James Gips (died June 10, 2018) was an American technologist, academic, and author based in Boston. He was the John R. and Pamela Egan Professor of computer science and professor of information systems at

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

.Profile
at Boston College Gips’ research was focused around the use of technology to help people with disabilities live fuller lives. He was the co-inventor and principal developer of two assistive technologies, EagleEyes and Camera Mouse. Gips has written on a variety of topics including ethical robots, shape grammars and aesthetics. In 2007, Gips won the da Vinci Award for exceptional design and engineering achievements in accessibility and universal design. Gips died June 10, 2018, aged 72.

Education

After completing his B.S. in Humanities and Engineering from MIT in 1967, Gips joined Stanford University for M.S. in Computer Science, which he completed in 1968. Subsequently, he joined the National Institute of Health, Bethesda, as Officer, U.S. Public Health Service and worked there until 1970. In 1970, he invented

shape grammar Shape grammars in computation are a specific class of production systems that generate geometric shapes. Typically, shapes are 2- or 3-dimensional, thus shape grammars are a way to study 2- and 3-dimensional languages. Shape grammars were first in ...

s with

George Stiny George Stiny is an American design and computation theorist. He co-created shape grammars with James Gips. Stiny was educated at MIT and UCLA. He is currently a Professor in the Computation Group of the Department of Architecture at MIT. He was o ...

. He returned for a Ph.D. in Computer Science at Stanford, completing it in 1974. His Ph.D. dissertation, “Shape Grammars and Their Uses,” was published as a book.

Career

Gips joined University of California, Los Angeles in 1974 as Assistant Research Computer Scientist. While he was working there, he wrote the book “Algorithmic Aesthetics” with

. In 1976, he left UCLA and started teaching at Boston College. In 1979, while still teaching at Boston College, Gips joined Harvard University Summer School as an associate professor and taught there until 1983. In 1993, Gips along with Peter Olivieri and Joseph Tecce developed EagleEyes, a technology that allows disabled people to use a mouse pointer on a computer screen just by moving their eyes. EagleEyes uses electrodes placed on the persons head to move the mouse pointer by following their eye movements. EagleEyes was a finalist for the Discover Magazine Technological Innovation Awards in 1994 and in 2006 was named a Tech Museum Award Laureate by the Tech Museum of San Jose. While working on a successor for EagleEyes, Gips and Margrit Betke thought of a program that would allow people to use a mouse with the movement of their head. The idea resulted in Camera Mouse. The application uses a standard webcam to track head movements and move the mouse pointer accordingly. A free public version of Camera Mouse was launched in 2007 and has over 3,000,000 downloads. Gips has worked with S. Adam Brasel on research on technology and consumer behavior.

Research Awards

*2007 - da Vinci Award 2007

Bibliography

Books

*''Mastering Excel 2016: A Problem-Solving Approach'',

Pearson Pearson may refer to: Organizations Education *Lester B. Pearson College, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada *Pearson College (UK), London, owned by Pearson PLC *Lester B. Pearson High School (disambiguation) Companies *Pearson PLC, a UK-based int ...

. (2016) *''Mastering Excel 2013: A Problem-Solving Approach'',

. (2013) *''Mastering Excel 2010: A Problem-Solving Approach'',

. (2011) *''Mastering Excel 2007: A Problem-Solving Approach'',

. (2007) *''An Eye Control Teaching Device for Students Without Language Expressive Capacity: EagleEyes'',

Edwin Mellen Press The Edwin Mellen Press or Mellen Press is an international Independent business, independent company and Academic publisher, academic publishing house with editorial offices in Lewiston (town), New York, Lewiston, New York, and Lampeter, Lampete ...

. (2001) *''Mastering Excel: A Problem-Solving Approach'',

John Wiley John Wiley may refer to: *John Wiley & Sons, a publishing company * John A. Wiley (1843–1909), Pennsylvania businessman, National Guard and Civil War soldier *John Cooper Wiley (1893–1967), US foreign service officer and ambassador *John D. Wil ...

. (1997) *''Mastering Lotus 1-2-3: A Problem-Solving Approach'',

. (1991) *''Algorithmic Aesthetics: Computer Models for Criticism and Design in the Arts'',

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

, Berkeley. (1979) *''Shape Grammars and Their Uses'', Birkhauser Verlag, Basel. (1975)

Selected articles

*''Interface Psychology: Touchscreens Change Attribute Importance, Decision Criteria, and Behavior in Online Choice''. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Vol. 18, No. 9, September 2015. *''Enhancing Television Advertising: Same-Language Subtitles Can Improve Brand Recall, Verbal Memory, and Behavioral Intent''. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. Vol. 42, No. 3, May 2014. *''Red Bull ‘Gives You Wings’ For Better or Worse: A Double-Edged Impact of Brand Exposure on Performance''. Journal of Consumer Psychology. Vol. 21, Issue 1, January 2011, pp. 57–64.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gips, James 1940s births 2018 deaths Boston College faculty Stanford University alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni