Innovation on the Edge: How Hackers Turned a Videogame Controller into a Breakthrough Device
Johnny Chung Lee, Interface Technology Researcher
in conversation with Jason Tanz, Senior Editor, WIRED
Bio
Johnny Chung Lee
As a researcher in Microsoft's Applied Sciences Group, Johnny Lee was a key contributor to the development of the Xbox Kinect, the company's revolutionary controller-free gaming interface. Launched in November 2010, the Kinect sold 8 million units in its first 60 days, making it the fastest-selling consumer device of all time, according to Guinness World Records.
When Lee joined Microsoft in 2008, he had just completed his PhD in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, where he focused on technologies that enhance human-computer interaction. He gained widespread recognition from his demonstrations in YouTube videos and at the TED conference on ways of hacking together advanced interfaces -- like interactive whiteboards and 3D displays -- from off-the-shelf products. In 2008, MIT's Technology Review added Lee to its prestigious "TR35" list of the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. In early 2011, he joined Google as a "rapid evaluator."
Jason Tanz
Jason Tanz heads up WIRED's business coverage. Before joining the magazine, he was a senior editor at Fortune Small Business, an editor at Fortune, and a writer at SmartMoney. As a freelance writer, he's covered everything from mah-jongg tournaments to "nerdcore" rap for a variety of major magazines. He is also the author of the acclaimed book Other People's Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America.
U.S. computer firm, the leading developer of personal-computer software systems and applications. Microsoft, headquartered in Redmond, Wash., also publishes books and multimedia titles and manufactures hardware. It was founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul G. Allen (b. 1954), who adapted BASIC for use on personal computers. They licensed versions of it to various companies, developed other programming languages, and in 1981 released MS-DOS for the IBM PC. The subsequent adoption of MS-DOS by most other personal-computer manufacturers generated vast revenues for Microsoft, which became a publicly owned corporation in 1986. It issued the first version of Microsoft Word, its popular word-processing program, in 1983, and Microsoft Windows, a graphical user interface for MS-DOS-based computers, in 1985. In 2001 Microsoft released Xbox, a video game console that quickly captured second place in the $10 billion video gaming market. In 2002 Microsoft launched Xbox Live, a broadband gaming network for their consoles.
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