Bio
James Cameron
James Cameron's films have blazed new trails in visual effects and set performance records both domestically and abroad. AVATAR and TITANIC, the #1 and #2 highest grossing films in history, earned 23 Academy Award nominations and 14 Oscars between them.
An avid scuba diver, Cameron has made 33 manned-submersible dives to the Titanic, and ultimately led seven deep ocean expeditions with over 70 deep submersible dives. He created a number of documentary films about ocean exploration and conservation, including GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS and ALIENS OF THE DEEP, both of which utilized the 3D camera system he co-pioneered.
Cameron is fascinated by outer as well as inner space; he is currently a co-investigator on the Mastcam of the Curiosity Rover, which in 2011 will be the first 3D motion imaging camera to operate on another planet. He is continuing to develop ocean projects and other environmentally-themed documentaries.
Eric Schmidt
Eric Emerson Schmidt, Ph.D is a member of the board of directors of Apple, Inc. and was the CEO of Google, Inc. from 2001 - 2011. He continues as the executive chairman of Google and acts as an adviser to co-founders Page and Brin. He also sits on the Princeton University board of trustees.
Since coming to Google, Schmidt has focused on building the corporate infrastructure needed to maintain Google's rapid growth as a company and ensuring that quality remains high while product development cycle times are kept to a minimum. Schmidt shares responsibility for Google's day-to-day operations.
Schmidt's Novell experience culminated a twenty-year record of achievement as an Internet strategist, entrepreneur, and developer of great technologies.
Prior to his appointment at Novell, Schmidt was chief technology officer and corporate executive officer at Sun Microsystems, Inc., where he led the development of Java, Sun's platform-independent programming technology, and defined Sun's internet software strategy.
Before joining Sun in 1983, he was a member of the research staff at the Computer Science Lab at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and held positions at Bell Laboratories and Zilog.
Schmidt has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University and a master's and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2006, Schmidt was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, which recognized his work on "the development of strategies for the world's most successful Internet search engine company."
Schmidt was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a fellow in 2007. He is also chairman of the board of directors for the New America Foundation.
Encyclopædia Britannica Article
- Titanic
The Titanic.The Bettmann ArchiveBritish luxury passenger liner that sank on April 15, 1912, en route to New York from Southampton, England, on its maiden voyage. Over 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers were lost. The largest and most luxurious ship afloat, it had a double-bottomed hull divided into 16 watertight compartments. Because four of these could be flooded without endangering its buoyancy, it was considered unsinkable. Shortly before midnight on April 14, it collided with an iceberg southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland; five compartments ruptured and the ship sank. As a result, new rules were drawn up requiring that the number of places in lifeboats equal the number of passengers (the Titanic had only 1,178 lifeboat places for 2,224 passengers) and that all ships maintain a 24-hour radio watch for distress signals (a ship less than 20 mi [32 km] away had not heard the Titanic's distress signal because no one had been on duty). The International Ice Patrol was established to monitor icebergs in shipping lanes. In 1985 the wreck was found lying upright in two pieces at a depth of 13,000 ft (4,000 m) and was explored by American and French scientists using an unmanned submersible (see Robert Ballard).
- Titanic on britannica.com
© 2010 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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