Scratch creator Mitchel Resnick -- head of the MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindgergarten Group -- writes, "Until now, Scratch has been developed by my research group at the MIT Media Lab. In the coming year, the Scratch Team will be moving out of MIT into a separate nonprofit organization (the Scratch Foundation). We’re looking to hire a new Executive Director to help build this organization and develop strategies to sustain Scratch as a free, creative platform."
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For the second year now, the MIT Media Lab has awarded a "Disobedience Prize" of $250,000, no strings attached, awarded to people whose disobedient work has benefitted society; this year's prize is share among three leaders of the #MeToo and #MeTooSTEM movements: BethAnn McLaughlin, Sherry Marts, and Tarana Burke.
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For the second year in a row, the MIT Media Lab is giving out a no-strings-attached cash award of $250,000 for "disobedience" that benefits society; the prize is a reaction to MIT's shameful historic instances of throwing disobedient researchers under the bus, from Aaron Swartz to Star Simpson to bunnie Huang.
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Linkedin founder Reid Hoffman has bankrolled an experimental, one-time prize of $250,000 that the Media Lab will award for research that harnesses "responsible, ethical disobedience aimed at challenging the norms, rules, or laws that sustain society’s injustices?" Read the rest
The MIT Media Lab's "Flying Pantograph" is a pen-wielding tele-robot controlled by a drawing interface. From MIT's Fluid Interfaces research group:
A drone becomes an “expression agent” - modified to carry a pen and be controlled by human motions, then carries out the actual process of drawing on a vertical wall. Not only mechanically extending a human artist, the drone plays a crucial part of the expression as its own motion dynamics and software intelligence add new visual language to the art. This agency forms a strong link between a human artist and the canvas, however, in the same time, is a deliberate programmatic disconnect that offers space for exploiting machine aesthetics as a core expression medium.
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Your smartphone was designed to deliver as much value as possible to its manufacturer, carrier and OS vendor, leaving behind the smallest amount of value possible while still making it a product that you'd be willing to pay for and use. Read the rest
