Drew Houston and Bob Langer encourage Start6 students at completion of IAP workshop
Start6, the new Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) IAP workshop for immersion in innovation and entrepreneurship, wrapped up its third week with sendoffs from two icons in the world of startups: Drew Houston ’05, cofounder and CEO of Dropbox, and Institute Professor Bob Langer.
Houston joined Anantha Chandrakasan, EECS department head and creator of Start6, for a fireside chat on Jan. 27. A crowd of interested students from across campus came to hear Houston describe his experiences and offer advice on taking the plunge to launch a startup.
Cochlear implants — with no exterior hardware
A cochlear implant that can be wirelessly recharged would use the natural microphone of the middle ear rather than a skull-mounted sensor.
Cochlear implants — medical devices that electrically stimulate the auditory nerve — have granted at least limited hearing to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who otherwise would be totally deaf. Existing versions of the device, however, require that a disk-shaped transmitter about an inch in diameter be affixed to the skull, with a wire snaking down to a joint microphone and power source that looks like an oversized hearing aid around the patient’s ear.
Researchers at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory (MTL), together with physicians from Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI), have developed a new, low-power signal-processing chip that could lead to a cochlear implant that requires no external hardware. The implant would be wirelessly recharged and would run for about eight hours on each charge.