Inside the Tuna Can

blackcoot writes "Now folks walking through MIT's Infinite Corridor get to play with the virtual fishies (they react based on sensor data). I don't know if this will end up looking much nicer than the fish tank that used to come with MS Plus back in the day, but anything that requires months of computation to calculate just the raw data is cool in my book."

Comments

Re:cool?

[Timesprout]

Unquestionably animal movement is more sophisticated than any currently available mechanical movement or propulsion systems. Its debatable though how useful mimicing this sort of movement is in real world vehicles would be.
Take aircraft for example. They are faster but less agile than birds. In transport terms though we really only want them to fly in straight lines from A to B so agility is not an overwhelming consideration in their construction. If we want them to be more efficient we make them lighter and more aerodynamic.
Undoubtably there are niche requirements that will benefit from this sort of research but I doubt the ability to product ships that move like fish (my god think of the sea sickness from the motion of the waves AND the ship itself) will revolutionize transport.

Re:security

[karlm]

Yup, the Infinate Corridor is open 24/7, but at least every couple of minutes you have some weary student or custodial staff member in some part of the corridor.

There's a small computer lab just of the infinate that has an electronic (not Simplex) pushbutton lock. It has a large floor-to-cieling set of windows and is affectionately called the "fishbowl" due to your abilty to observe the students in the lab from the Infinate Corridor. My guess is that they'll either make a sturdy display case or put it inside the fish bowl, facing outwards. MIT students also have better things to do that mindlessly destroy MIT property. Occasionally they accidently ruin some alarm sensor they were trying to bypass, but vandalism is pretty rare and theft is somewhat rare.

Breaking and entering with intent to create something creaive and easily removable is about the most the average MIT student is willing to risk getting kicked out of MIT for.