MIT's Media Laboratory

ust because it's scientific research doesn't mean it can't be fun.

That seems to be the unofficial motto of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Laboratory, one of the country's premier research facilities for the study of how people and computers communicate.

Visitors touring this hub of high-tech wizardry are just as likely to see bins full of Lego building blocks as they are computer parts. Stuffed toys and gizmos decorate various research areas. In one room, students gather around a parrot, studying the bird's behavior in the hopes of recreating it in a computer-generated character.

LAB WORKING TO BRING PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY TOGETHER

Maggie Orth's workspace at the lab includes not only computers but also an industrial-strength sewing machine used to embroider fabric with conductive threads.

"The goal is to change the shape of computers," says Orth, a research affiliate working toward her Ph.D., of her research in smart textiles. "We're developing new materials that let people think about computing in a different way."

By using the conductive threads, Orth creates embroidered designs that act as pressure sensors, which can be rigged to play music. In one project, a squishy ball is actually a musical instrument that responds to touch to help children learn and play music. In another, an embroidered keypad is sewn onto a denim jacket, allowing the wearer to play music by touching different "keys."

Though musical balls and jackets may not seem to be practical scientific endeavors on the surface, Orth's work examines tangible computer interfaces and explores the notion that soft, malleable interfaces, such as fabric, are actually more familiar and user-friendly than conventional gray keyboards.

Whether projects such as Orth's have any commercial future remains to be seen, but that's not really the goal, she says. "Frankly, we make this stuff for ourselves," she says, summing up the pervasive attitude of the lab.

Still, that doesn't mean the researchers,and their sponsors,aren't taking their work seriously. The Media Lab, founded in 1985, runs on an annual budget of about $35 million, 95 percent of which comes from corporate sponsorships. Its sponsor sheet reads like a who's who of global corporations: Ford Motor, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Johnson & Johnson and Levi Strauss, to name a few.

The lab fosters collaborative research, meaning sponsors can't donate to a specific project or propose what type of research should be done. Instead, the companies generally sponsor one or more of the Media Lab's research consortia: Digital Life, News in the Future, Things That Think or the recently launched Digital Nations.

	BREAKTHROUGHS IN TECHNOLOGY
	MIT's Media Lab, home to 200-plus research projects, focuses on how people and computers communicate. Smart textiles: Conductive threads that act as pressure sensors and can be rigged to play music. Software agents: Small programs to which users delegate tasks.

The result of the lab's unique funding scheme is that research is done for the sake of research. If a project leads to commercial success, that's just icing on the cake.

Lego, for example, has incorporated the Media Lab's work on Programmable Bricks into its MindStorms products, a series of building sets that lets kids build and program robots.

In a concept car, DaimlerChrysler featured The Audio Spotlight technology, which creates a sound beam that can be directed like light, giving passengers the ability to listen to different radio stations at the same time.

Some of the technology, such as Jim Youll's work with software agents, could impact the future of e-business. Software agents, or small programs to which users delegate tasks, are already widely used on auction sites, automatically raising a user's bid up to a predetermined amount, for example. Youll's work looks beyond auctions. "Those agents are limited in that they only discover price," says Youll, a research assistant working toward a master's degree. He is developing a marketplace environment in which agents representing various buyers and sellers would handle all aspects of an online purchase, from finding a retailer that offers the item to arranging for shipping, credit card authorization and insurance.

"I'm taking the idea of the auction place and separating that from the rules of engagement," Youll says.

For many of the researchers at the Media Lab, it's all about redefining those rules.