MIT Media Lab
Encyclopedia
MIT School of Architecture and Planning
The MIT School of Architecture and Planning is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA...
. Devoted to research projects at the convergence
Technological convergence
Technological convergence is the tendency for different technological systems to evolve towards performing similar tasks. Convergence can refer to previously separate technologies such as voice , data , and video that now share resources and interact with each other synergistically.The rise of...
of design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
, multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
and technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired
Wired (magazine)
Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
and Red Herring
Red Herring (magazine)
Red Herring was a technology business magazine, which flourished during the dot com boom, with global distribution and bureaus in Bangalore, Beijing, and Paris. It also sponsored conferences designed to bring venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and technologists together. But the magazine went into...
for a series of practical inventions in the fields of wireless networks, field sensing
Wireless sensor network
A wireless sensor network consists of spatially distributed autonomous sensors to monitor physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, sound, vibration, pressure, motion or pollutants and to cooperatively pass their data through the network to a main location. The more modern...
, web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
s and the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
. More recently it has focused particularly on design and technologies that address social causes. The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) was one of the notable research efforts which grew out of the Media Lab.
The MIT Media Lab was founded by MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte is an American architect best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also known as the founder of the One Laptop per Child Association ....
and former MIT President Jerome Wiesner
Jerome Wiesner
Jerome Bert Wiesner was an educator, a Science Advisor to U.S. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy and Johnson, an advocate for arms control, and a critic of anti-ballistic-missile defense systems...
(now deceased) and opened its doors in the Wiesner Building (designed by I.M. Pei), or the E15 building at MIT in 1985. It grew out of the work of MIT’s Architecture Machine Group, and remains within MIT School of Architecture and Planning
MIT School of Architecture and Planning
The MIT School of Architecture and Planning is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA...
.
Administration
On April 25, 2011, it was announced that the next director of the Media Lab will be Joichi Ito. Ito will succeed previous directors Nicholas NegroponteNicholas Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte is an American architect best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also known as the founder of the One Laptop per Child Association ....
(1985-2000), Walter Bender
Walter Bender
Walter Bender is technologist and researcher who has made important contributions in the field of electronic publishing, media, and technology for learning. Bender is on leave as a Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab which he led as executive director between 2000 and 2006...
(2000-2006), and Frank Moss
Frank Moss
Frank Edward Moss was a Democratic United States Senator from Utah. He represented Utah in the United States Senate from 1959 until 1977....
(2006-2011).
The Media Lab has approximately 70 administrative and support staff members. Associate Directors of the Lab are Hiroshi Ishii
Hiroshi Ishii
is a Japanese computer scientist. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ishii pioneered the Tangible User Interface in the field of Human-computer interaction.-Biography:Ishii was born in Tokyo and raised in Sapporo....
and Andrew Lippman. Pattie Maes
Pattie Maes
Pattie Maes is an associate professor in MIT's Program in Media Arts and Sciences. She founded and directed the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces group. Previously, she founded and ran the Software Agents group. She currently acts as the associate Department Head for the Media, Arts and Sciences...
and Mitchel Resnick
Mitchel Resnick
Mitchel Resnick is LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research, Director of the Okawa Center, and Director of the at the MIT Media Lab. Resnick currently serves as the head of the Media Arts and Sciences academic program, the academic program that grants master's degrees and Ph.Ds at the MIT Media...
are co-heads of the Program in Media Arts and Sciences. The Lab's Chief Knowledge Officer is Henry Holtzman.
Current research focus
"Inventing a better future" is the theme of the Media Lab's work. A current emphasis of Media Lab research, which encompasses the work of several research groups, is on human adaptability. This focus was highlighted by the May 9, 2007 symposium h2.0: new minds, new bodies, new identities. The event was organized by Hugh HerrHugh Herr
Hugh Herr is an American rock climber, engineer and biophysicist.-Early life:The youngest of five siblings of a Mennonite family from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Hugh Herr was a prodigy rock climber: by age eight, he had scaled the face of the Mount Temple in the Canadian Rockies, and by 17 he was...
and John Hockenberry
John Hockenberry
John Charles Hockenberry is an American journalist and author. A four-time Emmy Award winner and three-time Peabody Award winner, Hockenberry has worked in media since 1980....
, and featured Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE , is a British neurologist and psychologist residing in New York City. He is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also holds the position of Columbia Artist...
, Michael Graves
Michael Graves
Michael Graves is an American architect. Identified as one of The New York Five, Graves has become a household name with his designs for domestic products sold at Target stores in the United States....
, Aimee Mullins
Aimee Mullins
Aimee Mullins is an American athlete, actress, and fashion model best known for her collegiate-level athletic accomplishments, despite a medical condition that resulted in the amputation of both of her legs....
, Michael Chorost
Michael Chorost
Michael Chorost is an American writer and teacher. Born with severe loss of hearing due to rubella, his hearing was partially restored with a cochlear implant in 2001. He subsequently wrote a memoir of the experience, titled Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human...
, Susan Hockfield
Susan Hockfield
Susan Hockfield is the sixteenth and current president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hockfield's appointment was publicly announced on August 26, 2004, and she formally took office December 6, 2004, succeeding Charles M. Vest. Hockfield's official inauguration celebrations took...
, among other speakers. The day-long program featured work that is blurring the distinction between "able bodied" and "disabled," demonstrating technologies at the neural-digital interface. Work represented emphasized the merging of technology with bodies and minds, altering the conceptions of human capability. New research initiatives were discussed, such as techniques to treat conditions such as Alzheimer's disease or depression, to sociable robots for monitoring the health of children or the elderly, to the development of smart prostheses that can mimic—and exceed—the capabilities of biological limbs. The symposium provided many examples of work that is the next step in the so-called "digital revolution." Research projects at the Media Lab aim to have a deep impact on humanity at large. This work, while initially intended for those considered to be "disabled," will ultimately improve life for all humanity.
One of the founding focuses of the Media Lab was technology for the developing world, work that continues with projects such as the One Laptop per Child project and other work. Current projects at the Media Lab continue with this core value, which is expanded and enhanced by increased collaboration within the Media Lab itself, as well as across MIT and with the world at large.
Other research foci include machines with common sense, viral communications, "smart" prostheses, advanced sensor networks, innovative interface design, and sociable robots. Projects range from a program that can convert drawings to musical compositions, to wearable sensors for monitoring health, to electronic ink.
A large number of research groups focus on topics related to human computer interaction. While this includes traditional user interface design, most groups working on this take a broader view. Several groups are working on adding sensors and actuators of different sorts to common objects in the environment, to create "intelligent objects" that are aware of their surroundings, capable of predicting the user's goals and emotional state, and so can assist the user in a more effective way.
The Media Lab also does research into integrating more computational intelligence into learning activities. This includes software for learning but also "smart" educational toys such as programmable bricks like Lego Mindstorms
Lego Mindstorms
The LEGO Mindstorm series of kits contain software and hardware to create small, customizable and programmable robots. They include a programmable 'Brick' computer that controls the system, a set of modular sensors and motors, and LEGO parts from the Technics line to create the mechanical...
and the PicoCricket
Programmable Cricket
Programmable Crickets, known commercially as PicoCrickets, are robotic toys in the form of programmable bricks. They are used to construct artistic projects.Crickets were developed at MIT Media Lab, and were launched commercially in Montreal in 2006....
. A number of groups are pursuing hybrid art-engineering projects, in developing new tools, media, and instruments for music and other forms of art.
Research at the Media Lab is creative. There is much hands-on building of demos and prototypes, which are then tested extensively and put through many iterations to see what happens when they are used.
The Media Lab maintains a detailed Web site research that is thoroughly updated several times per year.
Funding model
The Lab’s primary source of funding comes from corporate sponsorship. The Media Lab is unique in that it is almost 100% industrially funded. Rather than accepting funding on a per-project or per-group basis, the Media Lab asks sponsors to fund general themes of the Lab; sponsor companies can then connect with Media Lab research in a way that is more spontaneous, but at the same time companies are guided by structured relationships with specific members of the Lab's faculty and research staff, who assist the sponsor companies in deriving the greatest benefit possible from their sponsorship of the Media Lab. The Media Lab is also exploring new methods for making a connection between sponsor businesses and Lab research.In addition, specific projects and researchers are funded more traditionally through government institutions including the NIH
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
, NSF
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
, and DARPA. Also, consortia with other schools or other departments at MIT are often able to have money that does not enter into the common pool.
Intellectual property
Companies sponsoring the Lab at the "consortium" level or higher can share in the Lab’s intellectual property without paying license fees or royalties. Non-sponsors are precluded from making use of Media Lab developments for at least two years after technical disclosure is made to MIT and Media Lab sponsors. The Media Lab generates approximately 20 new patents every year.Academic arm
The Media Arts and Sciences program is a part of MIT's School of Architecture and Planning, and includes three levels of study: a doctoral program, a master's of science program, and a program that offers an alternative to the standard MIT freshman year as well as a set of undergraduate subjects that may form the basis for a future joint major. All graduate students are fully supported (tuition plus a stipend) from the outset, normally by appointments as research assistants at the Media Laboratory, where they work on research programs and faculty projects, including assisting with courses. These research activities typically take up about half of a student’s time in the degree program.The Media Arts and Sciences academic program has a very close relationship with the Media Lab. The majority of the Media Lab faculty are professors of Media Arts and Sciences. With very few exceptions, students who earn a degree in Media Arts and Sciences have been predominantly in residence at the Media Lab, taking classes and doing research. Some students from other programs at MIT, such as Mechanical Engineering, or Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, do their research at the Media Lab, working with a Media Lab/Media Arts and Sciences faculty advisor, but earn their degrees (such as MEng or an MS in EECS) from other departments.
Buildings
The Media Lab has expanded with a new building designed by Pritzker PrizePritzker Prize
The Pritzker Architecture Prize is awarded annually by the Hyatt Foundation to honour "a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built...
-winning architect Fumihiko Maki
Fumihiko Maki
is a Japanese architect and currently teaching at Keio University SFC.- Biography :After studying at the University of Tokyo he moved to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and then to Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 1956, he took a post as assistant professor of...
. The 163000 square feet (15,143.2 m²), six-story building features an open, atelier-style, adaptable architecture specifically designed to provide the flexibility to respond to emerging research priorities. High levels of transparency throughout the building's interior will make ongoing research visible, encouraging connections and collaboration among researchers.
Work began on the building in mid-2007 and occupancy took place in 2009. Construction had been delayed for several years by funding issues related to the dot-com bubble
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
.
Apart from the Media Lab, the building also hosts the List Visual Arts Center, the School of Architecture and Planning's Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT), and MIT's Program in Comparative Media Studies.
Faculty and academic research staff
Media Arts and Sciences faculty and academic research staff are principal investigators/heads of the Media Lab's various research groups. They also advise Media Arts and Sciences graduate students, and mentor MIT undergraduates. "Most departments accept grad students based on their prospects for academic success; the Media Lab attempts to select ones that will best be able to help with some of the ongoing projects."Currently there are more than 25 faculty and academic research staff members, and two emeritus professors, Marvin Minsky
Marvin Minsky
Marvin Lee Minsky is an American cognitive scientist in the field of artificial intelligence , co-founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, and author of several texts on AI and philosophy.-Biography:...
and Seymour Papert
Seymour Papert
Seymour Papert is an MIT mathematician, computer scientist, and educator. He is one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, as well as an inventor of the Logo programming language....
.
There are several named professorships in the Media Arts and Sciences program:
- E. Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
- Asahi Broadcasting Corporation Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
- AT&T Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
- Benesse Career Development Professor of Research in Education
- Alexander W. Dreyfoos, Jr. (1954) Professor
- LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research
- LG Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
- NEC Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
- Sony Corporation Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
- Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
- Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Technology
A full list of Media Lab faculty and academic research staff, with bios and other information, is available via the Media Lab Website.
Selected publications
- Frank MossFrank MossFrank Edward Moss was a Democratic United States Senator from Utah. He represented Utah in the United States Senate from 1959 until 1977....
: The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices: How the Digital Magicians of the MIT Media Lab Are Creating the Innovative Technologies That Will Transform Our Lives - Dan ArielyDan ArielyDan Ariely is an Israeli American professor of psychology and behavioral economics. He teaches at Duke University and is the founder of The Center for Advanced Hindsight.-Biography:...
: Predictably Irrational (HarperCollins 2008) - Stephen A. Benton and V. Michael Bove, Jr.: Holographic Imaging (Wiley 2008)
- William J. MitchellWilliam J. MitchellWilliam John Mitchell was an Australian-born architect and urban designer, who played a major role in planning a major expansion project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology....
: Imagining MIT: Designing a Campus for the Twenty-First Century, Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City - Marvin MinskyMarvin MinskyMarvin Lee Minsky is an American cognitive scientist in the field of artificial intelligence , co-founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, and author of several texts on AI and philosophy.-Biography:...
: The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind, Society of Mind - John Maeda: The Laws of Simplicity, Design by Numbers
- Cynthia L. Breazeal: Designing Sociable Robots, Biologically Inspired Intelligent Robots (co-editor with Yoseph Bar-Cohen)
- Vanessa Stevens Colella, Eric Klopfer, Mitchel ResnickMitchel ResnickMitchel Resnick is LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research, Director of the Okawa Center, and Director of the at the MIT Media Lab. Resnick currently serves as the head of the Media Arts and Sciences academic program, the academic program that grants master's degrees and Ph.Ds at the MIT Media...
: Adventures in Modeling: Exploring Complex, Dynamic Systems with StarLogo - Rosalind W. Picard: Affective Computing
- Neil GershenfeldNeil GershenfeldNeil Gershenfeld is a professor at MIT and the head of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, a sister lab spun out of the popular MIT Media Lab. His research interests are mainly in interdisciplinary studies involving physics and computer science, in such fields as quantum computing, nanotechnology,...
: When Things Start to Think - Nicholas NegroponteNicholas NegroponteNicholas Negroponte is an American architect best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also known as the founder of the One Laptop per Child Association ....
: Being Digital - Seymour PapertSeymour PapertSeymour Papert is an MIT mathematician, computer scientist, and educator. He is one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, as well as an inventor of the Logo programming language....
: The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas - Marvin MinskyMarvin MinskyMarvin Lee Minsky is an American cognitive scientist in the field of artificial intelligence , co-founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, and author of several texts on AI and philosophy.-Biography:...
, Seymour PapertSeymour PapertSeymour Papert is an MIT mathematician, computer scientist, and educator. He is one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, as well as an inventor of the Logo programming language....
: Perceptrons—Expanded Edition: An Introduction to Computational Geometry - Mitchel ResnickMitchel ResnickMitchel Resnick is LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research, Director of the Okawa Center, and Director of the at the MIT Media Lab. Resnick currently serves as the head of the Media Arts and Sciences academic program, the academic program that grants master's degrees and Ph.Ds at the MIT Media...
: Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds - Idit Harel CapertonIdit Harel CapertonIdit Harel Caperton, Ph.D. is an educational psychologist and epistemologist specializing in the study of the impact of computer-based new media technology on the social and academic development of children...
: Children Designers
Accomplishments
The MPEG-4 SA project developed at the Media Lab made structured audio a practical reality, the Aspen Movie MapAspen Movie Map
The Aspen Movie Map was a revolutionary hypermedia system developed at MIT by a team working with Andrew Lippman in 1978 with funding from ARPA.-Features:...
(precursor to the ideas in Google Street View
Google Street View
Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from various positions along many streets in the world...
).
Large numbers of Media Lab-developed technologies made it into products, such as the LEGO Mindstorms
Lego Mindstorms
The LEGO Mindstorm series of kits contain software and hardware to create small, customizable and programmable robots. They include a programmable 'Brick' computer that controls the system, a set of modular sensors and motors, and LEGO parts from the Technics line to create the mechanical...
and the LEGO WeDo and the pointing stick
Pointing stick
The pointing stick is an isometric joystick used as a pointing device . It was invented by research scientist Ted Selker...
in IBM laptops, the Benton hologram used in most credit cards, the Fisher-Price's Symphony Painter, the Nortel Wireless Mesh Network, the NTT Comware Sensetable, the Taito’s Karaoke-on-Demand Machine.
In 2001, MIT Media Lab collaborated to create two spin-off
Research spin-off
A research spin-off is a company that falls into at least one of the four following categories:#Companies that have an equity investment from a national library or university#Companies that license technology from a public research institute or university...
s: Media Lab Asia
Media Lab Asia
Media Lab Asia is a lab that was promoted by the Department of Information technology...
and Media Lab Europe
Media Lab Europe
Media Lab Europe was a research institute in Dublin, Ireland based on the MIT Media Lab. It went into voluntary liquidation early in 2005....
. Media Lab Asia, based in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, was a result of cooperation with the Government of India
Government of India
The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...
but eventually broke off in 2003 after disagreement. Media Lab Europe, based in Dublin, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, was founded with a similar concept in association with Irish universities and government
Irish Government
The Government of Ireland is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland.-Members of the Government:Membership of the Government is regulated fundamentally by the Constitution of Ireland. The Government is headed by a prime minister called the Taoiseach...
. Media Lab Europe closed in January 2005.
Created collaboratively by the Computer Museum and the Media Lab, the Computer Clubhouse, a worldwide network of after-school learning centers, focuses on youth from underserved communities who would not otherwise have access to technological tools and activities.
In January 2005, the Lab's chairman emeritus Nicholas Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte
Nicholas Negroponte is an American architect best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also known as the founder of the One Laptop per Child Association ....
announced at the World Economic Forum
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland....
a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop computer, a technology that could revolutionize how the world's children are educated. A non-profit organization, One Laptop per Child, was created to oversee the actual deployment, i.e., MIT will not manufacture or distribute the device.
The Synthetic Neurobiology group created reagents and devices for the analysis of brain circuits are in use by hundreds of biology labs around the world.
Honors and awards
The Media Lab Web site has a section "Annual report to the president" that shows major achievements on a year-to-year basis.Spin-offs
Media Lab industry spin-offs include:- E InkE Ink CorporationE Ink Corporation is a privately held manufacturer of electrophoretic displays , a kind of electronic paper. E Ink is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was co-founded in 1997 by Joseph Jacobson, a professor in the MIT Media Lab. Two years later, E Ink partnered with Philips to develop and...
, which makes electronic paper displays - First Mile Solutions, which brings communications infrastructure to rural communities
- Ambient DevicesAmbient DevicesAmbient Devices, Inc. is a privately held company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA that designs and markets various ambient devices for display of information ranging from weather to traffic reports to stock quotes. The company was founded by David L. Rose, Ben Resner, and Pritesh Gandhi,...
, which produces glanceable information displays - nTag Interactive, which makes interactive name tags
- Mobule, an application for mobile phones that can instigate interactions between people.
- Squid Labs, engineering consulting company
- Wireless 5th Dimensional Networking, Inc. (acquired in 2006), which developed the first hybrid search engineHybrid search engineA hybrid search engine is a type of computer search engine that uses different types of data with or without ontologies to produce the algorithmically generated results based on web crawling...
- Nanda, a company that markets the ClockyClockyClocky is a brand of alarm clock outfitted with wheels, allowing it to hide itself in order to force the owner awake in an attempt to find it. Invented for an industrial design class by Gauri Nanda, then a graduate student at MIT Media Lab, Clocky won the 2005 Ig Nobel Prize in Economics...
alarm clock - Harmonix, game company creator of Guitar HeroGuitar HeroGuitar Hero is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It is the first entry in the Guitar Hero series. Guitar Hero was released on November 8, 2005 in North America, April 7, 2006 in Europe and June 15, 2006 in...
. - reQall, a memory aid company.
- Dimagi, a company that develops software for healthcare in the developing world.
- Oblong industries
- Potion DesignPotion DesignPotion Design is a private interactive design firm located in New York City. It was founded in 2005 by Jared Schiffman and Phillip Tiongson, who had previously studied together at the MIT Media Lab...
, an interactive design firm - Elance
- Sifteo, a company that has developed a tabletop gaming platform.
- One Laptop per Child's XO laptopOLPC XO-1The XO-1, previously known as the $100 Laptop, Children's Machine, and 2B1, is an inexpensive subnotebook computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries around the world, to provide them with access to knowledge, and opportunities to "explore, experiment and express...
- Sugar LabsSugar LabsSugar Labs is a software-development and learning community.Sugar Labs is a non-profit foundation whose mission is to produce, distribute, and support the use of the Sugar learning platform. Sugar Labs supports the community of educators and software developers who want to extend the platform and...
, designer of the One Laptop per Child's XO's Sugar graphical user interfaceSugar (GUI)Sugar is an open source desktop environment designed with the goal of being used by children for learning.Developed as part of the One Laptop per Child project, it is the default interface on OLPC XO-1 family of laptop computers.... - The Echo NestThe Echo NestThe Echo Nest is a music intelligence platform company that provides music services to developers and media companies. Headquartered in Somerville, MA USA, the Echo Nest was created as a spin-off of research work at the MIT Media Lab that automatically understands the audio and textual content of...
, a music intelligence platform