Brad Templeton (born June 1960 near

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

) is a Canadian software developer, internet entrepreneur, online community pioneer, publisher of news, comedy, science fiction and e-books, writer, photographer, civil rights advocate, futurist, public speaker, educator and

self-driving car A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car (AC), driverless car, robotic car or robo-car, is a car that is capable of operating with reduced or no human input. They are sometimes called robotaxis, though this term refers specifica ...

consultant. He graduated from the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

Notable projects

ClariNet

Most notably, Templeton was founder and CEO in 1989 of

ClariNet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

Communications, the first company founded to engage in commercial activity over the early Internet.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Templeton has been involved with the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

since 1997, including being chairman from 2000 to 2010. His involvement in online civil rights also includes being the subject of one of the first major internet bans and being a plaintiff before the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

in Reno v. ACLU Templeton's strongest efforts have been in the areas of free speech, computer security, privacy and intellectual property.

rec.humor.funny and USENET

Templeton played an active role over the life of

Usenet Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...

, including the development of software tools for it. His most notable activities involved the creation and moderation of the newsgroup "rec.humor.funny", a moderated newsgroup devoted to comedy. USENET statistics reported by Brian Reid reported rec.humor.funny as the most widely read online publication starting in 1989, continuing in that position into the mid-1990s, with an estimated 440,000 readers.

Software career

Templeton began as the first employee of VisiCorp (then called Personal Software Inc.) the first PC applications software company, where he published several games and tools and assisted on

Visicalc VisiCalc ("visible calculator") is the first spreadsheet computer program for personal computers, originally released for the Apple II by VisiCorp on October 17, 1979. It is considered the killer application for the Apple II, turning the microco ...

the first spreadsheet and personal computing productivity tool. He also developed the IBM-PC version of the VisiPlot companion before release of the PC. He was CEO and Founder of Looking Glass Software Ltd. in

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

. His software specialty has been languages, tools and spreadsheets, as well as software for USENET.

e-Books

Templeton was editor and publisher for

's Hugo and Nebula Anthology 1993, one of the largest early commercial e-Book projects. It offered 5 full novels still in hardback release, along with a wide array of short fiction and multimedia. In later years, it has become the norm for the administrators of the

Hugo Award The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) and chosen by its members. The award is administered by th ...

to produce an annual digital anthology of award nominees. This was an adjunct of the "Library of Tomorrow" project, which offered a full library of fiction on an "all you can read" subscription basis. The library failed, but presaged many similar attempts to sell online content by subscription.

Foresight Institute

Since 2004, Templeton has been a board member of the

Foresight Institute The Foresight Institute (Foresight) is a San Francisco-based research non-profit that promotes the development of nanotechnology and other emerging technologies, such as safe AGI, biotech and longevity. Foresight runs four cross-disciplinary p ...

, one of the oldest futurist organizations and the leading one in the field of

nanotechnology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

Singularity University

Templeton joined the founding faculty for Singularity University, an educational institution and think-tank devoted to rapidly changing technology and its effects. Since 2010 he has been Chair for Networks and Computing on that faculty.

Robocars

Templeton has been an active writer in the field of Robocars since 2007, building the site Robocars.com and writing regularly at Brad Ideas. In 2010, he joined the Google self-driving car project (now known as Waymo) where he consulted on strategy and technology. He has also served as a consulting advisor for Starship Technologies in the delivery robot space and Quanergy

LIDAR Lidar (, also LIDAR, an acronym of "light detection and ranging" or "laser imaging, detection, and ranging") is a method for determining ranging, ranges by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected li ...

, among others. He writes frequently on this topic on his own web site, the

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

site and others. Templeton is inventor on 21 patents in self-driving cars and telephony.

Speaker

Templeton has been a keynote speaker at many conferences and events, including

Wired UK ''Wired UK'' is a bimonthly magazine that reports on the effects of science and technology. It covers a broad range of topics including design, architecture, culture, the economy, politics and philosophy. Owned by Condé Nast Publications, it is ...

, Pioneers Festival Vienna,

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

Master Mind Class, Web Summit, Next Berlin,

The Next Web TNW (The Next Web) is a website and annual series of conferences focused on new technology and start-up companies in Europe. The Next Web company was established in 2006 by co-founders Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten and Patrick de Laive in Amsterd ...

Amsterdam, Ontario Centres of Excellence Toronto, USI Paris, Australian Unix Users Group ( AUUG) Sydney, Korean Global Leaders Forum, CLSA Forum Hong Kong and Tokyo,

Baidu Baidu, Inc. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet services and artificial intelligence. It holds a dominant position in China's search engine market (via Baidu Search), and provides a wide variety of o ...

Big Talk, Beijing, Singularity Summit Chile (also Buenos Aires, Christchurch, Budapest, Seville, Johannesburg, Milan, Amsterdam, Berlin and Copenhagen) and Innotown Norway.

Software and bibliography

* Author, '' Time Trek'' game for Commodore PET (VisiCorp 1978) * Consultant, ''

VisiCalc VisiCalc ("visible calculator") is the first spreadsheet computer program for personal computers, originally released for the Apple II by VisiCorp on October 17, 1979. It is considered the killer application for the Apple II, turning the microco ...

'' port to Commodore PET (VisiCorp 1979) * Port, ''Checker King'' game for Apple and Atari (VisiCorp 1979) * Port, '' Microchess'' game for Atari (VisiCorp 1980) * Lead Author, '' Visiplot'' graphing tool for IBM PC (VisiCorp 1981) * Author, ''PAL Assembler'' for Commodore computers (Temtech, 1980) * Author, ''POWER'' programming tools for Commodore (Professional Software, Pro-Line) 1981 * Lead Author, ''ALICE: The Personal Pascal'' Structure editor and

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a Application software, software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source-code editor, build automation tools, an ...

for IBM PC, Atari ST and QNX (Looking Glass Software / Software Channels, 1985) * Lead Author, ''ALICE Basic'' structure editor and IDE for QNX (Looking Glass Software 1986) * Lead Author, ''3-2-1 Blastoff'' spreadsheet

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...

for

Lotus 1-2-3 Lotus 1-2-3 is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (later part of IBM). It was the first killer application of the IBM PC, was hugely popular in the 1980s, and significantly contributed to the success of IBM PC-compatibles ...

(Frontline Systems/Intel, 1987) * Author, ''3-2-1 Gosub'' programming tool for Lotus 1-2-2 (Frontline Systems, 1988) * Compressor Author, '' Stuffit Deluxe'' (Aladdin Systems, 1989) * Author, ''Newsclip'' programming language for

filtering, 1988 * Author, ''TVWish'' wishlist system for MythTV (open source) * Editor, ''The Internet Jokebook'' (Peer-to-peer Publishing, 1995) * Editor, ''The Telejokebook''/''rec.humor.funny annual'' Vol I-IV (ClariNet 1988–1992) * Editor, ''Electric Science Fiction'' online award nominees (ClariNet, 1992) * Editor, ''Hugo and Nebula Anthology 1993'' (ClariNet, 1995)

Other roles

Templeton was a director of

Bittorrent BitTorrent is a Protocol (computing), communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a Decentralised system, decentralized manner. The protocol is d ...

Inc. Bittorrent's software was the largest driver of internet bandwidth use during the early 21st century. He is also the author of several well known internet essays on copyright and netiquette. He was also an active artist at

Burning Man Burning Man is a week-long large-scale desert event focused on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance" held annually in the Western United States. The event's name comes from its ceremony on the penultimate night of the event: the ...

creating installations based on photography and telephony.

Family

Templeton is the son of Charles Templeton and Sylvia Murphy, and the brother of

Ty Templeton Tyrone Templeton is a Canadians, Canadian comic book artist and writer who has drawn a number of mainstream titles, TV-associated titles, and his own series. Career Templeton first received attention for ''Stig's Inferno'' (Vortex Comics), now ...

References

External links

– Templeton's home page

– rec.humor.funny website

– Templeton's blog

– Robocars {{DEFAULTSORT:Templeton, Brad 1960 births Living people Computer programmers Canadian businesspeople Usenet people University of Waterloo alumni