According to a team of researchers at MIT, both scenarios may be possible before long, thanks to a new material that can store solar energy during the day and release it later as heat, whenever it’s needed. This transparent polymer film could be applied to many different surfaces, such as window glass or clothing.

[...] the new finding could provide a highly efficient method for storing the sun’s energy through a chemical reaction and releasing it later as heat. — news.mit.edu

Wi-Fi goes through walls, but it isn’t so great at getting through human bodies. Based in this piece of knowledge, a team at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has built a detector that can see people through walls using Wi-Fi signals. It can recognize individuals and can even track the movement of their limbs with spooky accuracy. — Fast Company

As 3D printing advances from its plastic roots, we’re seeing more and more materials passing through its nozzles. Metal, glass, random gunk—each new filament opens the door to new manufacturing applications.

Now researchers have made a printer they claim can use up to ten different materials at once. The “MultiFab,” made by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), could offer a relatively low-cost option for the multimaterial 3D printing market. — motherboard.vice.com

With a $35,000 grant from the Knight Prototype Fund, [MITs Elizabeth Christoforetti] and her team are working on a project called Placelet, which will track how pedestrians move through a particular space. They’re developing a network of sensors that will track the scale and speed of pedestrians [and vehicles] over long periods of time. The sensors, [currently being tested in downtown Boston], will also track the 'sensory experience' by recording the noise level and air quality of that space. — CityLab

Hashim Sarkis — a prominent scholar of architecture and urbanism, a practicing architect whose works have been built in the United States and the Middle East, and a leading expert on design in the Middle East — has been named the new dean of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P), effective in January. — newsoffice.mit.edu

While still experimental, engineering techniques drawn from origami promise the development of pop-up devices that could assemble themselves from flat, composite materials cheaply and efficiently, the [Harvard and MIT] researchers said. Potential applications range from self-assembling satellites to shape-shifting robots that could be used in search-and-rescue missions. — online.wsj.com

What does a city look like? If you’re walking down the street, perhaps it looks like people and storefronts. Viewed from higher up, patterns begin to emerge: A three-dimensional grid of buildings divided by alleys, streets, and sidewalks, nearly flat in some places and scraping the sky in others. Pull back far enough, and the city starts to look like something else entirely: a cluster of molecules.

At least, that’s what it looks like to Franz-Josef Ulm, an engineering professor [...]. — bostonglobe.com

The map, one of the central elements of navigation, has expanded in capability since the form has been translated to digital. Case in point, the MIT Media Lab’s “You Are Here” project is a collection of maps that visualize a variety of datasets over space. Things from bike accidents to coffee shops, graffiti reports, and transit connectivity are all laid out, using a variety of open data and other online resources, such as Google’s map directions services API. — marketplace.org

It's a good week for Olafur Eliasson: earlier today, we reported that the Rolex Arts Initiative had selected the Berlin-based artist as its Visual Arts mentor for 2014-2015, and now we found out that MIT's Council for the Arts will present him with the 2014, 40th anniversary Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT. The award includes an artist residency, pop-up exhibitions, a public lecture, and a $100,000 cash prize. MIT students will also get to work on Eliasson’s Little Sun project. — bustler.net