Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Sound-Recognition Software Advances

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The researchers’ neural network was fed video from 26 terabytes of video data downloaded from the photo-sharing site Flickr. Researchers found the network can interpret natural sounds in terms of image categories. For instance, the network might determine that the sound of birdsong tends to be associated with forest scenes and pictures of trees, birds, birdhouses, and bird feeders. Image: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT

From Larry Hardesty at the news office of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology an interesting article on machine-learning, which we thought was going to be about a new app for birders but it is a much broader finding:

Computer learns to recognize sounds by watching video

Machine-learning system doesn’t require costly hand-annotated data.

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In recent years, computers have gotten remarkably good at recognizing speech and images: Think of the dictation software on most cellphones, or the algorithms that automatically identify people in photos posted to Facebook. Continue reading →

Desalination Technological Innovation, Well Timed, Much Needed

/ Organikos / 2 Comments
freshwater

Drought solution? A invention from MIT and Jain Irrigation Systems can turn salt water into clean drinking water using solar energy. Photo credit: Shutterstock

Thanks to EcoWatch for this good news:

MIT’s Solar-Powered Desalination Machine Could Help Drought-Stricken Communities

Lorraine Chow

A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jain Irrigation Systems have come up with a method of turning brackish water into drinking water using renewable energy. With parts of the planet running dangerously low on fresh water, this technology can’t come soon enough.

This solar-powered machine is able to pull salt out of water and further disinfect the water with ultraviolet rays, making it suitable for irrigation and drinking. As the MIT News Office explained, “Electrodialysis works by passing a stream of water between two electrodes with opposite charges. Because the salt dissolved in water consists of positive and negative ions, the electrodes pull the ions out of the water, leaving fresher water at the center of the flow. A series of membranes separate the freshwater stream from increasingly salty ones.”

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Bright Ideas

/ Amie Inman / 1 Comment

Ingenuity can go a long way in meeting people’s essential needs with the simplest of materials.

The recipe: Start with students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), add basic materials destined for dumps and landfills around the world, mix with filtered water and bleach, install, expose to sunlight. And voilà!–a light that will last for 10 years!

The Solar Bottle Bulb is based on the principles of Appropriate Technologies – a concept that provides simple and easily replicable technologies that address basic needs in developing communities.

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