David Levitt

Dr David Levitt is VP of Engineering at Broadband Mechanics, Inc., developers of advanced social networking software platforms and solutions.

As Director of Engineering at Arxan Technologies, Levitt led the team delivering software anti-tamper solutions to all the leading firms in the defense and embedded software industries.

In 2002 Levitt founded ConnectedMedia software and launched ConnectedTV, which turns a Palm device into a personalized TV guide and all-purpose remote control.  With one device replacing all their remote controls, users could mark and browse favorites or change channels easily with one hand.

At Interval Research in Palo Alto, Levitt developed groundbreaking software like MediaCalc - an interactive kit for video, audio and media computing - and social media software for Paul Allen's emerging broadband infrastructure.

At VPL Research, Levitt joined the pioneers of Virtual Reality to create real-time multi-person person 3D worlds.  Levitt's software provided interactive, realistic directional 3D sound - objects, environments, and users' voices vividly, as the VR participant moved and turned throughout the space.  Levitt created VPL's physics and other libraries using more advanced real-time dataflow software.

Levitt's award winning HookUp! software kit let users create real- time simulated worlds, animation and music simply by connecting icons together in a data flow diagram.  A favorite with kids, this revolutionary program allowed instant, effortless software creation without typing - just by connecting icons on the computer screen.

In 1985, Dr. Levitt joined the founding team at MIT's Media Laboratory as a research scientist and lecturer, creating MIT's the first Macintosh software development lab.

In his thesis work at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab, Levitt created software that composes and improvises music in traditional styles based on structural descriptions.  His MIT Press book with Stephen Schwanauer, "Machine Models of Music", describes algorithms for the creation and interpretation of traditional music composition by machine.   In many ways these programs -- which can create chorales, minuets, jazz arrangements and and rock and roll solos, understand what key a piece is in, or know when to tap their virtual feet -- still represent the state of the art in artificial musical intelligence.