Computer science and technology

Aircraft engineered with failure in mind may last longerNew design approach tailors planes to fly in the face of likely failures.

System improves automated monitoring of security camerasNew approach uses mathematics to reach a compromise between accuracy, speed.

MIT, Intel unveil new initiatives addressing ‘big data’An Intel research center based at MIT will be the cornerstone of a new research project dubbed ‘bigdata@CSAIL.’

Daskalakis wins Microsoft Faculty Fellowship

L. Rafael Reif selected as MIT’s 17th presidentAs provost since 2005, the president-elect has inspired innovation and played a critical role in the financial stewardship of the Institute.

The elusive capacity of networksCalculating the total capacity of a data network is a notoriously difficult problem, but information theorists are beginning to make some headway.

Thwarting the cleverest attackersSavvy hackers can steal a computer’s secrets by timing its data storage transactions or measuring its power use. New research shows how to stop them.

Abelson honored as outstanding educatorWins ACM's Karl V. Karlstom Award

MITx: What the students thinkFrom Buenos Aires to Honolulu to Montreal, a virtual community grows up around the online initiative’s prototype course.

Gauging seizures’ severitySimple wrist sensors let neurologists collect better data about patients with epilepsy — and could alert patients that they need to seek medical care.

Algorithmic incentivesA new twist on pioneering work done by MIT cryptographers almost 30 years ago could lead to better ways of structuring contracts.

Lynch named Athena LecturerProfessor honored for advances in distributed systems that enable dependable Internet and wireless network applications.

13 faculty members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Getting to the root of geneticsManolis Kellis uses computational techniques to decipher human disease.

Chips as mini InternetsThe data-routing techniques that undergird the Internet could increase the efficiency of multicore chips while lowering their power requirements.

Seeing the music in natureFrom spider webs to tangled proteins, Markus Buehler finds the connections between mathematics, molecules and materials.

Testing unbuilt chipsA new software-simulation system promises much more accurate evaluation of promising — but potentially fault-ridden — multicore-chip designs.

Introduction to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science now available in OCW Scholar format6.01SC is the fourth of seven courses OCW will publish this spring specifically to meet the needs of independent learners.

The advantage of ambiguityCognitive scientists develop a new take on an old problem: why human language has so many words with multiple meanings.

The faster-than-fast Fourier transformFor a large range of practically useful cases, MIT researchers find a way to increase the speed of one of the most important algorithms in the information sciences.

Need a new material? New tool can helpExhaustive reference system and interactive toolkit could revolutionize materials research, potentially enabling new types of manufacturing.

Research update: Sharpening the linesNew advance could lead to even smaller features in the constant quest for more compact, faster microchips.

Putting the ‘art’ in artificial intelligenceCSAIL associate professor develops AI systems that can interpret images.

Sal Khan to deliver 2012 Commencement addressOnline-education pioneer, MIT alumnus to speak to the Class of 2012 on June 8.

Double dutyA computational biologist and physician, Collin Stultz takes a unique approach to studying diseases that could lead to new treatments.