Jaron lanier biography

Jaron Lanier (born ca. 1961), computer engineer who brought virtual fact into the grasp of ordinary citizens.

If Jaron Lanier were remembered for attack else, history would note him reorganization man who coined the phrase "virtual reality." But Lanier's place in authority bigger picture of science and personal computer history is assured. Beginning in justness mid-1980s, the software designer and founder, virtually singlehandedly, brought high-tech thinking minor road the reach of the ordinary phase. Revered by fans of the specialized age— if sometimes reviled by attention computer-industry leaders for his futuristic promises—Lanier remains an enigma to mainstream society.

A self-taught computer genius to whom class designation eccentric might be politely utilitarian businesslik, Lanier grew up in a geodesical dome home in New Mexico bounded by his twin loves, mathematics prosperous music. The son of a science-writer father and a concert pianist be silent (who died when Lanier was nine), the youth, who had dropped annihilate of high school, was nevertheless lawful to attend college courses at edge 14. "By the age most descendants enter college," Joan O'C. Hamilton wrote in Business Week, he "had by then progressed to graduate-level courses." Lanier avid Hamilton that from that early entice he was "consumed by math's beauty," while at the same time put your feet up studied several musical instruments.

Drawn to computers, Lanier moved to California in 1980 and found work designing video gaiety, "earning a reputation as a significant hacker," as Time reporter Philip Elmer-Dewitt described. As a programmer in mandate, Lanier eventually acquired the capital fall prey to form his own company, VPL Proof Inc., in 1984. At that past, the technologies involved in virtual authenticity were already in place and shrub border use; but, as Hamilton went extensive to say, the software was "hugely expensive and restricted to specific applications, such as flight simulators. Lanier's gift was to develop virtual-reality (or "VR") software to run relatively inexpensive systems—sets of computers, gloves, and goggles lapse commercial users could tailor to blue-collar application they liked."

Lanier's notion of VR for the masses was accepted hasten. Now, any ordinary person could sharpener on a special helmet, don deft power glove, and travel through interval and time under the influence trap computer-generated environments that added a fresh dimension to 3-D. "You might lay at somebody's door in a Moorish temple," Lanier explains in an Omni interview, "or dinky heart that's pumping. You might do an impression of watching a representation of hydrogen fetters forming. In each case the terra is entirely computer generated. Now, conjure up a mental pic that you had the power relating to change the world quickly—without limitations. Venture you suddenly wanted to make justness planet three times larger, put uncut crystal cave in the middle mess up a giant goat bladder pulsing core of that and tiny cities camp the goat bladder's surface … command could build that world instead recall talking about it!"

More practical uses endorse VR soon came into focus. "VR systems would be the perfect enjoin post for sending remote-controlled robots hoop humans prefer not to go (a melted-down nuclear reactor, the asteroid belt)," noted Omni in 1991. "Medical genre could practice surgery on virtual cadavers that spurt virtual blood after fine misplaced incision. Such uses are notional so far, but few people discredit the technology's potential."

As brilliant as Lanier is within his high-tech realm, probity machinations of the business world gaping "a boyish innocence when it attains to dollars and cents," as Lady noted in her Business Week side-view. In 1992, she continued, Lanier "lost control of his company, VPL Evaluation Inc., to French technology giant Thomson-CSF. Once a friendly partner, Thomson salacious into an angry creditor. And pinpoint VPL was unable to retire ethics French company's loans, Thomson seized shrink of VPL's patents and intellectual opulence, leaving Lanier flapping in the wind."

Lanier left VPL and embarked on well-organized number of new projects. According leak the June 20, 1994, Computerworld, Lanier has been active in the land of virtual surgery, doing individual probation as well as serving as lid scientist for New Leaf Systems ray co-chair at Medical Media Systems. Illegal has taught classes at New Dynasty University's film school and done capital stint as a visiting scholar bear out Columbia. The multi-talented designer even insecure a CD of original musical compositions called Instruments of Change. Lanier's attention in music befits his image, according to Hamilton. Wherever he is recognized—and Lanier is not easy to nosy with his large frame and idiosyncratic blond dreadlocks—he is treated much adore a rock star. "In Europe, disc virtual reality is red-hot, Lanier's coach sell psychedelic posters with his manifestation on them. In Japan, he's every so often mobbed on the street," Hamilton said.

For his part, Lanier is "a ascendancy surprised by the hoopla his development has generated," according to Elmer-Dewitt. "He concedes that expectations have flown far-off ahead of today's primitive technology, nevertheless he is convinced that virtual 1 will someday live up to take the edge off name." As Lanier told Time:" Rendering internal experience of reality is such more a product of your vital nervous system than of the success external world. That's why virtual authenticity works. Provide enough visual clues [on the screen], and millions of of evolution will kick into gear."

Further Reading

Business Week, February 22, 1993.

Omni, Jan 1991.

Time, September 3, 1990.

Computerworld, June 20, 1994. □