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asl
Advancing justice in Earth's complex systems using designs enabled by space
By establishing correlations between sleep parameters and wellbeing indicators, our project hopes to further understanding of fluctuations …
Augmenting and mediating human experience, interaction, and perception with sensor networks
Designing, prototyping, and building the artifacts of our sci-fi space future
Converting the patterns of nature and the human body into beneficial signals and energy
Designing Systems for Cognitive Support
Johnson, K.T., Ferguson, C.S., Picard, R.W., "Multi-SPRING: Facilitating Social Interaction through a Customizable, Multimodal Learning Platform," International Society for Autism Research (INSAR), Rotterdam, Netherlands, May 2018.
Hernandez J., McDuff D., Quigley K., Maes P., and Picard R., "Wearable Motion-based Heart-rate at Rest: A Workplace Evaluation," Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, 2018.
For those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), the ability to understand, name, or recognize the sensations signifying different emotional …
Advancing human wellbeing by developing new ways to communicate, understand, and respond to emotion
Exploring how social networks can influence our lives in business, health, governance, and technology adoption and diffusion
We're living in an aging society with cognitive loss placing stress on caregivers to monitor older adults struggling with memory decline.&n…
Congratulations to the FibeRobo project for receiving four honorable mentions!
Looking beyond smart cities
The Space Exploration Initiative charters an annual ZERO-G parabolic flight for 10-15 projects and 25 researchers across MIT Media Lab, sev…
The Space Exploration Initiative supports research across and beyond MIT in two microgravity flights this spring.
T² Tool Kit: A Tangible Telepresence (T²) Concept Framework aiming at Future Human Diaspora
Enhancing human physical capability
Building intelligent personified technologies that collaborate with people to help them learn, thrive, and flourish.
Decentralized Society | Architecting the new internet for the good of the people
People have to remember an ever-expanding volume of information. To help with this, we developed Memoro, a wearable and audio-based person…
Wazeer Deen Zulfikar, Samantha Chan, and Pattie Maes. 2024. Memoro: Using Large Language Models to Realize a Concise Interface for Real-Time Memory Augmentation. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 450, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642450
Life with AI | Designing the future of smart systems to improve the human experience
Ultrasound-induced transdermal drug delivery (sonophoresis) has long lingered in the by-lanes of academic and industrial research, and has …
MeMicWearables that record audio all the time pose privacy concerns. We want to allow the myriad use cases these wearables allow without th…
FibeRobo is a novel body-temperature shape-changing fiber based on liquid crystal elastomers. The development of a new fabrication techniqu…
For the MIT Visiting Artist Chloé Bensahel, who has collaborated with the Media Lab's Future Sketches group, fabric itself tells the story.
Connected Mind + Body | Revolutionizing the future of mental and physical wellbeing
Exploring the essence of code as a creative medium
The SNAPSHOT study seeks to measure Sleep, Networks, Affect, Performance, Stress, and Health using Objective Techniques. It is an NIH-funde…
Find out more about the new version of the system, "The Thinking Cap 2.0" here.Peoples' mindsets, meaning their beliefs about their own int…
“Us” aims to help people develop their sense of empathy. It uses machine learning to analyze interlocutors’ signals (e.g., choice of words,…
We build technologies that interface with the sleeping mind. We track different sleep-stages using brain activity, muscle tensio…
Future Worlds | Design and action for the future we want to live in
By Rachel BellisleOverview:The Gravity Loading Countermeasure Skinsuit (GLCS or “Skinsuit”) is an intravehicular activity suit for astronau…
Researchers in the Affective Computing group have been invited to edit a series of articles in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Invent new tangible and embodied interactions that inspire and engage people
AbstractDevices that facilitate nonverbal communication typically require high computational loads or have rigid and bulky form factors&nbs…
HelioZZZ is an opacity changing eye mask that wakes you up with natural sunlight when you want it. The mask warms your eyes to help you fal…
Researchers from the Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces group and Harvard Medical School find that brief naps appear to enhance creativity.
In a new study, researchers from the Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces group & Harvard Medical School find that brief naps can enhance creativity
Media Lab postdoc Adam Haar Horowitz discusses using “dream engineering” techniques to give people more control over their dreams.
SleepStim is a framework for automatically recording sleep physiology and presenting sensory stimuli in sleep, using consumer smartph…
Cocoon is our vision of a programmable dream machine from the future. This device would be enabled by the synthesis of many devices under d…
Human-computer interaction (HCI) has traditionally focused on designing and investigating interfaces that provide explicit visual, auditory…
Targeted dream incubation (TDI) is a methodology for guiding (or “incubating”) dreams towards specific themes. Please read the FAQ below to…
InspirationSleep is a forgotten country of the mind. A vast majority of our technologies are built for our waking state, even though a thir…
The FibeRobo project won gold in the Textile & Materials / New Technology Fabrics category.
Extending expression, learning, and health through innovations in musical composition, performance, and participation
Media Lab PhD student Irmandy Wicaksono talks about incorporating his research on interactive textiles into the Living Knitwork Pavilion.
We introduce SkinBot: a lightweight robot that moves over the skin's surface with a two-legged suction-based locomotion mechanism and captu…
The environmental conditions of prolonged spaceflight pose significant psychological risks for astronauts. In particular, crews of future …
Cultivating Creativity | Catalyzing a global movement enabling everyone to unlock and unleash their individual and collective creativity
When materials sciences meet HCI and e-textiles, for custom sensors and actuatorsIn this project we explore the process of polymerization t…
Living in space could have significant physical and mental impacts on astronauts. Wearables have the potential to play a critical role in m…
Augmental co-founders have been recognized in the Social Impact category of the 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Developed by a multidisciplinary team led by Media Lab student Jack Forman, FibeRobo is a low-cost, programmable, shape-shifting fiber.
Media Lab spinoff Augmental was recognized for their work on the MouthPad^, a smart oral splint.
Rosalind Picard’s unique technology is revolutionizing digital health.
Media Lab alum Steve Mann, known as “the father of wearable computing,” talks to the MIT Alumni Association about his approach to new tech.
The Space Enabled Research Group is exploring the potential of using beeswax and candle wax as potential fuels for satellites in space. Bee…
One of the highlighted projects merging technology with the beauty and craftsmanship of fine arts, the Living Knitwork Pavilion recently re…
There are currently UROP openings for this project. AttentivU is a device, in the form factor of a pair of gla…
From sci-fi to the real world: DuoSkin's temporary tattoos turn your body into an interface.
OmniFiber is a reconfigurable fiber technology for movement-based interactions based on thin fluidic fiber actuators with closed-loop strai…
CyberBiome is a programmable bio-digital organ, a wearable biosynthesis platform for personalized, on-demand production of therapeutics and…
Learn about the Living Knitwork Pavilion: an interactive architectural installation that combined textile arts + engineering at Burning Man.