Today’s special episode is a conversation with two guests: special effects wizard David Biedny and virtual/augmented reality innovator David Levitt, who is also Gail’s husband and a witness to many of the experiences she describes.
David Biedny is a leading digital effects, graphics and multimedia expert. He has been a groundbreaking digital artist, author, animator and effects wizard since the early days of the Macintosh. Principal author of The Official Adobe Photoshop Handbook, he was tapped by Star Wars special effects house Industrial Light and Magic as it began its transition to digital media — contributing to innovative films like Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Rocketeer, Hook, and Spawn. Biedny teaches digital media at Yale.
Biedny has had several unexplained experiences and encounters with unidentified airborne objects that might properly described as paranormal. And though he co-founded the ground-breaking podcast The Paracast, he might be considered a skeptic — impatient with the attention-seeking and self-delusion that dominate so many paranormal claims.
For details on some of Biedny’s experiences outlined in this show, listen to the second hour of this Paracast episode:
https://www.theparacast.com/podcasts/paracast_061015.mp3
Dr David Levitt is CEO of Pantomime Corporation, creator of uncanny physically realistic augmented reality using the advanced LiDAR 3D sensing technology in Apple’s Pro iPhones and iPads. He earned his bachelors degree at Yale and his doctorate in Artificial Intelligence at MIT, creating the first software to improvise music in jazz and classical styles.
Levitt was on the founding team of the MIT Media Lab. At VPL Research, the team that invented virtual reality, he created the first VR worlds with realistic gravity, object collisions and 3D sound. Levitt has been a research scientist and product developer at Atari, VPL, Viacom and Interval Research, has taught at NYU and MIT, and co-founded three startups including Pantomime. He also created the ESP Trainer and Stargate ESP Trainer apps, for remote viewing researcher Russell Targ.
Like Biedny, Levitt has made a career of creating digital magic and (sometimes involuntarily) becoming expert in how people fool themselves and others.
David Biedny at Yale Drama School
https://www.drama.yale.edu/bios/david-biedny-2/
David Levitt, Pantomime Corporation CEO
http://www.asmallmediumatlarge.co
Show Produced by Green Valley Production Studio
Music by DJ Booda: http://www.djbooda.com