MIT Media Lab Europe: An Obituary

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."

Comments

Ruined my day

[AtariAmarok]

"Strangled by the stopped river of Irish government funding"

Thanks for putting the image of that damn Riverdance in my brain.

I think I know why it closed

[krog]

Perhaps being right next to the Guinness brewery explains why not much work was done there.

Media Lab, RIP already

[Anonymous Coward]

I must prefix my bashing with an apology. I have friends at Media Lab Europe and they are nice, smart, and fun people. I hope you all find new jobs.

The media lab concept is to make a pretty toy with an amusing concept, and call it brilliant (demo or die!). The painful part is that despite looking really cool, many of these toys and instruments are nothing more than that, toys. All of the crap musical instruments, and artistic looking mobiles, as far as I'm concerned are worthless other then kitch value. Most of the concepts are not new and other than eye candy aspects have been done more completely. The end result has been that they have failed to push boundaries, failed to advance the state of the art, and seemingly failed to have any lasting value, other than to inflate the already gigantic ego of the institution.

I hear your cries already. " But what about this one example yada yada yada..." The fact of the matter is the world doesn't need a bunch of hyped egos running around spending unimaginable sums of money. The research community can do better than the media lab. We are doing better. With less money, less ego, and in the name of science, not profit. I spose we don't all have machined plastic demos with videos of children happily playing across internet 2 in 4 countries.

Oh well, RIP

Re:Media Lab, RIP already

[krog]

Judging by your post, I have no choice but to assume that you think a laser printer which can toast designs into bread using PostScript is a 'toy'.

I've got a $45,000 grilled cheese bearing the face of the Blessed Virgin that says you're wrong.

Re:Media Lab, RIP already

[khallow]

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.

Private Funding of Research Requires a Monopoly

[fijimf]

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.

Re:Private Funding of Research Requires a Monopoly

[krbvroc1]

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.

I think you are generalizing. I think what a monopoly does with its power is basically up to its leadership. I know of several monopoly industries who rested on their laurels and didn't innovate at all. Or where their public contribution was simply a very small token meant for public relations.

If you want me to read your blog, make it readable

[GGardner]

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.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Huh

[Skim123]

You mean no companies want to pay for this valuable research? I am shocked. Shocked!