People: Steve Beck
From wiki
Steve Beck is an electronics research and development specialist and also a serial entrepreneur who started several high tech electronics research and development companies in Berkeley since graduating with a degree in EECS from Cal in 1971. Beck also studied electronic engineering and electronic music at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
Beck was appointed to the position of Visiting Industrial Fellow in the College of Engineering in 2005 by Dean Newton, and is resident in Prof. Paul Wright’s Ford Design Center in Etcheverry Hall.
Steve has developed over 500 commercial electronic products ranging from an Energy Management System for Safeway Stores that saved over $50 Million in electrical power, to many products in the video imaging and video synthesis areas, and also numerous electronic toys, games and video games licensed to companies such a Mattel, Hasbro, and others.
Mr. Beck most recently served as Director of Research and Development for the 4Kids Technology division of 4Kids Entertainment (NYSE:KDE), a New York based children’s edutainment oriented company, where he lead the global development team for products such as GBA-TV for Nintendo Game Boy, and the Juicebox, a personal video player for Mattel, in addition to securing a multimillion dollar tech toy licensing deal with Toys R Us.
Mr. Beck holds patents for inventions ranging from video synthesis and video data compression, to electronic visualization and electronic entertainment, in addition to trademarks and copyrights for video and music productions.
Beck’s interest in the fusion of art and technology resulted in his becoming a charter member of the EAT – Experiments in Art and Technology – movement, and most recently his video art work “Illuminated Music” was exhibited in the “Visual Music” exhibition at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, and in the “Son e Lumiere” exhibition at the Centres George Pompidou in Paris.