The man who started the hacker wars

David Kushner:

Hotz talked about how he wrote his first computer program when he was five, while sitting on his father's lap at their Apple II. By fifth grade, he was building his own video-game console with an electronic-projects kit from Radio Shack. His parents often found household appliances (remote controls, answering machines) gutted. "He always liked learning stuff, and if that was how he did it, great," his father, George Hotz, Sr., a high-school computer teacher, told me. Hotz, bored with his classes and letting his grades slide, became known at school as an inventive joker who rolled down the hallways in wheeled sneakers and once hacked several classroom computers to simultaneously play Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. His mother, Marie Minichiello, a social worker, told me that although she punished him for his acts of mild disobedience, she always supported him. "I didn't want school to kill his passion," she said.

When Hotz was fourteen, he beat thousands of students from more than sixty countries to reach the finals of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. He appeared on the "Today" show with his invention, a small robot on wheels that could plot the dimensions of a room using infrared sensors, and wirelessly transmit the information to a computer. "Well, I think it's very cool to be good in science," Katie Couric told her viewers, as Hotz, in an ill-fitting dark suit, stepped forward, "and George Hotz is an example of that." Couric asked if the technology could improve automated vacuum cleaners. But Hotz was more excited about helping soldiers fight terrorists. "They can send it into a complex before the military infiltrates it!" he said, his voice not yet broken. "Well, I'm impressed, George," Couric replied, nudging him in the shoulder. "You're a little brainiac, you."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 19, 2012 1:55 AM
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