Mark Weiser


Mark D. Weiser was a computer scientist and chief technology officer at Xerox PARC. Weiser is widely considered to be the father of ubiquitous computing, a term he coined in 1988. Within Silicon Valley, Weiser was broadly viewed as a visionary and computer pioneer, and his ideas have influenced many of the world's leading computer scientists.

Biography

Weiser was born in Chicago, Illinois, to David and Audra Weiser. Weiser grew up in Stony Brook, New York. He moved to Sarasota, Florida, to study philosophy at New College of Florida but dropped out in his second year when he ran out of money. He then moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he found a job as a computer programmer. While working as a computer programmer he began taking computer science classes and excelled to the point that he was directly admitted into a master's program at the University of Michigan. He studied Computer and Communication Science at the University of Michigan, receiving an M.A. in 1976 and a Ph.D. in 1979. Weiser later taught computer science at the University of Maryland, College Park and became associate chairman of the department in 1986.
Weiser joined PARC in 1987 and became manager of its computer science laboratory in 1988, the same year he pioneered the concept of ubiquitous computing. He became PARC's chief technology officer in 1996.
In addition to his work in the field of computer science, Weiser was also the drummer for the avant-garde rock band, Severe Tire Damage, which was the first band to broadcast live over the Internet.
On April 27, 1999, Weiser died of liver failure that was caused by cancer. In 2001, the Association for Computing Machinery's special interest group in operating systems established the Mark Weiser Award for individuals who innovate within operating systems research. The Mark D. Weiser Excellence in Computing Scholarship Fund at the University of California, Berkeley was also established in Weiser's memory.

Ubiquitous computing and calm technology

During one of his talks, Weiser outlined a set of principles describing ubiquitous computing:
In Designing Calm Technology, Weiser and John Seely Brown describe calm technology as "that which informs but doesn't demand our focus or attention."

Low-powered portable computing

Weiser advocated to look at performance in non traditional ways. Instead of measuring computational performance in MIPS, he focused on increasing the instructions per joule of energy, pushing the computer industry toward low-powered portable computing.

Works