By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff Reporter
Jeff Han, 32, a Korean-American computer scientist, has become one of ``The World's Most Influential People'' as selected by weekly American news magazine Time.
Han, a research scientist at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, developed the ``multi-touch-sensing'' system ― an upgraded version of the current single-touch screen, with multiple points of contact recognized simultaneously.
His work has brought to reality the scene from the 2002 movie ``Minority Report,'' in which Tom Cruise's fingers moved nimbly across a screen to access information.
A video clip of Han demonstrating the multi-touch-sensing screen at the TED (Technology Entertainment Design) Conference in 2006 can be seen on YouTube, where Han's amazing multi-touch interaction experiments have attracted nearly 2 million viewers.
``Multi-touch-sensing was designed to allow non-techies to do masterful things while allowing power users to be even more virtuosic,'' Han said, according to the Time story.
Han has provided the technology to various clients including CNN and the CIA. CNN have put the technology to practical use, with the fancy name of ``Magic Wall,'' during ballot-counting coverage at election nights.
According to Time, Han described himself as ``one of those troublemaker kids.'' Han studied computer science and electrical engineering for three years at Cornell University and runs a company named Perceptive Pixel to commercialize programs such as the CU-SeeMe video-conferencing software.
Interested in human-computer interfaces and machine learning, Han ``has dramatically changed the way we interact with our computers'' according to John King, CNN's chief national correspondent.
Time magazine annually lists 100 of the world's most influential people ― leaders, thinkers, heroes, artists, scientists and more.
Last year, Korean heartthrob singer and actor Rain was listed in the World's Most Influential People. He failed to be in the list this year but won second place in the Time 100 poll. Shigeru Miyamoto, the video game designer of Nintendo took first place.