EE380 Computer Systems Colloquium

Topic: 
Where is wearable technology going?
Wednesday, January 13, 2016 -
4:30pm to 5:30pm
Venue: 
Gates B03
Speaker: 
Quinn Jacobson (Vibrado Technologies)
Abstract / Description: 

In the progression from personal computers to portable computers to mobile devices, the next logical step is wearables. But current wearable technology has been mostly a disappointment to date. So how do we get wearable technology to be compelling? It takes a holistic approach of technology, algorithms, and user experience to create products that can tell us insightful information about ourselves and deliver it in an intuitive and useful way.


 

The Stanford EE Computer Systems Colloquium (EE380) meets on Wednesdays 4:30-5:45 throughout the academic year. Talks are given before a live audience in Room B03 in the basement of the Gates Computer Science Building on the Stanford Campus. The live talks (and the videos hosted at Stanford and on YouTube) are open to the public.

Quinn Jacobson is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Vibrado Technologies. He is passionate about finding interesting challenges where the leading edge of technology is enabling something fundamentally new to be just barely possible:

  • At Altera Quinn built the first soft-core IP block released for reconfigurable logic products;
  • He was the Chief Architect for the first multi-core SPARC processors at Sun Microsystems;
  • As GPS equipped smart phones started coming out, he led the effort at Nokia to create one of the first modern smart phone navigation services with real-time traffic data crowdsourced from other drivers.

So when he realized that advances in both MEMS technology and embedded microcontrollers was making it possible to envision clothes that could observe, analyze and improve our biomechanics, he founded Vibrado Technologies.

Quinn has led teams from small to large, but has also remained a very hands on engineer. Vibrado has provided an opportunity to not only build a new organization from scratch, but an opportunity to spend time building the fundamental technology. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and has over 60 granted U.S. patents.