Illuminating research
These days, in newer buildings it’s often hard even to find a plain old-fashioned light switch. Often, the only controls are automatic motion-detector switches that turn off lights when people have left a room — or when they sit too still — or else daunting control panels with arrays of sliders and buttons. But some researchers at the MIT Media Lab are aiming to put the controls back in people’s hands, in a way that provides sophisticated and continuous control and could slash lighting bills by more than half.Media Lab Associate Professor Joseph Paradiso says that “Lighting systems keep getting more complex,” and increasingly use automated controls. But the new system being tested by members of his Responsive Environments Group could put the controls directly on users’ desktops.The experimental control devices being tested by research associate Matthew Aldrich are about the size of a business card, and thin enough to...