At Media Lab, Less Whiz, More Bang
From: Boston Globe - 08/12/2006
By: Robert Weisman

MIT's Media Lab, a major axis point of the digital revolution in the 1990s,
is transforming itself from a blue-sky research facility focused on
multimedia and convergence to one focused on more utilitarian areas such as
health care and aging. The lab has also been entering into closer
partnerships with corporate sponsors under its new director, Frank Moss, who
emphasizes the need for new, more pragmatic approaches. Moss also seeks to
further the lab's efforts to widen access to technology for the disabled or
impoverished, such as digitally controlled prosthetic limbs and $100 laptops.
"If we direct our research at these kinds of problems, we're setting the
stage for breakthroughs that apply to everybody," Moss said. He has launched
a "buddy system" to ensure that faculty members are forging stronger
connections with the business community and developing projects that will
solve real problems. In an era when corporate research sponsorship has
plateaued, Moss has been in discussions with the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation and other philanthropic endeavors that might be interested in the
lab's work in areas such as health care and aging. He also wants to
consolidate the hundreds of independent research projects into fewer groups
with a broader scope. The lab is attempting to emerge from the period
following the tech bust of 2000 that saw its funding dry up and its overseas
facilities in Ireland and India close in the wake of disputes with those
countries' governments. Moss has yet to pull the plug on any of the lab's
projects, though he has held brainstorming sessions with faculty members and
students to help clarify the lab's overall direction. Currently, some
researchers are hashing out the details of their health care projects with
corporate sponsors, while others are still pursuing far-off work on solar
cars and the future of media. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2006/08/12/at_media_lab_less_whiz_more_bang/

Links:
MIT Media Lab
http://www.media.mit.edu/

Frank Moss
http://www.media.mit.edu/people/bio_fmoss.html

Biohybrid "smart" prosthetic limbs
http://biomech.media.mit.edu/research/research.htm

A Magnetorheological Transfemoral Knee Prosthesis
http://biomech.media.mit.edu/research/pro3_1.htm