Computer science and technology

Improving recommendation systemsResearchers believe that comparing products, rather than rating them on an absolute scale, will lead to algorithms that better predict customers’ preferences.

Health care of the futureThe Clinical Decision Making Group looks to advance health care by applying natural-language processing techniques to make better sense of medical records.

Agarwal named CSAIL directorSucceeds Zue to lead the Institute’s largest interdisciplinary lab

Chandrakasan named head of electrical engineering and computer scienceSucceeds Grimson as leader of MIT's largest academic department

Protecting medical implants from attackA new system would jam wireless signals sent to medical implants by unauthorized users.

Faster computer graphicsDigitally mimicking the photographic blur caused by moving objects is surprisingly hard, but new research offers ways to make it easier.

Inside the infant mindNew study shows that babies can perform sophisticated analyses of how the physical world should behave.

Honing household helpersMIT computer scientists work toward improving robots’ ability to plan and perform complex actions, domestically and elsewhere.

What makes an image memorable?Hint: We tend to remember pictures of people much better than wide open spaces.

Origami: Not just for paper anymoreDNA, folded into complex shapes, could have a big impact on nanotechnology.

Energy Initiative announces new seed grant awardsMore than $2 million awarded to 14 projects

Information AgeAs part of MIT’s 150th-birthday celebration, computer science luminaries — many from MIT's faculty — gathered on campus for a two-day symposium.

Flying like the birdsMultidisciplinary university research initiative, led by a CSAIL researcher, is developing a bird-sized UAV.

Kaashoek wins ACM’s prize for young researchersThe professor of computer science, 45, is only the fourth recipient of the prize from the Association for Computing Machinery.

Understanding proteinsNew model of protein folding helps researchers handle flood of genomic data

Dueling algorithmsIf software companies design their algorithms with the sole intention of outperforming each other, the customer can be the loser.

The big picture on energy lossMIT system, tested in Cambridge, gives comprehensive view of energy inefficiency across large areas.

The birth of electrical engineeringThe creation of the first electrical-engineering curriculum may have said as much about MIT’s educational philosophy as it did about the pace of innovation.

Four professors named MacVicar fellowsSanyal, Schuh, Verghese and Winston honored for undergraduate teaching excellence

The quantum singularityA new experiment would use quantum effects to perform otherwise intractable calculations, but conducting it should be easier than building a quantum computer.

The next operating systemOperating systems for multicore chips will need more information about their own performance — and more resources for addressing whatever problems arise.

Designing the hardwareImproving communication between distributed processors and managing shared data are two of the central challenges in creating tomorrow’s chips.

Rivest unlocks cryptography's past, looks toward futurePublic-key system has worked and made Internet commerce feasible, but new systems are ready in case flaws are found.

Professor Eric Grimson named next chancellorCurrent head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science to succeed Phillip L. Clay.

Kenneth Olsen, MIT Corporation life member emeritus, dies at 84Institute alum, computer pioneer was co-founder of Digital Equipment Corp.

Boning to serve as director of the MIT Masdar ProgramProfessor, associate head of EECS succeeds Moavenzadeh as head of the program.

Turning reviews into ratingsA new system automatically combs through online reviews to provide recommendations according to unusual criteria.

Five from MIT elected fellows of the American Physical Society

Collective memoryAn MIT project provides a way to preserve information in constantly changing networks, without resorting to a shared server.