Kinetic Blocks works by feeding spatial information read by a Microsoft Kinect into the display, allowing it to respond to physical objects.

However, where the inFORM could already manipulate objects in real time, the new project is faster and finely tuned to detect, orient, and stack blocks to make and even disassemble structures. The display can also be programmed to build structures stored in memory, or interact with special kinematic blocks that allow the pins to interact with other objects — theverge.com

Originally developed at MIT, MindRider is a new helmet that shows, in real time, how your rides, movement, and location engage your mind. The MindRider app maps and tracks your engagement, and allows you to share your maps with others. These maps provide quantified insight that empower you to maximize your riding experience, and they are a great resource for riding communities and street advocacy. — mindriderhelmet.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

What if you only had to buy one piece of furniture to make your tiny apartment abundantly livable?

CityHome, a new project from MIT Media Lab’s Changing Places group, promises to make that fantasy a reality. The highly transformable device, loaded with built-in sensors, motors, and LED lights, promises to make a 200 sq.ft. apartment feel three times larger. — citylab.com

J. Meejin Yoon, architect and educator, has been appointed Head of the Department of Architecture beginning July 1. The first woman ever appointed to that post, she succeeds Nader Tehrani, who served as department head from 2010 to 2014. — newsoffice.mit.edu

[Adèle Naudé Santos] has decided to step down and return to the faculty, effective at the end of this semester. She is the ninth dean of the school and the second woman to hold the position of school dean at MIT. [...]

“I have loved this appointment, because I have loved this school,” said Santos. “The excellent faculty and students I’ve had the honor to collaborate with are more MIT than they’ve ever been: they’re intent on doing interesting research, crossing aisles, and pushing boundaries.” — MIT News

The MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning released new research that examines the evolution of urban planning and its effects on communities. The report defines placemaking as “an innovative approach to transforming communities by creating and revitalizing open, public spaces around the needs and desires of the community.” — parksify.com

Known as M-Blocks, the robots are cubes with no external moving parts. Nonetheless, they’re able to climb over and around one another, leap through the air, roll across the ground, and even move while suspended upside down from metallic surfaces [...]

As with any modular-robot system, the hope is that the modules can be miniaturized: the ultimate aim of most such research is hordes of swarming microbots that can self-assemble, like the “liquid steel” androids in the movie “Terminator II.” — MIT News

D’Hooghe, a Belgian-born architect and director of the Center for Advanced Urbanism at MIT, cares deeply about urban form and the large-scale issues cities face in achieving more efficient energy use, better transportation and less congestion. One of his main concerns is better integrating suburbs with the larger metropolitan areas in which they exist. — web.mit.edu

Interdisciplinary teams will focus on the planning, design, construction and retrofitting of urban environments for the 21st century. — cau.mit.edu

So when people look at you know, at the ability to 3D print using a robotic arm, they're very, very curious about the possibility of in the future, printing full scale houses, so I think the media lab and specifically in the Media Matter Group, we don't focus only on efficiency translations. For that, I would open a practice in the commercial world, but that's not the function of this lab... — CNN's - THE NEXT LIST

After seven years of teaching structures to a mixed group of architecture and structural engineering graduate students at MIT, Paul Kassabian found that many of his future architects took a just-enough-to-get-the-homework-done approach to understanding those fundamental components. So he created an app to help them out. — fastcodesign.com

University presses will endure as long as they are in a position to offer significant value to academic authors and their readers, and as long as they have the support of their home institutions. In the present and near future, we will see new models for the university press including funded open access models, collaborative publishing models, and global partnerships to develop and disseminate high quality scholarship worldwide. — chronicle.com

Urban planning has focused on identifying many important questions about the formation and functioning of our cities. However, there is a lack of understanding about the spatial patterns related to material and energy use in cities. This work attempts to address this knowledge gap. — urbmet.org

One of the most instantly recognizable features of glass is the way it reflects light. But a new way of creating surface textures on glass, developed by researchers at MIT, virtually eliminates reflections, producing glass that is almost unrecognizable because of its absence of glare — and whose surface causes water droplets to bounce right off, like tiny rubber balls. — MIT