That affinity will rise to an even higher profile in late March, when the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the Media Lab jointly sponsor a symposium on MIT's Cambridge, Mass., campus that will focus on trends and technology issues affecting the consumer electronics industry.

The one-day, March 23 symposium will feature speakers and panel discussions on technological challenges and trends, as well as present case studies on transferring innovation from a university laboratory to the corporate research environment. The event underscores the Media Lab's expanded emphasis on technologies of relevance to consumer applications. An open house at the lab, allowing participants to view more than 100 new projects, will follow the presentations.

The symposium will highlight advances in materials and design/fabrication methods; power-saving and -harvesting techniques; sensors, actuators and displays, ecosystems of smart devices; and cooperative wireless communications.

“The consumer electronics industry is entering a period that is ripe for breakthroughs, and a working relationship between the Media Laboratory and CEA will help take advantage of these opportunities,” said V. Michael Bove, Jr., head of the Media Lab's consumer electronics research. “We're looking to connect our innovations to their member companies' technological challenges.”

Symposium attendance is open to CEA member companies. More information on the event is at the Media Lab's Web site.

Technology transfer has been a core function of the Media Lab since its founding in 1985. The lab's educational and research mission has contributed to developments in such areas as digital video and multimedia, and the lab has played a central role in bringing together such disciplines as cognition, electronic music, graphics design, video, holography, computation and human-machine interfaces.

Among the research projects highlighted at The Media lab's CES booth were developments from the lab's molecular-machines group involving a novel way to mass-produce inexpensive transistors by printing them directly onto plastic substrates, a process that involves the chemical manipulation of nanoparticles. Also showcased was work on give-way sensors or RFID devices capable of interacting with their environment. Developments in smart robots and ambient devices were also presented.

In its first decade, much of the Media Lab's activity centered on abstracting electronic content from traditional physical representations and fitting it to such now-familiar innovations as digital video and multimedia. The success of that agenda is now leading to a growing focus on how electronic information overlaps with the everyday physical world. The laboratory has long championed collaboration between academia and industry, and today it provides a unique environment to explore basic research and applications, without regard to traditional divisions among disciplines.

The lab is exploring such frontiers as wireless “viral” communication; machines that possess “common sense”; affective computing; advanced interface design; spatial imaging; interactive cinema; new forms of artistic expression; and how children learn. These themes outline a future where the bits of the digital realm would interact seamlessly with the atoms of our physical world-where our machines would not only respond to our commands but also understand our emotions.

A future, in other words, where digital innovation would become the domain of all.

By: DocMemory
Copyright © 2023 CST, Inc. All Rights Reserved