We may not know what the future holds, but we can take a pretty good guess where it will come from: MIT's Media Lab. The renowned Cambridge workspace throws imaginative people of different disciplines together and encourages them to learn by building, tinkering, and designing. The new issue of The Atlantic has a feature illustrating the unusual design of the Media Lab's building, and online we've got an interview with the Lab's new head, Joi Ito, talking about science, art, and the Lab's collaborative ethos.

But what do they make there? Below, we present nine powerful ideas born of the Media Lab.