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Kai Krause







BIOGRAPHY


Born in Dortmund , Germany , Krause moved to the United States ( California ) in 1976. He worked with early Synthesizer s and Vocoder s. He worked on almost thirty records and movies. Krause has a Master's Degree from the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California (1996), and a Honorary Doctorate from the University Of Essen , Germany (1999). '' Time '' honored him in 1997 as "Future Leader", and '' Newsweek '' selected him as one of the 50 most influential thinkers of the next decade.

Today Kai Krause lives and works in the 1000-year-old castle Burg Rheineck near Bonn in Germany , which he calls Byteburg. In February 2005, the "DEMO" conference acknowledged him as one of the Top 15 Innovators of the last 15 years. ''Conference Honors Those Who Defined the Best Products and Technologies of the last 15 years''


HISTORY


Krause significantly broadened conventional notions of the Graphical User Interface by applying innovative design principles and providing Realtime interaction for the user, neither of which were widely deployed in the 1980s. User interface elements like soft shadows, rounded corners, and translucency, which are today common in Mac OS X , Windows XP and Linux , appeared already in products of his companies.

The company which he co-founded, .

For the rest of the 1990's, MetaCreations continued to develop a wide variety of successful graphical software titles. Application and interfaces for which Krause was most directly responsible include Kai's Power Tools , Live Picture , KPT Bryce , Kai's Power Show , Kai's Power Goo , KPT Convolver , and Kai's Photo Soap and POSER .


INFLUENCE


As MetaCreations continued to grow, Krause was able to extend his vision even further by surrounding himself with, and often mentoring, like-minded designers and engineers. , KPT Vector Effects , Canoma , Soap 2 , Life In The Universe , and Poser . Many of Krause's core team remain influential in the industry today, continuing to create interfaces that further the fundamentals of Krause's unique design philosophy: simplicity, elegance, and sympathy for the end user. Some examples:

  • Picasa - Designed by Robert Bailey, ''Picasa'' is a consumer photo editing application, published by Google , where Bailey currently directs interface design.


  • Hello (application) - Also designed by Robert Bailey, ''Hello'' is a consumer chat and photo sharing application, also published by Google .





SOFTWARE







  • ScanSoft appears to have been acquired by Nuance Communications, Inc. - these products do not appear to be available anymore through Nuance.



QUOTATIONS


  • "An interface is about hiding complexity from the user, It's about guiding a process, without cognitive understanding of what goes on beneath. Interface design is the art of enveloping the observer in an enticing, "try this" exploration with ever-new elements and designs as the tools to triumph in new territories."




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