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

Wii Remote The Wii Remote, colloquially known 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 an ...

. 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, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

in 2001 and a Ph.D. at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

's Human–Computer Interaction Institute.

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 ...

's Integrated Media Systems Center. From 2002 to 2004, he was a research intern at the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories. He worked as a research intern at

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 ...

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

Kinect Kinect is a discontinued line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB color model, RGB cameras, and Thermographic camera, infrared projectors and detectors that map dep ...

development team, he approached

Adafruit Industries Adafruit Industries is an open-source hardware company based in New York City, New York, United States. It was founded by Limor Fried in 2005. The company designs, manufactures and sells Electronic Products, electronics products, electronics comp ...

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 video game console, the

, for finger tracking, low-cost multipoint

interactive whiteboard An interactive whiteboard (IWB), also known as interactive board, interactive display, interactive digital board or smart board, is a large interactive display board in the form factor of a whiteboard. It can either be a standalone touchscre ...

s, and head tracking for desktop VR displays. This was the subject for his presentation at the prestigious TED conference 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 corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

to work on Project Tango. Lee was an early member of the team at X Development and later moved to Google AI where he focused on robotics. Lee's other projects include an

, 3D head tracking, finger tracking, and a DIY

telepresence Telepresence is the appearance or sensation of a person being present at a place other than their true location, via telerobotics or video. Telepresence requires that the users' senses interact with specific stimuli in order to provide the feeli ...

robot. His

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

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, and has been featured on popular websites such as

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

, ''

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. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the sub-blogs ''io9'' and ''Earther'', which focus on pop ...

'', hackedgadgets, ''

Popular Science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

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

Engadget Engadget ( ) is a technology news, reviews and analysis website offering daily coverage of gadgets, consumer electronics, video games, gaming hardware, apps, social media, streaming, AI, space, robotics, electric vehicles and other potentially ...

'' 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.

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple Inc., Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry ...

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 holiday of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are commonly used during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The ...

in the game '' Boom Blox'', 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
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Johnny 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