#mit

US Top News and Analysis | Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down after 19 years at helm of cloud storage pioneer AI generated summary, Read the full article for complete information. Dropbox co‑founder and chief executive Drew Houston announced that he will leave the CEO role after nearly two decades, transitioning to executive chairman while sharing a co‑CEO title with product chief Ashraf Alkarmi, who will eventually assume full leadership. Houston, who built Dropbox into a $6 billion‑valued public company and amassed a personal net worth of more than $2 billion, said there is “never a perfect time” for the change and that he plans to focus on entrepreneurship in artificial intelligence. The company, which now has over 18 million paying users and generates roughly $2 billion in annual revenue, is betting on AI‑powered tools such as the new Dash feature to drive growth amid fierce competition from Google, Apple, Microsoft and rivals like Box. Analysts view the move and the AI push as positive signs, noting that Dropbox’s stock has held up better than many SaaS peers. Houston, also a Meta board member, expects to stay active in the tech ecosystem while the firm brings in Google veteran Mike Torres as chief product officer. Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/26/dropbox-ceo-drew-houston-ashraf-alkarmi.html #DrewHouston #AshrafAlkarmi #Dropbox #Meta #MIT

Chicago Sun-Times - All | University of Chicago to offer free tuition for students from families making less than $250,000 a year by Mary Norkol AI generated summary, Read the full article for complete information. The University of Chicago announced that, beginning in fall 2027, it will waive tuition for undergraduate students whose families earn under $250,000 a year and will also cover housing, meals and other fees for those from families earning under $125,000. The move, described by President Paul Alivisatos as a step to keep “the brightest minds” accessible to middle‑ and upper‑middle‑income families, comes as the school’s total cost of attendance nears $100,000 annually (with tuition alone about $71,000). The university already provides roughly $75,000 in average aid per student and $225 million in aid each year, and the new policy joins similar initiatives at Harvard, Columbia, MIT, Northwestern and other top schools that have begun offering tuition‑free education to families below certain income thresholds. Read more: https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2026/05/13/university-of-chicago-to-offer-free-tuition-for-students-from-families-making-less-than-250-000-a-year #UniversityofChicago #PaulAlivisatos #Harvard #Columbia #MIT #NorthwesternUniversity #ChicagoPublicSchools #

The Guardian | I knew my writing students were using AI. Their confessions led to a powerful teaching moment | Micah Nathan by Micah Nathan AI generated summary, Read the full article for complete information. In his MIT fiction‑writing workshop, Micah Nathan discovered that students were using AI to produce polished yet soulless stories, which sparked a powerful teaching moment about the essential struggle of translating thought into words. He argues that AI‑generated prose, while flawless on the surface, eliminates the friction that cultivates both creative growth and cognitive endurance, weakening writers’ skills and undermining the peer‑review dynamic that relies on authentic authorial voices. Citing historical anxieties about new technologies and recent studies linking AI‑assisted writing to reduced neural connectivity and persistence, Nathan now enforces a clear policy against AI‑written submissions, positioning the workshop as a sanctuary for genuine authorship where the messy process of drafting, revising, and grappling with language is valued over effortless, machine‑produced text. Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/may/10/fiction-writing-professor-ai #MicahNathan #MIT #aiartificialintelligence #education #highereducation

Tomorrow (Sunday, April 19, 2026) is the first MIT swap of the year. This is an electronics flea market/hamfest held at MIT inside of a parking garage every month during the non-winter months. It cost $6 to enter ($5 if you print out a PDF from their website.) lots of retro computing, Arduino, ham radio, general electronics, and associated fun stuff https://w1mx.mit.edu/flea-at-mit/ #electronics #cambridgema #mit #hamradio

Ei ollut vielä Aurinkolahti vapautunut kokonaan jäästä. Vartionkylänlahti oli auki. #helsinki #mitäiistimpääsitäsiistimpää

yahoo news | Revealed: Epstein used Steve Bannon as middleman as he scrambled to meet... by undefined Jeffrey Epstein’s newly released files show that in March 2018 he tried to broker a meeting between former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and the leaders of the MeToo‑inspired organization Time’s Up. In a series of text messages, Epstein told Bannon that Joichi “Joi” Ito – then director of MIT’s Media Lab – had agreed to arrange the encounter, noting that the meeting should take place in an “academic setting” such as MIT to provide cover. The messages reveal that Epstein was actively coordinating with Ito, who had previously introduced Epstein to Michelle Kydd, a future founding member of Time’s Up, and that the proposed dialogue was meant to bring together two groups that appeared ideologically opposed. The exchange indicates that Bannon was at least curious about the meeting, replying affirmatively and acknowledging Io’s involvement. However, the record does not confirm whether the meeting ever occurred. Subsequent texts show Bannon spending a day with Epstein in Cambridge on March 25, 2018, and expressing appreciation for the encounter, while Ito later resigned from MIT after Epstein’s 2019 arrest. Following the release of the files, Ito announced he would step back from a Japanese government technology initiative, asserting he had never been aware of any illegal conduct by Epstein. The revelations sit within a broader context of Bannon’s complex relationship with Time’s Up. Publicly, Bannon praised the organization as a powerful left‑wing grassroots movement, yet private messages exchanged during the 2018 Senate Judiciary hearings suggest a more skeptical tone. The article also notes the eventual decline of Time’s Up, which ceased operations in 2023 after internal controversies. Raw Story was unable to obtain comment from Bannon or Ito regarding the disclosed communications. Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/steve-bannon-epstein/ #jeffreyepstein #stevebannon #time'sup #joichiito #mit