Jaron Lanier
Jaron Lanier an eclectic mix of computer programmer, inventor, musician, and artist. He is probably best known as a pioneer of Virtual Reality. He coined the term virtual reality. In the early 1980's he co-developed the first glove device for virtual world interaction and was the first to study full hand interactions with virtual objects. In the late 1980's he lead the team that developed the first implementations of multi-person virtual worlds. He co-developed the first implementations of virtual reality applications in the areas of surgical simulation and vehicle interior prototyping. He has a company called VPL Research, which was founded in 1983. This was the first company to introduce immersive virtual reality products. His company introduced the first commercial interface gloves in 1984, head mounted displays in 1987 and networked virtual world system in 1989.
Lanier's Firsts
He was responsible for the first moving camera virtual set for television production. He was responsible for the first performance animation for 3D computer graphics. He was the first to compose web-based network computers. He was one of the originators of real-time surgical simulation and telesurgery. Lanier is also known as a pioneer in the field of visual programming. Sun Microsystems recently acquired his seminal portfolio of patents related to Virtual Reality and networked 3D graphics. [1]
www.well.com/user/jaron/general.html
Mickileta Smith
April 12, 2002
MCCNM 336