MIT News: top stories

In a Guardian article about how technology can be used to help refugees, Tazeen Dhunna Ahmad highlights MIT’s Refugee ACTion Hub (ReACT). ReACT is aimed at finding, “digital learning opportunities for a lost generation of children who, as a result of forced displacement, are losing their education.”

Wired reporter Aarian Marshall writes that AgeLab researchers are studying how drivers interact with their phones, in an effort to reduce fatalities caused by distracted driving. Research scientist Bruce Mehler explains that researchers are, “focused on taking a really fresh look at the whole design approach to evaluating human-machine interfaces in the car." 

MIT researchers have developed a computer chip that uses beams of light to mimic neurons, reports Matthew Hutson for Science. Hutson explains that, “such ‘optical neural networks’ could make any application of so-called deep learning—from virtual assistants to language translators—many times faster and more efficient.”

Financial Times reporter John Thornhill writes about Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson and Principal Research Scientist Andrew McAfee’s latest book, “Machine, Platform, Crowd.” Thornhill writes that the book is “a clear and crisply written account of machine intelligence, big data and the sharing economy.”