Jaron Zepel Lanier was born on May 3, 1960and is an American computer scientist, visual artist, computer philosophy writer, technologist, futurist, and composer of contemporary classical music.
In the late 1990s, Lanier worked on applications for Internet2, and in the 2000s, he was a visiting scholar at Silicon Graphics and various universities.
In 2006 he began to work at Microsoft, and since 2009 has worked at Microsoft Research as an Interdisciplinary Scientist.
In 2005, Foreign Policy named Lanier as one of the top 100 Public Intellectuals. In 2010, Lanier was named to the TIME 100 list of most influential people. In 2014, Prospect named Lanier one of the top 50 World Thinkers. In 2018, Wired named Lanier one of the top 25 most influential people over the last 25 years of technological history.
Jaron Lanier: Who is the father of virtual reality?
Jaron Zepel Lanier is considered a founder of the field of virtual reality, Lanier and Thomas G. Zimmerman left Atari in 1985 to found VPL Research, Inc., the first company to sell VR goggles and wired gloves.