Robert Swirsky (born December, 1962, Brooklyn, NY) is a computer scientist, author and pianist. In the early 1980s, he was one of the first regular contributors to the nascent computer magazine industry, including Popular Computing, Kilobaud Microcomputing, and Interface Age to Creative Computing. [1]
Swirsky holds bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science from Hofstra University, and is one of Hofstra's Alumni of Distinction. While there, he met VOIP pioneer Jeff Pulver who attended Hofstra as an undergraduate student.[ citation needed ] After graduating, Swirsky worked on projects ranging from aircraft avionics to one of the first all-software digital radio receivers for a VLF submarine application.
In 1989, Swirsky moved to California and joined Olivetti Advanced Technology's Unix group. He was a frequent speaker at Uniforum, Usenix, and other Unix shows, and hosted parties where he entertained people with song parodies about the Unix computer operating system, some of which were featured in a special Evatone Soundsheet issue of Interface Age magazine. [2] He studied music and piano at Hofstra University with professor Morton Estrin.
After Olivetti, Swirsky went to Adobe Systems, where he was a member of the core PostScript team, and the team that developed the first versions of Photoshop for Microsoft Windows, including Win32s on Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3.11. His work made him a participant in many industry standards committees, such as TWAIN, and he was a frequent speaker and contributor at ACM SIGGRAPH events. Before leaving Adobe in 1998, he worked with Will Harvey on HTML rendering technology.
In 1998, Swirsky began working for Walt Disney Imagineering R&D as Director, Creative Technology, [3] under Bran Ferren, developing electronic games and digital imaging systems. He developed technology to play interactive games synchronized with live television shows, and electronic toys including Disney's Magical Moments Pin. His digital photography projects included systems to synchronize picture-taking with ride vehicles, and active infrared badges to identify picture-takers.
Swirsky was a major technical contributor to ABC's Enhanced TV, [4] an Emmy Award-winning technology that allowed television viewers to play along with game shows and sporting events, and to answer live polls during talk shows. His interactive media research also involved working with nerdcore rapper Monzy, then an intern at Walt Disney Imagineering, on a variety of cutting-edge display technologies, including the display of digital data on a spherical surface.
Swirsky continues to work as a consultant for the themed entertainment industry, including Disney. [3]
Swirsky is known for his work in 3D digital photography. He has developed algorithms for generating full-color anaglyph images from stereo pairs that can be viewed through red/cyan glasses. A popular freeware program, Callipygian 3D, is widely used and has been featured on TechTV's The Screen Savers show several times, with Swirsky demonstrating it. [5] The popularity of anaglyph images from Mars, and of anaglyph movies like Spy Kids 3D, introduced new audiences to anaglyph technology. Swirsky's software played a major role in enabling people to create their own anaglyph images.
In 2003, Swirsky started a production company, Thrill Science, Inc. "Thrill Science"., to produce and distribute short films and related media for the portable media player market. The company has a 20-acre (81,000 m2) lot adjacent to Walt Disney World in Florida. The property, known as Swampworth, is used as a filming location for productions, and as a studio for Swirsky's other projects.
Some of Swirsky's computer code, from the May 1984 issue of 73 Magazine , [6] was used in the movie The Terminator in a scene where COBOL code was briefly displayed. [7] [8]
Adobe Inc., originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the creation and publication of a wide range of content, including graphics, photography, illustration, animation, multimedia/video, motion pictures, and print. Its flagship products include Adobe Photoshop image editing software; Adobe Illustrator vector-based illustration software; Adobe Acrobat Reader and the Portable Document Format (PDF); and a host of tools primarily for audio-visual content creation, editing and publishing. Adobe offered a bundled solution of its products named Adobe Creative Suite, which evolved into a subscription software as a service (SaaS) offering named Adobe Creative Cloud. The company also expanded into digital marketing software and in 2021 was considered one of the top global leaders in Customer Experience Management (CXM).
The hacker culture is a subculture of individuals who enjoy - often in collective effort - the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming the limitations of software systems or electronic hardware, to achieve novel and clever outcomes. The act of engaging in activities in a spirit of playfulness and exploration is termed hacking. However, the defining characteristic of a hacker is not the activities performed themselves, but how it is done and whether it is exciting and meaningful. Activities of playful cleverness can be said to have "hack value" and therefore the term "hacks" came about, with early examples including pranks at MIT done by students to demonstrate their technical aptitude and cleverness. The hacker culture originally emerged in academia in the 1960s around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)'s Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) and MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Hacking originally involved entering restricted areas in a clever way without causing any major damage. Some famous hacks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were placing of a campus police cruiser on the roof of the Great Dome and converting the Great Dome into R2-D2.
In computing, Motif refers to both a graphical user interface (GUI) specification and the widget toolkit for building applications that follow that specification under the X Window System on Unix and Unix-like operating systems. The Motif look and feel is distinguished by its use of rudimentary square and chiseled three-dimensional effects for its various user interface elements.
CR or Cr may refer to:
William Daniel "Danny" Hillis is an American inventor, entrepreneur, and computer scientist, who pioneered parallel computers and their use in artificial intelligence. He founded Thinking Machines Corporation, a parallel supercomputer manufacturer, and subsequently was Vice President of Research and Disney Fellow at Walt Disney Imagineering.
An electronic document is any electronic media content that is intended to be used in either an electronic form or as printed output. Originally, any computer data were considered as something internal — the final data output was always on paper. However, the development of computer networks has made it so that in most cases it is much more convenient to distribute electronic documents than printed ones. The improvements in electronic visual display technologies made it possible to view documents on screen instead of printing them.
Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, Inc., commonly referred to as Imagineering, is the research and development arm of The Walt Disney Company, responsible for the creation, design, and construction of Disney theme parks and attractions worldwide. The company also manages The Walt Disney Company's properties, from Walt Disney Studios in Burbank to New Amsterdam Theatre and Times Square Studios Ltd. in New York City. Founded by Walt Disney to oversee the production of Disneyland, it was originally known as Walt Disney, Inc. then WED Enterprises, from the initials meaning "Walter Elias Disney", the company co-founder's full name. Headquartered in Glendale, California, Imagineering is composed of "Imagineers", who are illustrators, architects, engineers, lighting designers, show writers and graphic designers.
Anaglyph 3D is the stereoscopic 3D effect achieved by means of encoding each eye's image using filters of different colors, typically red and cyan. Anaglyph 3D images contain two differently filtered colored images, one for each eye. When viewed through the "color-coded" "anaglyph glasses", each of the two images reaches the eye it's intended for, revealing an integrated stereoscopic image. The visual cortex of the brain fuses this into the perception of a three-dimensional scene or composition.
Digital puppetry is the manipulation and performance of digitally animated 2D or 3D figures and objects in a virtual environment that are rendered in real time by computers. It is most commonly used in filmmaking and television production, but has also been used in interactive theme park attractions and live theatre.
The AT&T UNIX PC is a Unix desktop computer originally developed by Convergent Technologies, and marketed by AT&T Information Systems in the mid- to late-1980s. The system was codenamed "Safari 4" and is also known as the PC 7300, and often dubbed the "3B1". Despite the latter name, the system had little in common with AT&T's line of 3B series computers. The system was tailored for use as a productivity tool in office environments and as an electronic communication center.
The Olivetti M24 is a computer that was sold by Olivetti in 1983 using the Intel 8086 CPU.
360 may refer to:
Creative technology is a broadly interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field combining computing, design, art and the humanities. The field of creative technology encompasses art, digital product design, digital media or an advertising and media made with a software-based, electronic and/or data-driven engine. Examples of creative technology include multi-sensory experiences made using computer graphics, video production, digital cinematography, virtual reality, augmented reality, video editing, software engineering, 3D printing, the Internet of Things, CAD/CAM and wearable technology.
The history of computer animation began as early as the 1940s and 1950s, when people began to experiment with computer graphics – most notably by John Whitney. It was only by the early 1960s when digital computers had become widely established, that new avenues for innovative computer graphics blossomed. Initially, uses were mainly for scientific, engineering and other research purposes, but artistic experimentation began to make its appearance by the mid-1960s – most notably by Dr Thomas Calvert. By the mid-1970s, many such efforts were beginning to enter into public media. Much computer graphics at this time involved 2-dimensional imagery, though increasingly as computer power improved, efforts to achieve 3-dimensional realism became the emphasis. By the late 1980s, photo-realistic 3D was beginning to appear in film movies, and by mid-1990s had developed to the point where 3D animation could be used for entire feature film production.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to computing:
Roger Holzberg is an American health innovator, creative director, teacher, writer, and inventor. He is the co-founder and creative director for Reimagine Well, as well as the founder of the organization My Bridge 4 Life. He also previously served as the Creative Director (consulting) for the National Cancer Institute. Through My Bridge 4 Life, Holzberg provides a wellness network for people facing health crises. Holzberg was for twelve years a Vice President / Creative Director at The Walt Disney Company, both at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online and at Walt Disney Imagineering, until he left to found My Bridge 4 Life in 2008. He teaches the Healthcare by Design class at the California Institute of the Arts. His personal use of triathlon as a part of his own wellness plan, and as an inspiration for survivorship, was featured by ABC news in Los Angeles in a promotion for the Malibu Triathlon. In 2015 he became a USAT age category elite athlete qualifying for the USAT national triathlon championships.
Jon Snoddy is an American technology expert who is currently the Advanced Development Studio Executive SVP at Walt Disney Imagineering. He was the co-founder of Big Stage Entertainment and has served as director, CTO, CCO and CTO in various technology/media firms.
The Olivetti company, an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines, was founded as a typewriters manufacturer by Camillo Olivetti in 1908 in the Turin commune of Ivrea, Italy. Olivetti was a pioneer in computer development, starting with the mainframe systems in the 1950s, and continuing into the 1990s with PC compatible laptops and desktops.