Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

MIT Media Lab Europe: An Obituary

Posted by michael on from the flew-too-close-to-the-sun dept.

David R writes "Media Lab Europe, offspring of the famous MIT Media Lab, is closing its doors forever, as announced today. The corporate funding strategy hasn't worked out. Strangled by the stopped river of Irish government funding, the lab ceases its operations. Having worked there for quite some time, I can give you the gory details and a lot of background on MLE's closure. It has sure been the fanciest, geekiest and most open work, research and play environment I've seen. The moral? I think it is questionable whether basic or visionary, interdisciplinary (and often badly evaluated) research will be funded by private corporations. But secondly, European companies need a culture of sponsorship, which has existed in America for a long time."

3 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Private Funding of Research Requires a Monopoly by fijimf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Privately owned companies have a responsibility to deliver to their shareholders. The true test of whether a company is a monopoly or not is whether there is a willingness to fund basic research science without a myopic focus on the bottom line. Monopolies can afford this.

    The evidence supporting is TJ Watson, Bell Labs, and Xerox Parc. Sadly, as the monopoly is eliminated so is the research.

    And while their output hasn't been earth shattering yet, this is further evidence of Microsoft's monopoly.

  2. If you want me to read your blog, make it readable by GGardner · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So, the fine article sounds interesting, but when I click on the link, the article has an annoying alpha-blended background peeking through onto the text. Sure, that's cool in a geeky way, but annoying enough so that I can't even finish reading the text. I wonder if this is a metaphor for the Media Lab in general -- stuff that's geeky for the sake of being cool, but kind of a flop when it hits the real world.

  3. Re:Media Lab, RIP already by khallow · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Consider the global economy competition. US workers are not doing the manufacturing, nor other minimal value added activities. Some supporters of off shoring have said that the US needs to innovate, as this is their place in the global marketplace. So what do we do? Shut down one of the places where were were innovating?

    Innovation's not just discoveries and inventions, but profiting from those discoveries and inventions. MLE failed to do that. Also, reading through some of the stories, I sense that MLE had really poor control of costs. They may also had a less than competent leadership, I don't know the merits of including two members of the band, U2 on the board of directories (Bono at least appears to be a solid businessman and media expert), but having a founder of Wired magazine as Chairman should be a big warning flag.