| Andrew Kirmse | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Alma Mater: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Occupation: | Video game developer (former) Mobile software |
| Known For: | Creator of Meridian 59 Creator of Google Now |
| Distinguished engineer | |
Andrew Kirmse is an American computer programmer. He was a co-creator of Meridian 59, the first 3D massively-multiplayer online game.[1] While an engineer at Google, he co-created Google Now, a predictive search engine.[2]
Andrew Kirmse attended Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.[3]
Andrew and his brother Chris developed the code for Meridian 59 in their parents' basement while they were in college.[4] Meridian was the first online game to include 3D graphics. After a beta period, it was published by The 3DO Company in 1996, where it ran until 2000. Meridian's code was open-sourced in 2012,[5] and it continues to run for free today.
While at LucasArts, Andrew served as graphics programmer on the PlayStation 2 game .[6]
Andrew contributed to the first four volumes of the Game Programming Gems series of books about video game development. He was the editor of Game Programming Gems 4.[7]
Andrew began working at Google in 2003, where he managed the Google Earth team.[8] He later started and led Google Now,[9] which was named Innovation of the Year by Popular Science in 2012,[10] and won the Grand Prize at the 2013 User Experience Awards.[11] He gave an invited talk on Google Now at the 2014 WWW Conference.[12]