Background
Weiser, Mark David was born on July 23, 1952 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of David Warren and Audra Laverne (Hunsaker) Weiser.
university professor computer scientist
Weiser, Mark David was born on July 23, 1952 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of David Warren and Audra Laverne (Hunsaker) Weiser.
He studied Computer and Communication Science at the University of Michigan, receiving an Master of Arts in 1977 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1979. He was known to comment that he bypassed the bachelor"s degree on the way to his Doctor of Philosophy He then spent eight years teaching computer science at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Weiser is widely considered to be the father of ubiquitous computing, a term he coined in 1988. Weiser entered New College of Florida in 1970, but did not remain at that institution to graduate. While Weiser worked for a variety of computer related startups, his seminal work was in the field of ubiquitous computing while leading the computer science laboratory at Palo Alto Research Center, which he joined in 1987.
His ideas were significantly influenced by his father"s reading of Michael Polanyi"s "The Tacit Dimension".
He became head of the computer science laboratory in 1988 and chief technology officer in 1996, authoring more than eighty technical publications. In addition to in the field of computer science, Weiser was also the drummer for Severe Tire Damage.
In 1999, Weiser was diagnosed with stomach cancer and given 18 months to live. Weiser died six weeks later, on April 27, 1999.
The Weiser Excellence in Computing Scholarship Fund at the University of California, Berkeley, is awarded to undergraduate computer science students in Weiser"s honor.
Since 2001, the Association for Computing Machinery"s special interest group in operating systems (SIGOPS) has given the annual Mark Weiser Award to a researcher not more than 20 years into their career who has made "contributions that are highly creative, innovative, and possibly high-risk, in keeping with the visionary spirit of Mark " During one of his talks, Weiser outlined a set of principles describing ubiquitous computing: The purpose of a computer is to help you do something else. The best computer is a quiet, invisible servant. The more you can do by intuition the smarter you are.
The computer should extend your unconscious.
Technology should create calm. In Designing Calm Technology, Weiser and John Seely Brown describe calm technology as "that which informs but doesn"t demand our focus or attention.".
Member Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Association for Computing Machinery.
Married Victoria Ann Reich, December 16, 1976. Children: Nicole Reich-Weiser, Corinne Reich-Weiser.
