Daniel Hillis | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Hillis in 2014 | |
| Born | William Daniel Hillis (1956-09-25)September 25, 1956 (age 68) |
| Education | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS,PhD) |
| Spouse | [1] |
| Awards | Dan David Prize (2002) Grace Murray Hopper Award (1989) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer Science Computer Engineering |
| Institutions | Thinking Machines Walt Disney Imagineering Applied Invention |
| Thesis | The Connection Machine (1985) |
| Doctoral advisor | Marvin Minsky Gerald Jay Sussman Claude Shannon |
William Daniel Hillis (born September 25, 1956) is an Americaninventor,entrepreneur, andcomputer scientist, who pioneeredparallel computers and their use inartificial intelligence. He foundedThinking Machines Corporation, a parallelsupercomputer manufacturer, and subsequently was Vice President of Research and Disney Fellow atWalt Disney Imagineering.
Hillis was elected a member of theNational Academy of Engineering in 2001 for advances in parallel computers, parallel software, and parallel storage.
More recently, Hillis co-founded Applied Minds,[2] and Applied Invention, an interdisciplinary group of engineers, scientists, and artists.[3]
Born September 25, 1956, inBaltimore,Maryland, Danny Hillis spent much of his childhood living overseas, inEurope,Africa, andAsia.
He attended theMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and received hisbachelor of science inmathematics in 1978. As anundergraduate, he worked at the MITLogo Laboratory under the tutelage ofSeymour Papert, developingcomputer hardware andsoftware for children.[4] During this time, he also designed computer-oriented toys and games for theMilton Bradley Company. While still in college, he co-founded Terrapin Inc., a producer of computer software, including Logo, forelementary schools.[5][6]
As agraduate student at theMIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory,[7] Hillis designed tendon-controlled robot arms[8] and a touch-sensitive robot "skin".[9]
During his college years, Hillis was part of the team that built a computer composed entirely ofTinkertoys,[10] currently at theComputer History Museum inMountain View, California.[11]
At MIT, Hillis began to study Artificial Intelligence underMarvin Minsky. In 1981, he proposed building a massively parallel computer for Artificial Intelligence, consisting of a million processors, each similar to a modern Graphics Processing Unit. This work culminated in the design of a massively parallel computer with 64,000processor cores. He named it theConnection Machine, and it became the topic of hisPhD, for which he received the 1985Association for Computing Machinery Doctoral Dissertation award.[12] Hillis earned hisdoctorate as aHertz Foundation Fellow at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, under the supervision ofMarvin Minsky,Claude Shannon andGerald Sussman, receiving his PhD in 1988. He later served as anadjunct professor at theMIT Media Lab, where he wroteThe Pattern on the Stone.
Hillis has founded a number of technology companies, includingThinking Machines Corporation, Applied Minds,Metaweb Technologies, Applied Proteomics,[13] and Applied Invention.[14] Hillis has over 300 issuedpatents[15] in fields including parallel computers, touch interfaces,disk arrays, forgery prevention methods, electronic and mechanical devices, and bio-medical techniques,RAID disk arrays,multicore multiprocessors and forwormhole routing inparallel processing.[16]
As a graduate student at MIT, Hillis co-foundedThinking Machines Corporation to produce and marketparallel computers, developing a series of influential products called theConnection Machine.[17] At the time the company produced many of the fastest computers in the world.[18] The Connection Machine was used in demanding computation and data-intensive applications. It was used by theStanford Exploration Project for oil exploration[19][20] and for pioneeringdata mining applications byAmerican Express,[21] as well as many scientific applications at organizations includingSchlumberger,Harvard University,University of Tokyo, theLos Alamos National Laboratory,NASA,Sandia National Laboratories,National Center for Supercomputer Applications, Army High Performance Computing Research Center,University of California Berkeley,University of Wisconsin at Madison, andSyracuse University.
In addition to designing the company's major products, Hillis worked closely with users of his machine, applying it to problems inastrophysics,aircraft design,financial analysis,genetics,computer graphics,medical imaging,image understanding,neurobiology,materials science,cryptography, and subatomic physics.
At Thinking Machines, he built a team of scientists, designers, and engineers, including people in the field as well as those who later became leaders and innovators in multiple industries. The team includedSydney Brenner,Richard Feynman,[22]Brewster Kahle, andEric Lander.
Among the users of Thinking Machines computers wasSergey Brin, who went on later to foundGoogle,[23] andNeal Stephenson, who attempted to use a CM-2 to implement a game that he later turned into the novelSnow Crash.[24]
In 1996, Hillis joinedThe Walt Disney Company in the newly created role of Disney Fellow[25] and as vice president, Research and Development atDisney Imagineering.[26] He developed new technologies and business strategies for Disney's theme parks, television, motion pictures, and consumer products businesses.[27][28] He also designed new theme park rides, a full-sized walking dinosaur,[29] and various micro mechanical devices.
In 2000, Hillis co-founded the R&D think-tank Applied Minds with his Disney colleagueBran Ferren. Minds is a team of engineers, scientists, and designers that provide design and technology services for clients. The creative environment and the diverse projects it undertook gained Applied Minds abundant media attention. "It's as if Willy Wonka's chocolate factory just yawned wide to welcome us. Only here, all the candy plugs in," said an article inWired magazine.[30] Work done at the firm covered the range of industries and application domains, including satellites,[31] helicopters,[32] and educational facilities.[33]
While at Applied Minds, Hillis designed and built a large-scale computerdata center forSun Microsystems (theSun Modular Datacenter) that would fit into a standard 20-footshipping container,[34][35] solving, among others, the problems of accommodating processor capacity, cooling, power requirements, and storage[36] within a uniquely portable solution.[buzzword] This type of "datacenter in a box," has now become a common method for building large data centers.[37]
ForHerman Miller, Hillis designed an audio privacy solution[buzzword][38][39] based onphonetic jumbling—Babble[40]—which was received in the media as a version of theCone of Silence, and was marketed through a new company, Sonare. Also for Herman Miller, Hillis developed a flexible reconfigurable power and lighting system,[41][42] which was marketed through another new company,Convia.
As part of an earlytouchscreen map table interface, Hillis invented and patented the use of multiple touch points to control a zoom interface, which is now called "pinch to zoom.".[43] One of these patents was the basis for theUSPTO decision[44] to rejectApple Inc.'s claim on a "pinch-to-zoom" patent in its legal dispute withSamsung, on the grounds that it was described in the Hillis patent.
In 2005, Hillis and others from Applied Minds foundedMetaweb Technologies to develop asemanticdata storage infrastructure[45] for theInternet, andFreebase, an open, structured database of the world's knowledge.[46] That company was acquired byGoogle,[47] and its technology became the basis of theGoogle Knowledge Graph.
In 2012, Hillis helped to create a research program on cancer andproteomics as Professor of Research Medicine at theKeck School of Medicine of USC, and the principal investigator of theNational Cancer Institute's Physical Sciences in Oncology Laboratory at USC.[48] He co-founded Applied Proteomics (API)[13] withDavid Agus to makeproteomics-based biomarker discovery practical.[49] Hillis and his colleagues at API developed one of the first proteinbiomarker discovery platforms and ablood test for early stagecolon cancer, but they were unable to convince investors to finance taking their proteomic technology to the market.[50][51]
Hillis has academic appointments as the Judge Widney Professor of Engineering and Medicine at the University of Southern California,[52] Professor of Research Medicine at theKeck School of Medicine of USC, and research professor of engineering at theUSC Viterbi School of Engineering.[53] He was the first principal investigator of theNational Cancer Institute's Physical Sciences in Oncology Laboratory at USC.[48]
In 2015, Hillis co-founded Applied Invention, aninterdisciplinary group of engineers, scientists, and artists. Applied Invention develops technology solutions[buzzword] in partnership with other companies andentrepreneurs.
Applied Invention co-founded Dark Sky,[54] aweather forecasting technology company with consumer web andmobile applications[55] that was eventually sold to Apple.[56]
Hillis' 1998popular science bookThe Pattern on the Stone attempts to explain concepts fromcomputer science for laymen using simple language, metaphor and analogy. It moves fromBoolean algebra through topics such asinformation theory,parallel computing,cryptography,algorithms,heuristics,Turing machines, and evolving technologies such asquantum computing andemergent systems.
In 1986, Hillis expressed alarm that society had what he called a "mental barrier" of looking at the year 2000 as the limit of the future.[57] He proposed a project to build a mechanical clock that would last 10,000 years. This project became the initial project ofThe Long Now Foundation, which he co-founded withStewart Brand and where he serves as co-chairman. A prototype of theClock of the Long Now is on display at theLondon Science Museum. A full-scale mechanical clock is being installed at a site inside a mountain in western Texas.[58]
Hillis is the recipient of the inauguralDan David Prize for shaping and enriching society and public life in 2002,[59] the 1991 Spirit of American Creativity Award for his inventions,[60] the 1989Grace Murray Hopper Award for his contributions to computer science,[12] and the 1988 Ramanujan Award for his work in applied mathematics.
Hillis is a member of theNational Academy of Engineering,[61] a fellow of theAssociation for Computing Machinery,[12] a fellow of theInternational Leadership Forum,[62] and aFellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[63]
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