Awardee Scott Kirsner posted his take on the proceedings last Thursday night, and we did, too. Above, view a gallery of confused — and maybe a little scared — party-goers awkwardly staring you right in your face courtesy of Greg Peverill-Conti. After the jump, check out a slideshow of the All-Star scene featuring more than just bewildered heads. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘All-Stars’
MHT All-Stars @ the Park Plaza
Monday, November 2nd, 2009Helen Greiner likes her robots just the way they are, thanks
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
Helen Greiner
IRobot co-founder, Droid Works CEO and 2007 MHT All-Star Helen Greiner contributes an article to Forbes Magazine’s package on robotics and artificial intelligence, and makes a compelling argument against humanoid robots:
Customers don’t want a Roomba vacuuming robot that argues when you tell it to vacuum the floor. That’s what kids are for. When the company I co-founded, iRobot, first delivered Roomba to customers, they didn’t write to us and say, “I want it to be more humanlike.” They said, “Make it cover the floor better and make it recharge on its own” (we did) …
Likewise, the military doesn’t need robots that question commands or find their assignment boring. Combat robots are built for a mission; they are tools for the soldier.
In the same package, Yale computer science professor David Gelernter argues for a resurgence in AI research’s less practical side:
This facet of AI research has more or less shut down because it ignored an all-important detail: Intelligence isn’t just about problem-solving, but about a whole cognitive spectrum that includes dreaming and other forms of unconscious activity.
MIT’s Lita Nelsen made Member of The Order of the British Empire
Monday, June 15th, 2009
MIT’s “grand dame of tech transfer,” Lita Nelsen, has been made a Member of the Order of the British Empire, according to the office of the British Consulate-General in Boston. Nelsen, a 2006 Mass High Tech All-Star, was honored for her work shaping the tech transfer landscape under the Cambridge-MIT Institute, which is entirely less redundant than it sounds.
Ms. Nelsen has done much to influence the recent culture shift towards commercialisation by UK universities. In 2002, with David Secher then Director of Research Services at Cambridge University, Ms. Nelsen organised Praxis, a not-for profit organisation running a training programme on knowledge transfer for commercialisation staff in UK academic institutions.
Nelsen joins all four Beatles, golfer Nick Faldo and Jackie Chan as a member of the order. The 2009 class also includes former Boston and current Los Angeles police commissioner Bill Bratton.
In February, Nelson told Mass High Tech she was optimistic about the state of tech transfer after an Association of Tech Transfer Managers survey pointed to an uptick in startups coming out of New England colleges.
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