CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Three little flacons on a fluorescent board of glass illuminated by a spooky green light. Uncork one of the bottles and you will hear a tender melody, a violin performing a classic piece. Open another and the violin is joined by a cello and a bass. Opening the third will enable you to enjoy the sound of a complete string orchestra.
Welcome to the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Mass., where professors and students have built a terrific scientist’s playground. They sit in small cubicles of glass or in huge factory-like halls in front of their computers and monitors, surrounded by Post-it Notes, wired soft toys and alarm clocks that roll away after they ring.
The flacons are part of a media-arts project. “The bottles contain data,” MIT employee Alexandra Kahn explained to a visitor, “in this case, music. The project shows how user-friendly and appealing computers can be.”
Next to the musical bottles was an egg-shaped stock-market indicator. If the Dow Jones index rose, the Internet-connected egg would glow reddish. Declining trends were indicated in blue. “The egg can’t explain everything that’s going on on Wall Street. But it will give you a quick overview,” said Kahn.
Sounds fun. But it was not all about fun at MIT. The Media Lab was sponsored by a large number of companies. Sixty percent of the lab’s $32 million budget came from grants provided by Motorola, AOL, Warner Bros., Samsung and Lego. And companies paid not simply because they wanted the scientists to have an extraordinarily good time. The growing and competitive telecommunications market was especially hungry. Innovations of all kinds — such as those by professor Alex (Sandy) Pentland, who tried everything to make computers become more emotional — were in high demand.
|
MIT professor Alex “Sandy” Pentland is a pioneer in wearable computers and an expert on socially aware communication.
— Photo by
Matthias Bernold
|
“Up to know we have never used computers to understand our social environment,” said Pentland, “but social structures can be analyzed by computers. Who are your friends? Who do we like to spend time with? Who listens when we are talking? It is easy to answer such questions by using technical support.”
Pentland’s sensitive computer measured conversations by gauging the tone of voice and the volume of the spoken words, by the number and length of pauses and by the use of similar words. The body language of the speakers was compared to patterns. “We taped and analyzed salary negotiations. After five minutes we could predict 40 percent of the negotiations,” he said.
In Pentland’s opinion, emotion-sensing computers could be useful for people having difficulties with social rules. Deaf mutes, for example, or people with autism.
“These computers can also help us to better understand our own feelings,” he said. For example, “Many people suffer from depression and they don’t even know that they are ill. They might lose self-respect because they think it is their fault. But the truth is there is only a chemical missing in their brains. The computer can easily explain what’s going on.”
The professor was convinced that not only the depressed could benefit from emotion-sensing computers. Everybody’s life could change for the better.
“It happens very often that husbands lose attention while being on the telephone with their wives. The computer measures the level of attention during a call. If the husband loses concentration, he receives a warning from the system,” explained Portland, who pointed out that cell phone producing companies had already shown interest in the technology.
“The first mobile phones with this new emotion check could be on the market within one year,” he said. And not only bored husbands might be interested: Knowing what your counterpart is feeling or thinking could be useful for sales people, too, and for law enforcement officers.
Short messages for flash mobs
A huge hall in another area of the Media Lab building was the work place of assistant professor Chris Csikszentmihályi who, he explained, was not a friend of public surveillance and the reduction of civil rights. In July 2003, Csikszentmihályi — who introduced himself as “Chris C.” — supervised a database project by one of his students.
“There is a huge gap between the observation of the citizens by the government and the observation of the government by the citizens,” said Csikszentmihályi. The open database at the Media Lab collected all kinds of information about politicians and could be updated by Internet users.
Csikszentmihályi and his students developed a short-text message system called “TxtMob” that could send messages to more than 10,000 cell-phones simultaneously. “That enables the participants at a demonstration to easily communicate. If a street is blocked by the police, the protesters can pick an alternative route. If the police are willing to use violence, the protest march can quickly be ended,” said Csikszentmihályi, who recommended the new technology for organizing flash mobs, too.
“Let’s say a controversial politician is sitting somewhere in a café. It’s easy to initiate a quick spontaneous protest with hundreds or maybe thousands of people,” he explained.
At the moment Csikszentmihályi was test launching “Freedom Flies,” a project designed to monitor anti-immigrant groups in Texas. The unmanned aerial vehicle was equipped with a video camera. Videos of the first flights were posted on the Internet:
$100 Laptop
The most prestigious undertaking at the Media Lab was the $100 Laptop project. The initiative, first announced at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, in January 2005, aimed to provide computers for students in developing countries. By 2007 students in Brazil were to get the first computers. To achieve this goal, a new, non-profit association, One Laptop per Child, was founded.
The MIT scientists planned to drastically reduce the price of a laptop computer by creating new parts for extremely low cost, by using cheaper yet more durable monitors and less but more relevant software.
Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and co-founder of the Media Lab, described the initiative as “a key to revolutionize how we educate the world's children.” An ambitious goal for the MIT scientists and well suited to the institute’s ambitious mission statement: “To serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.”
Notebook
By Matthias G. Bernold, WPI '05