campaign’s strategy of developing grassroots capacity to win caucuses and close primaries; its use of the Internet to attract an army of small-scale, repeat contributors; and its capacity for “continual learning” about what was and was not working.

In the summer of 2007, Ganz served as counselor in LA’s “Camp Obama,” teaching key state organizers to share personal narratives and create compelling politics around human experience and emotion, rather than around issues. He led workshops on motivating from “a place of hopefulness,” rather than of fear, and on how to build from common ground to shared political values and commitments. Obama staffers and volunteers learned how to create mutually reliant leadership teams that could act independent of the campaign HQ; and how to amass and utilize voter information both to get out the vote, and to tap additional volunteers. A “cascade of training and leadership development” led to a massive field organization that built upon itself, where volunteers continually joined and moved up the ranks, and everyone felt “they owned a piece of it.” ]]> Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/661 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/661 The same institutional tenets guiding innovative management during good times needn’t waver during a downturn, even the present one, says Emmanuel Maceda. After two decades at Bain, one of the world’s premiere management consulting businesses, Maceda feels confident in his company’s practices and principles, which have guided both Bain and its clients through earlier economic booms and busts.

Bain constructs innovative leadership around three pillars: customers (clients), people and products, Maceda says. His company seeks a winning edge by establishing warm and lasting client relationships. At Bain, this means even top executives commit to working directly with clients, and assigning teams to the “client interface.” Clients are solicited for feedback through surveys and interviews, and come back to Bain for repeat business, finding satisfaction in its “collaborative culture,” says Maceda.

Bain’s organization has evolved around unique recruits, tapped from just seven elite business schools (including MIT Sloan). New staff are carefully trained and begin team building, which they continue throughout their careers, at all levels of the company. This costs Bain a great deal, but it’s necessary, says Maceda. The firm encourages activities that build “esprit de corps,” and touts a compensation model tied to the profitability of the firm. Bain also rewards the development of client products, whether in strategy, organization, M&A, which can be tested elsewhere then scaled up to produce new revenue.

This type of innovative leadership, says Maceda, could “apply broadly to most service-based organizations who want to make people the heart of a sustainable, competitive advantage, and to translate better products that meet clients needs better.” Such an organizational model holds true even or especially during times of crisis. “If you believe you have a strong competitive advantage, usually during times of crisis you can harness that and win.” Clients’ needs change “a bit” under economic duress. They may require help figuring out new strategies (such as cost reduction vs. aggressive growth), and seek new products in areas like cash management, and “quick hit revenue tools.”

Maceda points out significantly that in recent economic downswings Bain kept hiring, and its leadership took lower dividends, as the firm sought to retain key client and supplier partnerships. It’s not easy, but try to “nurture those relationships, even if you have to cut back in other places,” counsels Maceda. He concludes, “The fundamentals of being innovative leaders around client, people and products don’t change in a crisis.” ]]> Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/660 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/660 Bill Viola dims the lights in MIT’s Room 10-250, and begins to talk of life, death and all that lies between, leaving the realm of classroom and entering a place of potential enlightenment. Weaving together his video art, personal anecdotes, poetry and other writings from religious traditions spanning the globe and the ages, Viola illuminates his own spiritual journey and search for meaning. With a light touch, he manages to tap into reservoirs of deep feeling.

Viola imparts the vital interplay between his life experience, and the evolution of his vision. After his mother’s death, for instance, he ‘recovered’ her after finding a bowl she’d given him years earlier. Objects outlive us, Viola realized, and contain their own “spark of life.” This is true of technologically enabled things including Viola’s own video art. He admits that this medium makes him nervous. One of the world’s most dangerous weapons is the camera, whose “narrow focus, which is its strength, allows me to see inside a soul.” It can also “intentionally obscure an entire class or race.” Technology may be used to enrich or to harm, but its goal must be knowledge.

Viola recalls Buddha, who told his followers to treat his teachings like a raft, which should just be used “to get to the other side. From that point on, only an idiot would carry a boat around.” This is a good time for Buddhist ideas, suggests Viola. The world “seems like it’s deconstructing before our eyes.” Yet Viola says he’s “excited about this age. People who’ve been making money, doing stuff, must suddenly start living like artists.” He tells students they should be “very happy graduating into this emptiness,” because collapse brings opportunities for regeneration.

Viola recounts various other experiences and insights: a visit to an exhibit of Bodhisattva sculptures, which he regarded merely as ancient art, until an old lady adorned them with scarves, revering them as sacred objects; a Flemish painting of Mary that left him weeping, and made him realize that he “was using art, mourning his mother who was leaving this world.”

Only after years of training, says Viola, “could I see how my personal and professional life was not at odds, that it holds the whole edifice of the self up.” One profound expression of that interdependence is played in this talk: his 1992 Nantes Triptych, whose three ‘panels’ consist of videos of the live birth of a baby, the last moments of Viola’s mother’s life, and a clothed man drifting in an underwater pool “in currents between the poles of life.” ]]> Sun, 05 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/659 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/659 There will be a time “beyond crisis,” asserts Robert C. Merton, who delves into the dense science of derivatives -- a field he has fundamentally shaped -- to explain how the vast global economic collapse has come about, and how financial innovations at the heart of the collapse could also be tools for reconstruction.

Merton uses deceptively simple graphs to show how risk propagated rapidly across financial networks, bringing down financial institutions. While he admits the crisis “is very big and complicated,” Merton boils a piece of it down to the use of put options, a derivative contract that’s been around since the 17th century. This asset-value insurance contract, a guarantee of debt, is the basis for the credit default swaps widely adopted by financial giants in the last few years -- now widely regarded as a primary cause of the meltdown. It turns out, says Merton, that the put “makes risky debt very complicated, and treacherous…”

In these puts, if the value of assets goes down, the guarantee value goes up, so the value of the written insurance is worth more. The value of this guarantee is very sensitive to the movement of the underlying asset. When dealing with puts on the local level, this movement can be tracked and managed more easily. But when financial institutions manipulate bundles of assets (for instance, mortgage-backed securities), the increase in risk proves non-linear. Add some volatility, like the jolts posed by widespread drops in housing prices, and the difference between the decline in asset value and the value of the guarantee becomes enormous -- leading to mountains of debt and felling behemoths like AIG (insurer to lenders).

Yet, Merton counsels not to blame the current crisis on put options, or too much complexity, but rather on incomplete understanding of the models of risk involved. It’s not “bad and incompetent people” who have brought this about (although he admits there are plenty of those) but “a structural issue between financial innovation and crisis.” We’ve essentially built a high speed train for which there’s not yet an appropriate track. We’ve created instruments for manipulating financial risk without a thorough understanding of the underlying engineering.

Derivatives are not going away, says Merton. We need regulators who understand these instruments, and perhaps a sovereign wealth fund intended to “maximize the expected return for risk for people of the U.S.” Merton concludes with “something positive” -- a model of how to “weaken the tradeoff between pursuing comparative advantage vs. efficient risk,” applied to the nation of Taiwan. ]]> Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/655 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/655 The 2008 presidential campaign may have fused politics and entertainment once and for all. Three panelists and moderator Henry Jenkins discuss the nature and implications of this convergence.

To Johanna Blakley, political candidates who understand the meaning of style “can communicate volumes,” and to her eye, Barack Obama “has amazing skill.” His campaign, dubbed “brand Obama,” engaged celebrities and pop music, utilized the internet, broadcast and cable TV, and “rarely made a misstep,” says Blakley. In fact, McCain “desperately tried to make Obama look bad for being in synch with popular culture…but it ended up biting him on the ass.” Blakley also discusses her survey work with Zogby International, which creates political “typologies” of the American public not simply by asking about political affiliation but examining the intersection of political beliefs and entertainment preferences. The partisan divides among Red, Blue and Purple hold up in people’s cultural affiliations. Whatever the ideology, the “entertainment experience… always ends up leaking into real lives.”

While at the Democratic Convention, David Carr was conversing with Craigslist founder, Craig Newmark and found “a kid to my right live blogging our conversation. I thought, it doesn’t get any more meta than this.” The “miracle” of the Obama campaign, Carr believes, was how it “organized itself,” through an “adhocracy self-assigned by geography and expertise.” People picked tools provided by the campaign that suited them. Blogging, videos, and mash-ups emerged without much campaign oversight. Says Carr, it “became kind of a style thing, an expression of who you are.” People didn’t call and ask for support so much as ask, “Have you seen this video by will.i.am. --let me send it to you.” Watching Saturday Night Live and Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin became an “expression of cultural identity which became a part of political identity. “ Citizen-generated content took over this campaign, and isn’t going away for the next election cycle. But, warns Carr, this “mass niche of like minds,” can be “a tool for marketing democracy and/or fascism.”

Stephen Duncombe recalls a brilliant move by Obama after a bruising debate with Hillary Clinton: he brushed the shoulder of his suit jacket, quoting a music video by rapper Jay-Z, “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.” He instantly distanced himself from Clinton on the cultural level, and was embraced by American youth, who remixed the Obama moment, and unleashed it on the Web. To Duncombe, this moment crystallized how politicos “can start to think about popular culture in a productive way.” Pop culture is a “unique laboratory of fantasy that can be explored, understood, mobilized and actualized through political practice.” Obama succeeded by imbibing a variety of pop culture icons and ideals and said, “I’m a mixed race, latte-sipping urban guy who likes basketball and hip hop.” Duncombe says that the conflation of politics and culture need not degrade politics, if people “do it with integrity, with honor.” ]]> Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0400 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/652 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/652 Cellphone and mobile communication aficionados (not to mention the rest of us) appreciate that our favorite tech gadgets increasingly resemble props from Star Trek. A shout out then to Irwin Jacobs and Qualcomm, the company perhaps most responsible for such astonishing gear.

In his talk, Jacobs narrates his journey from MIT, as a faculty member in the early 60s, to California and his initial entrepreneurial venture, Linkabit. Jacobs and other MIT talent applied information theory to projects for NASA and JPL, including coding for deep space probes, and processor designs. Before Jacobs moved on, Linkabit had come up with the idea for satellites that enabled live data communications between headquarters and retail stores for both Wal-Mart and 7-11. The company’s designs led to the direct broadcast satellite systems for XM and Direct TV. Its digital scrambling system fed digital technology into TV transmissions.

The even bigger story for Jacobs (and the world) involves his next venture, Qualcomm (for Quality Communications), launched in 1985. This fruitful collaboration among MIT and Linkabit graduates launched the wireless telecommunications revolution. Qualcomm first gave the trucking industry OmniTRACS, a satellite-based commercial mobile system, and then dreamed up a technology for wireless and data devices -- Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) -- that has revolutionized business and personal communications.

Qualcomm made it possible for a multitude of users to share a confined spectrum space, and then for high speed data to fit comfortably alongside voice applications. There are four billion mobile subscribers around the world, says Jacobs, of which 100 million users get voice plus data. Even in these dire economic times, new subscribers are growing, and he predicts six billion subscribers by 2013.

Qualcomm’s hard at work optimizing how data and voice share transmissions, making new applications possible (and affordable) worldwide. The goal: wireless broadband connectivity for all, and to each his or her own Smartphone or Kindle. As cellphones proliferate and merge with mobile computing, we’ll be able to keep tabs on each other via GPS, says Jacobs. He believes phones “will quickly replace credit cards, even replace money.” He sees particular opportunities in telemedicine, where phones armed with sensors can transmit patient information to specialists in hospitals, who then zip back treatment recommendations. Jacobs takes pride in Qualcomm’s efforts to leverage wireless cellphone tech for social benefits: helping Indonesian women in business ventures; bringing farmers and fishermen a way of determining market prices for their goods without a middle man; and bringing in 3G phones for kids without computer capability in China. ]]> Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/646 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/646 Inspired by the vast potential of bioengineering, ordinary people are seeking their inner Frankenstein -- doctor, not monster. Two speakers who know their way around Petri dish and beaker discuss the possibilities and pitfalls of do-it-yourself biology with an MIT Museum crowd.

Showing ads from a 1980 Omni magazine, Natalie Kuldell reflects on the vast changes in computer engineering in the past few decades – from 20-lb PCs to laptops and handhelds. In contrast, she laments, genetic engineering today still resembles in large part its 1980 antecedents -- inserting bits of DNA into organisms like E. coli. She avers that computer engineering made such leaps because its technology was widely available to amateurs, who helped drive many advances. Biotech hasn’t moved as fast, and won’t, believes a nascent do-it-yourself (DIY) community, until basic components of biology become accessible to a larger population.

Synthetic biology aims to make new biological forms easier to engineer. Kuldell complains that “much of my time is spent doing things to do the experiments I need to do. It would be terrific not to have to build things in advance.” But building biological components and streamlining processes is difficult in biology, because biosystems are complex, and unpredictable. Can amateurs working with “Tupperware, thermometers and genetic engineering in the kitchen” discover “something remarkable doing their biology at home?”

Reshma Shetty thinks engineered organisms can do more than sense toxic metals in the environment or determine whether seawater is contaminated. She can “imagine a DIY bioengineer…doing something more fantastical, ambitious…. What about growing your own house?” Shetty describes a home experiment that can make bacteria smell like bananas. This is a small feat, but to achieve something significant, a real contribution to science, Shetty says DIY biologists need bio-engineered friendly organisms that will serve as common models, safe, easy to grow “and fun to use.” Candidates include moss, an easy to grow bacterium called Acinetobacter, and the salt-loving Halobacterium. By giving people the right tools, “they can build something fun and creative others can appreciate.” ]]> Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/643 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/643 W.L. Gore’s products alone, such as the eponymous GORE-TEX® water- and windproof fabrics, and a multitude of unique medical, electronic and industrial materials, might seem to assure the company’s success. But Terri Kelly attributes the 50-year-old company’s achievements not just to engineering prowess, but to its singular culture.

This privately held company, with $2.5 billion in revenue and 8500 staff worldwide, began as an electronics company in Bill and Vieve Gore’s basement. In 1969, their son, Bob, discovered a polymer that was strong, chemically inert, biocompatible and water repellant, with nearly infinite applications. But as Kelly recounts, the Gore family determined not just to develop technology but to grow their company around a set of fundamental beliefs. This philosophy underlies Gore’s flow of innovations and sterling business results, says Kelly.

Gore encourages belief in the individual, organization around small teams, recognition that people are in the same boat, and that all must “take the long view.” Bill Gore “hated policy manuals and bureaucratic ways of telling the organization what to do,” says Kelly. In practice, this means, among other things, that employees are equals (associates), who decide what projects to work on based on “their passion,” says Kelly. The company discourages plants with more than 250 associates, to promote intimate communication and team work, and though others “look at this as an unbelievable expense, we see this as a catalyst of growth,” says Kelly.

At Gore, new hiring can last for months, because teams conduct interviews; and “everyone has dabble time.” Rather than encourage chaos, these methods lead to discipline, insists Kelly, leveraging the strengths of Gore’s core technology. The discretion to explore “is earned over time,” and associates commit to the success of a product. They are empowered to experiment, and not punished for failing. Compensation is determined by peer review, and is based on contribution to projects.

Kelly is one of the few individuals at Gore with an actual title; leaders emerge by expressing a vision in clear enough terms to inspire others to follow. Leaders must also do a lot of explaining about decisions and actions. All this talk might seem an encumbrance, but upfront work makes complex projects run much more smoothly, assures Kelly. She says the key question is, “Do people like to be part of something greater than their individual contribution? If they get that part right, all other pieces fall into place, which helps us create an innovation cycle at Gore.”

]]> Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/642 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/642 Imagine a response to oil dependence and climate change that offers people around the world a new and improved version of the car, premised on redesigning infrastructure top to bottom with green technology in a way that recharges ailing national economies. Applying both an entrepreneurial spirit and a systems engineering approach, Shai Agassi has devised just such a visionary plan for cracking these vexing global challenges.

A recent World Economic Forum asked participants how to make the world a better place by 2020. Agassi felt an engineer’s compulsion to respond. He describes a process “like a fractal problem…opening up a cascade of questions.” First came the notion of running a country without oil. He seized on, then dismissed, the idea of bio- and hydrogen-based fuels. He then experienced the seminal insight that “you need to go down from molecules to electrons if you want to change the world.”

This realization meant addressing both economic and engineering problems. He’d need to offer consumers not a vehicle limited to two seats, three wheels and 28 mph speeds -- but one that could go faster than gas cars, with all the requisite bells and whistles. To move his plan along, he also determined to use available electric car battery engineering. This raised significant issues of convenience: where to recharge and how frequently. Agassi envisioned charging docks in parking lots and home garages. He devised a simple battery replacement method.

Then came the issue of affordability, which Agassi solved by applying a familiar business model, though not one associated with cars: cell phone minutes. Sell consumers an electric car with a subscription for miles: the longer the subscription, the greater the discount (or rebate check). In Europe, Agassi notes, where gas costs $7 to $8 a gallon, a five-year subscription pretty much gets you “a free electric car.”

The model’s complexity and infrastructure requirements imply government backing, which Agassi has already secured. In Denmark there’s a 180% tax on gasoline, and gas-powered sedans costs 60 thousand euros while electrics go for 20 thousand. North Sea windmills will provide clean electricity for charge stations. Israel’s building a desert solar field to “drive every car,” and a smart grid to monitor battery charging. The U.S. is hosting pilot programs in Hawaii and the Bay Area.

His is not a plan to phase in gradually: The time is now, he says. “We must do the right, moral thing,” to contend with climate change and brutal oil regimes, and “to create the biggest expansion in U.S. history.” ]]> Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/638 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/638 New technology may have permanently changed U.S. politics and campaigning. These panelists, who have both observed and driven this change, attest to how truly transformative the 2008 presidential election turned out to be.

Four million more 18-29 year olds voted in 2008 than in 2004, says Ian Rowe, and nearly 70% of these voted for Obama. Rowe’s convinced this enormous leap in voters, and their sharp preference for one candidate, “is due to the use of new media.” He credits the Obama campaign’s extraordinary mastery of both message and delivery, citing a “centralized and decentralized process; the idea that everyone had part-ownership of the brand.” The campaign reached young people via cellphone, Twitter, and Facebook. He notes Obama’s website, FighttheSmears.com, which battled scurrilous internet rumors. Users “became an ally to preserve and protect his brand,” says Rowe. But none of this would have been effective if Obama had not purveyed such a “phenomenal and consistent message,” which involved drawing on his audience for ideas and direction. This represents “a new kind of governance about bringing you into the process.”

Marc Ambinder believes that the 2004 and 2008 campaigns were successful because “they both managed to use tried and tested old media marketing techniques and merge them with technology.” While lagging in resources and technique four years ago, the Democrats this time round were fueled by Obama’s massive $630 million war-chest. The end result was an email database of around 10 million people, which they put to use in social networks like Facebook. Ambinder also recalls a fascinating effort using old and new media in South Carolina, where the Obama campaign worried about gaining votes among older African- American women. Campaign staff recorded some of Michelle Obama’s speeches on the subject, and sent volunteers with DVDs and VHS tapes of her talks to beauty parlors. “Volunteers spent tens of thousands of hours…loosening resistance.” Then when polls opened, data warehouses on some of these voters allowed campaigners to determine who hadn’t yet voted, and target them with phone calls and offers of a ride.

GOP technology guru Cyrus Krohn finds the amount of information his party has on voters kind of scary. He describes how third party data mining groups helped the Republican National Committee match information from a voter file with a voter’s “public profile on a social network.” This proved a “goldmine” for targeting purposes. But “technology is a commodity,” says Krohn, and “it’s the cachet and persona of a candidate that will drive the use of it.” Krohn was “daunted by the amount of user-generated content…in support of Obama.” The piece of media that created the most buzz around McCain was the video “McCain Girls,” which turned out to be the product of the liberal Huffington Post. Such is the impact of technology that Krohn has found himself helping every RNC division think about how to deploy it. Anyone looking for campaign work should be proficient in C++ and Java, recommends Krohn. ]]> Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/636 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/636 In his unassuming way, Craig Newmark believes his eponymous website might just help nudge people toward greater civic engagement. While Craigslist.org “is a simple platform where people help each other out,” focusing on everyday needs like getting a job or an apartment, it is also a profoundly collaborative venture, with political potential.

Newmark outlines the Craigslist success story, which began as a hobby for him in the early 1990s. Newmark quickly detected the Internet’s social networking possibilities, and built an email list for friends “to get the word out on cool events, arts and technology.” He developed an instant fan base, with people suggesting new items to add to the list like “stuff to sell,” and he soon felt encouraged to expand. His name for the site was “SF Events,” but friends nixed that title, infinitely preferring their own version: “Craig’s List.” Says Newmark, “I had a brand already, and it was personal and quirky. I didn’t know what a brand was at that point, but I learned and they were right.”

By the end of 1997, the site was receiving one million page views per month, but was still being run on a volunteer basis. Newmark was doing software and customer service, and recognized he could not also provide strong leadership. As a self-professed nerd who “lived the Dilbert life,” Newmark grasped that his hobby had grown too big to manage on his own, so in 2000, after having formally incorporated, he hired a CEO, and threw himself into customer service, corporate governance, and staying on top of technological innovations that could enhance the website. Craigslist is now approaching 13 billion page views per month.

Through this explosive growth, Newmark has remained true to his business values: “We can do well as a company financially by doing good stuff for people.” He has no plans to sell Craigslist. “There’s nothing altruistic, noble or pious about it. We figure once we make enough money to live comfortably and provide for the future…it’s more satisfying to change things.” He’s been involved for years “with a guy named Barack” and views himself as a “community meta organizer,” using the internet to allow face to face communication on a scale of tens of millions. Some prominent interests: using social networking to spark volunteer national service; making government more transparent; shining a light on campaign financing, and helping out returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets and their families. ]]> Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/634 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/634 Contemporary science has done a great disservice to Sigmund Freud, suggests Sherry Turkle, who believes the psychoanalytic tradition can teach us much about the often concealed connections between physical objects and our thoughts and feelings. On the occasion of the publication of her latest book, The Inner History of Devices -- the third in a trilogy -- Turkle speaks of the importance of technology as a subjective tool, as a window into the soul.

When she first arrived at MIT, Turkle relates, colleagues viewed devices like their computers as simply instruments for accomplishing work. Turkle set out on her life’s work to demonstrate that technology serves a much greater purpose in our lives. People turn their devices “into beings, which they animate, anthropomorphize.” Her research and writing involves the ways people invest themselves in physical objects, and how those objects “inflect inner life, relationships, carry ideas, sensibilities and memory.”

Turkle’s latest work, as she describes it, brings together the artful listening of a memoirist, the interpretive skills of a clinician, and the participant observational skills of an ethnographer. Together, these enable her to dig deep into such questions as how cellphones can change people’s sensibilities, what is intimacy without privacy (e.g., texting and Second Life); and how people are starting to add robots as companions to their lives. There is no doubt that technology is “changing our hearts and minds,” and that people increasingly attach “to the inanimate without prejudice.” Whether online or with robotic creatures, “we are lost in cyber intimacies and solitudes, and we often don’t know if we’ve been alone, together, close or distant.”

Turkle reads snippets from her three books, which, as an ensemble, tell the story of the intellectual and emotional links between objects and ourselves. Technology, she says, serves as a Rorschach for personal, political and social concerns, carrying ideas, expressing individual differences in style. It also “acts as a foil we use to figure out what it means to be human,” crystallizing memory and identity and provoking new thought. For instance, kids have at least seven radically different styles of using Legos, she says, which allow us “to see who the child is.” “For too long we have stressed … that technology has affordances that constrain its use. I take it from the other side: how do different personalities, cognitive styles and desires take a technology and turn it into what that person wants to know and express.” ]]> Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/631 http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/631 Much like our divided country, each side of this debate strains to comprehend the perspective of the other, together reaching no consensus on the fate of the Electoral College. In what feels like a constitutional law and political science scrimmage, participants lob questions and spark exchanges. What follows is a short list of discussion themes:

Judith Best wonders how a movement currently pursuing a nationwide popular vote outside of a Constitutional amendment can accomplish its goal without usurping Constitutional process. Robert Bennett responds that advocates believe they are neither overturning the Constitutional system nor encroaching on the prerogatives of federal government. Alexander Belenky asks what benefits popular vote proponents think it will bring. Alexander Keyssar asks in return, “Why shouldn’t people … have the ultimate voice in deciding what their political institutions look like?”

Robert Hardaway worries about implementation of the direct national election. John Fortier notes possible problems among states over differing voting standards (e.g., polling hours, or mail-in ballots). Akhil Amar adds, “Who votes and who doesn’t? Is it fair if one state allows 16-year-olds and another 18-year-olds? Is it equal if one state lets you vote for three months and another lets you vote for three hours? These are real issues, but in the end don’t scare me away.”

Is a national popular vote doomed due to inertia and the preference of political parties for the Electoral College? Bennett imagines opposition might wither if a modest version of a nationwide vote emerged. Akhil Amar believes if both parties feel “bitten in the back” by the EC system, they’ll say “let’s move.” Vikram Amar says unlike other ideas for constitutional amendments (such as for a balanced budget or school prayer), a popular vote has “potential for traction,” since it involves improving democracy.

Best thinks proponents of popular election “have their priorities wrong and should go after the Senate first.” Vikram Amar agrees that the Senate is anachronistic, part of the original deal “to get the Constitution done” but Akhil Amar states there are “perfectly sound reasons for wanting to change the presidency and selection mechanism that do not require rethinking the Senate.”

Belenky wonders if it’s good for the country if we elect a president by a thin plurality who has lost the popular vote in every state. Keyssar retorts “that for any conceivable electoral system the rest of people here…can think of a disastrous counter example.” Best insists that “as thinkers, we must be careful to not confuse end and means: the goal of an election is to produce a president who can govern this nation.”

Concludes Akhil Amar, “Many arguments invoked against popular elections are actually red herrings, which might be sufficient to persuade people to stick with what we’ve got now.” Says Bennett, “I don’t think there’s any doubt, if we go to a national popular vote … there might be unexpected consequences …but the notion that it will be somehow fatal is an over-dramatization of a point.” ]]>