Andrew Kirmse

Last updated
Andrew Kirmse
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Occupation Video game developer (former)
Mobile software
Known forCreator of Meridian 59
Creator of Google Now
TitleDistinguished engineer

Andrew Kirmse is an American computer programmer. He was a co-creator of Meridian 59, the first 3D massively-multiplayer online game. [1] While an engineer at Google, he co-created Google Now, a predictive search engine. [2]

Contents

Video games

Andrew and his brother Chris developed the code for Meridian 59 in their parents' basement while they were in college. [3] Meridian was the first online game to include 3D graphics. After a beta period, it was published by The 3DO Company in 1996, where it ran until 2000. Meridian's code was open-sourced in 2012, [4] and it continues to run for free today.

While at LucasArts, Andrew served as graphics programmer on the PlayStation 2 game Star Wars: Starfighter. [5]

Andrew contributed to the first four volumes of the Game Programming Gems series of books about video game development. He was the editor of Game Programming Gems 4. [6]

Google

Andrew began working at Google in 2003, where he managed the Google Earth team. [7] He later started and led Google Now, [8] which was named Innovation of the Year by Popular Science in 2012, [9] and won the Grand Prize at the 2013 User Experience Awards. [10] He gave an invited talk on Google Now at the 2014 WWW Conference. [11]

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References

  1. Olivetti, Justin (December 13, 2011). "The Game Archaeologist crosses Meridian 59: The highlights". Archived from the original on April 19, 2014. Retrieved June 13, 2014.
  2. Sullivan, Danny (April 29, 2013). "The Amazing "Google Now" — When Google Searches Before You Think To". Search Engine Land . Retrieved June 13, 2014.
  3. Parkin, Simon (May 12, 2014). "The Last Survivors of Meridian 59". The New Yorker .
  4. "Meridian 59 : Open Source Released!".
  5. "Star Wars: Starfighter Credits".
  6. "Game Programming Gems 4".
  7. "MIT Class of 1994 Alumni Notes" (PDF).
  8. "Android Google+ post". Nov 21, 2012.
  9. "Innovation of the Year: Google Now".
  10. "Google: Google Now Grand Prize, Best Everyday Utility". May 21, 2013.
  11. "WWW 2014 Industry Track".