MIT News: around campus

Boston Globe reporter Alyssa Meyers spotlights an MIT course that exposes students to what it is like to live with different disabilities. Based off their experience, students develop, “an assistive technology for a client, where the clients are individuals in the community who have proposed project ideas to the class,” explains senior lecturer Julie Greenberg. 

Boston Herald reporters Jack Encarnacao and Marie Szaniszlo write that students from the MIT Mexican Association have developed a website to help Mexicans impacted by last week’s earthquake. The students are mapping “the GPS coordinates of places where locals can report specific needs, so assistance can be targeted.”

Rana el Kaliouby, co-founder of MIT spinoff Affectiva, speaks to Asma Khalid from WBUR’s Bostonomix about her company’s work making tech devices that are more emotionally intelligent. “We envision a world where our devices and our technologies are emotional-wear,” says el Kaliouby. “They can sense and respond to your emotions in real time in a way that makes the interaction more positive.” 

David Weininger of The Boston Globe writes about the longest instrumental work composed by Prof. Keeril Makan, a 47-minute movement performed by the New York-based chamber ensemble Either/Or. “Makan creates a succession of fresh and inventive colors, especially when he places two unusual instruments — glockenspiel and cimbalom — in dialogue,” writes Weininger.