Jack McCauley is an American engineer, hardware designer, inventor,

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

developer and philanthropist. As an engineer at

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...

, he designed the guitars and drums for the

Guitar Hero ''Guitar Hero'' is a series of Music video game, music rhythm game video games first released in November 2005, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing primarily lead guitar, lead, bass guitar, and rhythm guita ...

video game series and was the Chief Engineer at

Oculus VR Reality Labs is a business of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc.) that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as Quest, and online platforms such as Horizon W ...

, which was later acquired by

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...

for $2 billion. At Oculus, McCauley was chief developer of the Oculus DK1 and DK2

virtual reality headsets A virtual reality headset (or VR headset) is a head-mounted device that provides virtual reality for the wearer. VR headsets are widely used with VR video games but they are also used in other applications, including simulators and trainers. VR ...

. '' Grunge.com'' named him "one of the greatest inventors alive today", along with

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The ...

, Kia Silverbrook,

Shunpei Yamazaki is a Japanese inventor in the field of computer science and solid-state physics Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is th ...

, and Lowell Wood, among others.

Early life and education

The son of a

United States Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is ...

officer, McCauley’s early life began in

De Bilt De Bilt () is a municipality and town in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands. It had a population of in . De Bilt houses the headquarters of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). It is the ancestral home and namesake for the pr ...

, Netherlands. From an early age, McCauley loved taking things apart, building them into something new, exploring everything from basic spatial relationships to electronics. When he was 9,

Tinkertoy The Tinkertoy Construction Set is a toy construction set for children. It was designed in 1914—six years after the Frank Hornby's Meccano sets—by Charles H. Pajeau, who formed the Toy Tinker Company in Evanston, Illinois to manufact ...

named him a "Junior Tinkertoy Engineer". In 1980, McCauley was accepted into the U.S. Navy Nuclear Power School. The Department of Defense awarded him a full scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley, College of Engineering, where he specialized in electronics and

circuit theory Circuit may refer to: Science and technology Electrical engineering * Electrical circuit, a complete electrical network with a closed-loop giving a return path for current ** Analog circuit, uses continuous signal levels ** Balanced circ ...

and earned a BSc. in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) in 1986. McCauley credits U.C. Berkeley with moving him into his career as an engineer.

Career

McCauley began his professional career at the U.S. Department of Defense. Upon graduating from Berkeley, he worked at various technology and gaming companies including

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted th ...

, Activision, Atari, Nintendo and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

. He helped develop USB drivers, kernel mode drivers, arcade machines and video game related peripherals."More Guitar Hero World tidbits," by Gieson Cacho, A+E Interactive, October 16, 2008
retrieved March 22, 2015. McCauley designed the guitars and drums for the

video game series and invented the first scrolling feature for the computer mouse. Through his development work on Guitar Hero and

, McCauley has been a key figure in incorporating microelectricalmechanical systems (MEMS) technology into video games.

Guitar Hero

In 2005 McCauley joined RedOctane, where he served as Chief Engineer of the Guitar Hero video game franchise. He was a contributor in the acquisition of RedOctane by

, where he served as the Director of Research from 2005 to 2009. McCauley designed the electronics for the Guitar Hero guitars and drum controller, which formed the basis for all subsequent Guitar Hero versions.Kirsten Mickelwait
"Designer of scrolling mouse and Oculus Rift funds design innovation"
''Berkeley Engineer Magazine'', June 16, 2015; retrieved June 29, 2015. He designed key hardware for

Time Crisis II ''Time Crisis II'' is a 1997 light gun arcade video game developed and published by Namco. It is the second installment in the ''Time Crisis'' series. The game incorporates the same mechanics of its predecessor, with some minor changes, but with t ...

and

Time Crisis III ''Time Crisis 3'' is a rail shooter, released for the arcade in 2002 (JP) and 2003 (NA), the third instalment of the ''Time Crisis'' series. Like its predecessor, ''Time Crisis II'', it allows for two players to cooperate in a link play environmen ...

, Silent Scope,

Dance Dance Revolution (''DDR'') is a music video game series produced by Konami. Introduced in Japan in 1998 as part of the Bemani series, and released in North America and Europe in 1999, ''Dance Dance Revolution'' is the pioneering series of the rhythm and dance g ...

Area51 Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range. A remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force Base, the facility is officially called Homey Airport ...

, EA Sports Active 2 and

Grand Theft Auto ''Grand Theft Auto'' (''GTA'') is a series of action-adventure games created by David Jones and Mike Dailly. Later titles were developed under the oversight of brothers Dan and Sam Houser, Leslie Benzies and Aaron Garbut. It is primarily de ...

Oculus VR

In July 2012, McCauley was recruited by

, where he joined Palmer Luckey, Brendan Iribe, Nate Mitchell, and Michael Antonov. He served as Chief Engineer at Oculus until 2015 when the company was acquired by

for $2 billion. At Oculus, McCauley built Luckey's original prototype into a product for the company’s first Kickstarter campaign, and headed engineering while working on development of the DK1 and DK2 developer kits, both of which were completed in 120 days from concept to shipping. McCauley led production, designed the test equipment and managed production, engineering, and China-based manufacturing of the

Oculus Rift Oculus Rift is a discontinued line of virtual reality headsets developed and manufactured by Oculus VR, a division of Meta Platforms, released on March 28, 2016. In 2012 Oculus initiated a Kickstarter campaign to fund the Rift's development, a ...

, the company's virtual reality head-mounted display.

Inventions and accomplishments

McCauley worked on creating audio effects; virtual reality motion control; computer peripherals; game controllers; haptic technology; sports and medical physiology measuring devices; light gun technology; composite HID USB device for gaming; and the guitar and drum controller for the Guitar Hero franchise. He is one of the originators of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) specification. He has authored numerous research papers in the field of

artificial intelligence (AI) Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

and mathematical modeling of AI-based systems. He won the

Red Dot The Red Dot Design Award is a German international design prize awarded by Red Dot GmbH & Co. KG. There are prize categories for product design, brands and communication design, and design concept. Since 1955, designers and producers can app ...

award product design for the design of bone-conducting headphones.

Philanthropy

McCauley contributes to charities associated with the furtherance of education and science. In 2015 he, Paul Jacobs and others funded the

Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation The Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation is a building on the campus of UC Berkeley, part of the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. Construction began in August 2014 with a $20 million gift from the Paul and Stacy Jacobs Foundation. The ribbon- ...

at the UC Berkeley College of Engineering; , he is an Innovator in Residence there.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCauley, Jack American computer scientists American inventors 21st-century American engineers People from Battle Creek, Michigan Video game developers UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni Living people 1959 births