Event Location: GHC 6115
Bio: Over the last 30 years, Michael has worked at companies that made graphics hardware, computer-based instrumentation, and rendering software, been the GDI lead for the first couple of versions of Windows NT, worked with John Carmack on Quake, worked on Xbox and Xbox 360, written or co-written at least four software rasterizers (the last one of which, written at RAD Game Tools, turned into Intel’s late, lamented Larrabee project), and worked on VR at Valve. Along the way he wrote a bunch of magazine articles and columns for Dr. Dobb’s Journal, PC Techniques, PC Tech Journal, and Programmer’s Journal, as well as several books. He’s been lucky enough to have more opportunities to work on interesting stuff than he could ever have imagined when he almost failed sixth grade because he spent all his time reading science fiction. He is currently Chief Scientist at Oculus VR, and thinks VR is going to be the most interesting and important project of all.

Abstract: There’s been a lot of talk lately about how VR is the next big platform, but that’s not really accurate; it’s something bigger and more fundamental, nothing less than a phase change in the way that we interact with information. This talk will discuss why that’s so, what going to be involved in getting to that point, and why VR is going to open up huge new research and development opportunities.