Johnny Chung Lee (born 1979) is an American computer engineer known for his inventions related to the

Wii Remote The Wii Remote, also known colloquially as the Wiimote, is the primary game controller for Nintendo's Wii home video game console. An essential capability of the Wii Remote is its motion sensing capability, which allows the user to interact with ...

. He is involved with human-computer interaction.

Education

Lee earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer engineering at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

in 2001 and a Ph.D. at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

Human–Computer Interaction Institute The Human–Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) is a department within the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is considered one of the leading centers of human–computer interaction ...

Career

In 2001, Lee was a research intern at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

Integrated Media Systems Center The Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC) is on the campus of the University of Southern California, United States. It was founded using a grant from the US National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent ...

. From 2002 to 2004, he was a research intern at the

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) is a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Electric US Holdings, Inc., which, in its turn, is the principal subsidiary of Mitsubishi Electric in the United States. MERL is the North American arm of the Corpora ...

. He worked as a research intern at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

in 2005 and remained with the company as a researcher until 2011. While Lee was a core member of

Kinect Kinect is a line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB cameras, and infrared projectors and detectors that map depth through either structured light or time of flig ...

development team, he approached

Adafruit Industries Adafruit Industries is an open-source hardware company based in New York City. It was founded by Limor Fried in 2005. The company designs, manufactures and sells a number of electronics products, electronics components, tools and accessories. It ...

with the idea of a driver development contest and personally financed it. Sometime in 2008, Lee posted video demos and sample code at his website taking advantage of the high resolution (1024×768 Pixels) high frame-rate (100 Hz) IR camera built-in into the controller of the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

video game console, the

, for

finger tracking In the field of gesture recognition and image processing, finger tracking is a high-resolution technique developed in 1969 that is employed to know the consecutive position of the fingers of the user and hence represent objects in 3D. In additio ...

, low-cost multipoint

interactive whiteboard An interactive whiteboard (IWB), also known as interactive board or smart board, is a large interactive display board in the form factor of a whiteboard. It can either be a standalone touchscreen computer used independently to perform tasks ...

s, and head tracking for desktop VR displays. This was the subject for his presentation at the prestigious

TED conference TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

in the same year, where he demonstrated several such applications. The WiimoteProject forum has become the discussion, support, and sharing site for Lee's Wii Remote projects and other newer developments. Lee was named one of the world's top 35 innovators under 35 (

TR35 The Innovators Under 35 is a peer-reviewed annual award and listicle published by ''MIT Technology Review'' magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. at ''Technology Review'' with lists of winners at technologyreview.com ...

) in 2008. After that, Lee was hired by

to work on their

project He was later hired at

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

to work on

Project Tango Tango (formerly named Project Tango, while in testing) was an augmented reality computing platform, developed and authored by the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP), a skunkworks division of Google. It used computer vision to enable mobile ...

. Lee's other projects include an

, 3D head tracking,

, and a

DIY "Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and semi ...

telepresence Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance or effect of being present via telerobotics, at a place other than their true location. Telepresence requires that the user ...

robot. He

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

videos have received over 10 million views, with the Wii Remote head tracking project being his most viewed. He also demonstrated several of these applications at events such as

TED TED may refer to: Economics and finance * TED spread between U.S. Treasuries and Eurodollar Education * ''Türk Eğitim Derneği'', the Turkish Education Association ** TED Ankara College Foundation Schools, Turkey ** Transvaal Education Depa ...

, and has been featured on popular websites such as

Slashdot ''Slashdot'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''/.'') is a social news website that originally advertised itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories concerning science, technology, and politics that are submitted and evalu ...

, ''

Gizmodo ''Gizmodo'' ( ) is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the subsite ''io9'', whic ...

'', hackedgadgets, ''

Popular Science ''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...

'', ''Wired'', and ''

Engadget ''Engadget'' ( ) is a multilingual technology blog network with daily coverage of gadgets and consumer electronics. ''Engadget'' manages ten blogs four of which are written in English and six have international versions with independent editori ...

'' several times. Various magazines, newspapers and television programs have featured interviews with Lee, and he has also made appearances at events such as

Maker Faire Maker Faire is a convention of do it yourself aka-DIY enthusiasts started by ''Make'' magazine in 2006. Participants come from a wide variety of interests, such as robotics, 3D printing, computers, arts and crafts, and hacker culture. History ...

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 the d ...

had initially stated that Lee's Wii Remote head tracking technology would appear as an

Easter egg Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tr ...

in the game ''

Boom Blox ''Boom Blox'' is a puzzle video game for the Wii console, mobile devices and N-Gage 2.0 developed by EA Los Angeles in conjunction with film director Steven Spielberg. It was released on May 6, 2008 in North America and on May 9, 2008 in Europe. ...

'', but later announced that the feature had been removed.

References

External links

*
Johnny Lee's blog
* *
"Free or cheap Wii Remote hacks" (TED2008)

YouTube videos

SteadyCam

Human-Computer Interaction Institute
Living people American computer scientists Human–computer interaction researchers Google employees Microsoft employees Carnegie Mellon University alumni University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni 1979 births {{compu-scientist-stub