Jack McCauley is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

engineer, hardware designer, inventor,

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game 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 generate visual fe ...

developer and philanthropist. As an engineer at

RedOctane RedOctane, Inc. was an American electronic entertainment company best known for producing the Guitar Hero, ''Guitar Hero'' series, beginning in November 2005. RedOctane became a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision in 2006. In February 2010, Act ...

, he designed guitars and drums for the

Guitar Hero ''Guitar Hero'' is a series of rhythm games first released in 2005, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing primarily lead guitar, lead, bass guitar, bass, and rhythm guitar across numerous songs. Players match ...

video game series. He later worked at

Oculus VR Reality Labs, formerly Oculus VR, is a business and research unit of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc.) that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as the Qu ...

, which was eventually acquired by

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

for $2 billion.

Early life and education

The son of a

United States Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. U.S. United States Code, federal law names six armed forces: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States Navy, Na ...

officer, McCauley’s early life began in

De Bilt De Bilt () is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality and town in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht, Netherlands. It had a population of in . De Bilt houses the headquarters of the Royal Netherland ...

, 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—commonly known as Tinkertoy, Tinker Toy, or plural forms thereof—is a construction set for children. It was designed in 1914 and was originally manufactured in Evanston, Illinois, U.S. The brand is now owned ...

named him a "Junior Tinkertoy Engineer". In 1980, McCauley was accepted into the U.S. Navy Nuclear Power School. He later attended 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 circu ...

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 RedOctane and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

. 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 many of the guitar and drum peripherals for the

video game series.

Guitar Hero

In 2005 McCauley joined

, where he served as an engineer on the Guitar Hero team. He stayed on after RedOctane became a wholly owned subsidiary of

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 o ...

, eventually departing in 2009. McCauley created the hardware for early Guitar Hero guitars by

reverse-engineering Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompl ...

the guitars used in the

Konami , commonly known as Konami, , is a Japanese multinational entertainment company and video game developer and video game publisher, publisher headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo. The company also produces and distributes trading card ...

game

Guitar Freaks is a music video game series produced by Konami. The series consists of two games, ''GuitarFreaks'' and ''DrumMania'', where players use game controllers modeled after musical instruments to perform the lead guitar, bass guitar and drum kit, dr ...

. He also designed hardware peripherals for

Silent Scope ''Silent Scope'' is a series of rail shooter video games developed and published by Konami. Games Silent Scope (1999) Silent Scope 2 (2000) Silent Scope EX (2001) ''Silent Scope EX'' was released in the arcades in 2001. It was included ...

and

EA Sports Active 2 ''EA Sports Active 2: Personal Trainer'' is an exercise video game developed by EA Canada. It was released on November 16, 2010, in North America for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii. The Xbox 360 version makes use of Kinect Kinect is a d ...

Oculus VR

McCauley joined

as vice president of engineering in August 2012, shortly after the company raised millions of dollars on Kickstarter for their first development kit. He served as VP Engineering at Oculus until March 2014 when the company was acquired by

for $2 billion. He left Oculus immediately after the acquisition was completed. He claims to have donated all the money he received from the Facebook buyout to charity. While at Oculus, he designed test equipment and managed

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

-based manufacturing of the Oculus DK1 and DK2, the company's development hardware that was shipped to game developers years before the 2016 release of their consumer product, the

Oculus Rift Oculus Rift is a discontinued line of virtual reality headsets, virtual reality headsets developed and manufactured by Oculus VR, a virtual reality company founded by Palmer Luckey that is widely credited with reviving the virtual reality indust ...

Lucid VR

In 2017, McCauley joined Lucid VR as Chief Engineer to lead worldwide manufacturing of their flagship virtual and augmented reality camera, the VR180 LucidCam.

Inventions, credits, and accomplishments

McCauley worked on creating audio effects; computer peripherals; game controllers; light gun technology; composite HID USB device for gaming; and guitar and drum controllers for the Guitar Hero franchise.

Philanthropy

In 2015 he, Paul Jacobs and others funded the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation at the UC Berkeley College of Engineering;Kirsten Mickelwait
"Designer of scrolling mouse and Oculus Rift funds design innovation"
''Berkeley Engineer Magazine'', June 16, 2015; retrieved June 29, 2015. , 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