Research
Fluid Interfaces

Designing Systems for Cognitive Support
Research
Tangible Media

Invent new tangible and embodied interactions that inspire and engage people
Project Research

Humanizing Agent-Based Models (h - ABM)

Humanizing Agent-Based Models (h-ABM) emerges as a pioneering technique to simulate real-world behaviors, aiming to seamlessly bridge …
Research
Media Lab Research Theme: Future Worlds

Future Worlds | Design and action for the future we want to live in
Research
Viral Communications

People and intelligent machines in a creative, symbiotic loop
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Media Lab Research Theme: Cultivating Creativity

Cultivating Creativity | Catalyzing a global movement enabling everyone to unlock and unleash their individual and collective creativity
Research
Personal Robots

Building intelligent personified technologies that collaborate with people to help them learn, thrive, and flourish.
Project Research

Earth Mission Control (EMC)

A Virtual Platform for Bridging the Climate Science Communication GapEarth Mission Control (EMC) - is an immersive visualization platform f…
Research
Space Exploration Initiative

Space Exploration Initiative
Research
Signal Kinetics

Inventing, building, and deploying wireless sensor technologies to address complex problems in society, industry, and ecology
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Responsive Environments

Augmenting and mediating human experience, interaction, and perception with sensor networks
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Media Lab Research Theme: Connected Mind + Body

Connected Mind + Body | Revolutionizing the future of mental and physical wellbeing
Research
Opera of the Future

Extending expression, learning, and health through innovations in musical composition, performance, and participation
Article Research

Curiosity Unbounded Episode 4: Build your own superpower, then share it with the world

On Curiosity Unbounded, Professor Fadel Adib, head of the Signal Kinetics group, talks to MIT President Sally Kornbluth about his work.
Article Research

How x-ray vision is becoming a reality

Tara Boroushaki, a PhD student in the Signal Kinetics group, explains how she's combined AR and wireless signals to find hidden objects.
Research
Media Lab Research Theme: Life with AI

Life with AI | Designing the future of smart systems to improve the human experience
Article Research

Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen: Curing cancer and human telepathy

Media Lab alum and former professor Mary Lou Jepsen talks to Danielle Newnham about her journey and inspirations.
Archived
Project Research

Interplanetary Gastronomy

The  Interplanetary Gastronomy research  aims to address the unique challenges and opportunities associated with eating in s…
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Tasting Menu in Zero G

 A multi-course tasting menu was flown on a zero gravity flight in August 2019.  Five specially crafted dishes were consumed…
Archived
Archived
Project Research

Molecular Gastronomy in Zero G

A molecular gastronomy experiment was flown on a zero gravity flight in August 2019, using spherification techniques to create recipes in z…
Archived
Project Research

Mental Machine: Labour in the Self Economy

​Mental Machine: Labour in the Self Economy, 2022, is a live performance by Kawita Vatanajyankur made in collaboration with Pat Patara…
Project Research

Battery-free wireless underwater camera

More than 95% of the ocean has never been observed by humans, even though the ocean plays the largest role in the world's climate system, h…
Project Research

Augmented Reality with X-Ray Vision

X-AR is an augmented reality (AR) system that gives humans "X-Ray Vision" X-AR is a new AR headset that enables users to see things th…
Project Research

Deep Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous UAVs (AUAVs)

Many tasks are not easily defined and/or too complex for supervised machine learning approaches. For these reasons, a technique known as&nb…
Project Research

Domain Randomization & Synthetic Data Generation for AUAVs - Reducing Perceptual Uncertainty of Sim2Real Navigation

Navigation for autonomous UAVS (unmanned aerial vehicles) is a complex problem and physical field testing of associated tasks introduces a …
Project Research

Fiducial Marker-Based Navigation for Autonomous UAVs (AUAVs)

Depending on the operational environment of an autonomous system, a great deal of perceptual uncertainty may be introduced to an object det…
Project Research

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Pilot Simulator

With the advent of real-time photorealism (RTPR), virtual environments are now able to achieve higher degrees of engagement than ever befor…
Project Research

Oceans Internet of Things

Our Oceans IoT technologies enable new applications in climate and ecological monitoring, aquaculture, energy, and robotic navigation. …
Article Research

Virtual reality system lets you stop and smell the roses

Media Lab alum Judith Amores talks to Scientific American about a lightweight, wireless interface to deliver scents to VR users.
Article Research

New research from the Signal Kinetics research group is featured on "Science Without the Gobbledygook"

Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder discusses X-AR, the new research from the Media Lab’s Signal Kinetics group.
Article Research

MIT researchers develop augmented reality headset to help users see hidden objects

Using augmented reality, the X-AR system developed by the Signal Kinetics research group can guide users to find hidden objects.
Project Research

Towards a Congruent Hybrid Reality without Experiential Artifacts

​Situated VR: Towards a Congruent Hybrid RealityThe vision of Extended Reality (XR) systems is living in a hybrid reality or "Metaverse" wh…
Archived
Project Research

Essence Wearables: Biometric Olfactory Interfaces for Day and Night

Human-computer interaction (HCI) has traditionally focused on designing and investigating interfaces that provide explicit visual, auditory…
Archived
Publication Research

Adaptive Virtual Neuroarchitecture

Jain, A., Maes, P., Sra, M. (2023). Adaptive Virtual Neuroarchitecture. In: Simeone, A., Weyers, B., Bialkova, S., Lindeman, R.W. (eds) Everyday Virtual and Augmented Reality. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05804-2_9
Article Research

Augmented reality headset enables users to see hidden objects

The device could help workers locate objects for fulfilling e-commerce orders or identify parts for assembling products.
Archived
Research
Collective Learning

Transforming data into knowledge
Article Research

The One Earth Model: Geographic interoperability in the real-world metaverse

Michael Naimark considers the potential of the "real-world metaverse," which combines virtual experiences with specific physical places.
Article Research

Unveiling the Invisible

Tamiko Thiel, an innovator in VR/AR who studied computer graphics and visual imaging, talks about her work and her career.
Article Research

Brelyon secures $15 million for Ultra Reality immersive technology

Media Lab spinoff Brelyon has raised $15 million in Series A financing to accelerate development of headset-free immersive displays.
Archived
Research
ML Learning

ML Learning
Archived
Research
Open Ocean

Open Ocean
Archived
Research
Object-Based Media

Changing storytelling, communication, and everyday life through sensing, understanding, and new interface technologies
Archived
Project Research

Bird: a 3D Cursor for 3D Interaction in Virtual Reality

Bird is a hand-controlled pointing system that translates a user's finger movements and positions into the motion of a 3D pointer in a virt…
Archived
Archived
Project Research

PhysioHMD

Virtual and augmented reality headsets are unique as they have access to our facial area, an area that presents an excellent opportunity fo…
Archived
Archived
Project Research

EmotionalBeasts

With advances in virtual reality (VR) and physiological sensing technology, even more immersive computer-mediated communication through lif…
Archived
Publication Research

Body-Borne Reality: Risky Disembodiment in VR
Article Research

AI-generated characters are here, they’re just not evenly distributed

The Fluid Interfaces group + NTT DATA hosted Virtual Beings + Being Virtual, a workshop exploring positive uses of AI-generated characters
Post Research

Hacking Reality

XR technology is becoming increasingly important in a world where the need to know intersects with the need to experience.
Project Research

Living Observatory: Sensor networks for documenting and experiencing ecology

Living Observatory is an initiative for documenting and interpreting ecological change that will allow people, individually and collectivel…
Project Research

E-maki: XR-enabled Scroll for Interactive Museum Artifacts

E-maki is a collection of ancient, painted scrolls accompanied by a cross-reality app that give contextual information and interactive expe…
Project Research

The Interplanetary Cookbook

The Interplanetary Cookbook, developed by Maggie Coblentz, presents thought-provoking recipes and zero-g kitchenware for the future of life…
Publication Research

Increasing Embodiment for Desktop-Based Participants in Mixed Desktop and Immersive Collaborative Virtual Environments

Simonson, Aubrey and Pattie Maes. “Increasing Embodiment for Desktop-Based Participants in Mixed Desktop and Immersive Collaborative Virtual Environments.” (May 7, 2020).
Article Research

What’s it like to design a meal that floats?

Taking a taste of the sensory research of Space Exploration Initiative’s Maggie Coblentz
Project Research

Battery-Free Underwater GPS

Can we build a battery-free underwater GPS? While underwater localization is a long-studied problem,  we seek to bring it to batt…
Project Research

Deep Reality: An underwater VR experience to promote relaxation by unconscious HR, EDA, and brain activity biofeedback

We present an interactive virtual reality (VR) experience that uses biometric information for reflection and relaxation. We monit…
Architecture Machine Group
Archived
Article Research

Bringing the benefits of in-person collaboration to the virtual world

The startup Spatial uses an augmented reality platform to make people feel like they’re working side by side.
Archived
Project Research

LUI: Large User Interface with Gesture and Voice Feedback

LUI is a scalable, multimodal web-interface that uses a custom framework of nondiscrete, free-handed gestures and voice to control modular …
Archived
Article Research

The artist-engineer in VR

At Sundance New Frontiers 2020, Xin Liu and Qinya (Jenny) Guo debuted Living Distance, a VR piece about the journey of Liu’s wisdom tooth.
Article Research

A holographic meeting platform for collaborating from anywhere

"There's got to be a better way to share space and work together remotely—but computers or phones may not be the right tools."
Project Research

The Blank Canvas

The Blank Canvas directs immersion inwards using virtual reality, augmenting awareness of the microscopic worlds inside each of us and the …
Project Research

Moments

Moments is a prototype designed for users to save special moments and to experience those moments in the future. Firstly, a multi-sens…
Project Research

BaguaMarsh

This project takes the idea of the unity between heaven and man of the ancient Chinese philosophy I ching (Book of Changes), combines …
Project Research

Loops

"Loops" combines the work of the Lab's Synthetic Characters group, Merce Cunningham, and digital artists Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar. A …
Archived
Article Research

Merce Cunningham lives on in motion capture experience at Jacob's Pillow

Marc Downie, Paul Kaiser, and Shelley Eshkar collaborated on Loops, an exploration of Merce Cunningham's life and work.
Archived
Research
Advancing Wellbeing

Advancing Wellbeing