| Steve Perlman | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | USA |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Occupation | Electronic engineering and software inventor and entrepreneur |
| Known for | QuickTime, WebTV, OnLive, Mova |
Stephen G Perlman, OnLive founder, president & CEO, is an entrepreneur and inventor devoted to pioneering Internet, entertainment, multimedia, consumer electronics and communications technologies and services. Best known for the development of QuickTime®, WebTV® and Mova® Contour™ facial capture technologies, he has over 30 years of technology development experience, over 20 years of start-up experience and a track record of bringing media-rich products and services quickly to market. In addition to having founded and operated multiple startup companies, Steve has been a Microsoft division president and a principal scientist at Apple Computer.
Steve’s technology work is built into all iPhones, video iPods, Macs and most PCs, and has been deployed by DirecTV, Dish, Comcast, Time Warner, Charter and Adelphia cable TV and satellite TV networks. Consumer products incorporating Steve’s work have also been retailed by Sony, Philips, RCA, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Samsung, Fujitsu, Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, Sega and Nintendo.
Steve’s recently patented facial motion capture technology, Mova Contour, was used for the production of the Academy Award®-winning photoreal computer-generated face of Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (2008), and of Edward Norton and Tim Roth in “The Incredible Hulk” (2008).
Steve holds over 100 US patents, and has more than 100 additional patents pending. He is a graduate of Columbia University.[1][2]
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Steve Perlman graduated from William H.Hall High school in West Hartford,Connecticut. He also attended Talcott Mountain Science Center weekend and summer programs.
1976-1983 Building his first computer from a kit during high school in 1976, Steve proceeded to design and build several computers, graphics/video systems, modems, displays, audio systems, interface devices and video games, as well as all kinds of software, both for fun and for clients. Steve graduated from Columbia University in 1983.
1983-1984 Steve designed a parallel-processing graphics system at Atari. At Coleco, Steve developed a massively-parallel 3D animation chip and a software-based high-speed modem.
In 1985 Perlman joined Apple Computer on the development team of some Macintosh multimedia technology including Road pizza, the technology underpinning QuickTime 1.[2][3]
In 1990 Perlman left Apple to join General Magic, where he designed its second-generation technology.[2]
In 1994 Perlman co-founded Catapult Entertainment and was its Chief technical officer. Catapult developed the proprietary XBAND modems for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game consoles that enabled online features for multiplayer games.[2][4]
In 1995 Perlman created, co-founded, and was the President & CEO of WebTV Networks, Inc. WebTV was introduced in 1996, and was one the earliest products to connect the Internet to a television. Less than 2 years after it was founded, WebTV was acquired by Microsoft Corporation for US$503 million, and renamed as MSN TV.[2][5] Microsoft’s acquisition of WebTV also brought with it the teams that created Microsoft’s TV platforms,[2] including the hardware for Microsoft's Xbox 360.[6]
After a few years at Microsoft, Perlman left WebTV Networks in 1999 to found Rearden Steel, now Rearden, a business incubator for new companies in media and entertainment technology.[7]
In 2000 Rearden founded Moxi Digital, Inc., which produced a combination digital video recorder, DVD player, digital music jukebox, and television set-top box. Moxi merged[8] with Microsoft founder Paul Allen's Digeo in 2002.
In 2004 Rearden founded MOVA,[9] which was spun off from Rearden in 2007 as an OnLive subsidiary. MOVA offers motion-capture services in the San Francisco Bay Area, with Perlman as its president.[9] In 2006 Perlman unveiled Mova's Contour, a digital multi-camera system that captures and tracks detailed surface data and textures for post-production manipulation. It was used for 3D volumetric shape capture of Brad Pitt’s face in the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,[10] which received the 2008 Academy Award for Achievement in Visual Effects[11] for the photorealism achieved in computer-generated reverse-aging of Brad Pitt’s face.
In 2007 Rearden spun-out OnLive, which in 2009 announced the OnLive on-demand video game service and MicroConsole TV adapter, with Perlman as its president and CEO.[12]. The company launched the OnLive game service in June, 2010 in the US and September 22, 2011 in the UK and was initially offered on the PC, Macintosh and TV via OnLive's MicroConsole, and then later on the iPad, iPhone and Android Tablets and smartphones.[13][14]
In 2011 Perlman announced that he and colleagues at Rearden have invented distributed-input-distributed-output (DIDO) technology, an experimental wireless communications system that could render cellular connections obsolete.[15] This new technology supposedly exceeds the limits on wireless communications described by the Shannon–Hartley theorem. It was widely mis-reported as providing "unlimited bandwidth" for "unlimited users", and making fixed line networks obsolete, but Rearden's own whitepaper explains that the N times increased bandwidth is achieved only by adding N times additional transmit/receive points, each connected to the internet by other means.[16]
By December 2011, OnLive's catalog had grown to almost 200 games, with about 30 games supporting touchscreen control. [17]