michael hawley 58 who helped lay the groundwork for the internet of things has died a man of manifold interests his achievements ranged from developing ideas behind the socalled internet of things to publishing the worlds biggest bookcreditchoki lhamopublished june 24 2020updated july 1 2020michael hawley a computer programmer professor musician speechwriter and impresario who helped lay the intellectual groundwork for what is now called the internet of things died on wednesday at his home in cambridge mass he was 58the cause was colon cancer said his father george hawleymr hawley began his career as a video game programmer at lucasfilm the company created by the star wars director george lucas he spent his last 15 years curating the entertainment gathering or eg a conference dedicated to new ideasin between he worked at next the influential computer company founded by steve jobs after he left apple in the mid1980s and spent nine years as a professor at the massachusetts institute of technology media lab a seminal effort to push science and technology into art and other disciplines he was known as a scholar whose ideas skills and friendships spanned an unusually wide range of fields from mountain climbing to watchmakingmr hawley lived with both mr jobs and the artificial intelligence pioneer marvin minsky published the worlds largest book won first prize in an international competition of amateur pianists played alongside the cellist yoyo ma at the wedding of the celebrity scientist bill nye joined one of the first scientific expeditions to mount everest and wrote commencement speeches for both mr jobs and the google cofounder larry pagetwo of mr hawleys media lab projects things that think and toys of tomorrow anticipated the internet of things movement which aims to weave digital technology into everything from cars to televisions to home lighting systems led by companies like amazon google intel and microsoft the movement is now a 248 billion market according to the market research firm statistamr hawley developed a pattern of ideas that emerged long before the internet of things nicholas negroponte founder of the media lab said in an emaili would call that pattern not artificial intelligence but intelligence in the artificial he wrotemark seiden an independent computer security consultant who met mr hawley in the early 1980s when they were both working at ircam a music lab in paris and eventually hired him at lucasfilm compared mr hawleys exploits to those of george plimpton the writer whose participatory kind of journalism had him masquerading as a boxer a professional football player a circus performer and a standup comedianplimpton was a famous dilettante mr seiden said mike was just as a diverse as plimpton except he wasnt a dilettantemichael jerome hawley was born on nov 18 1961 at the camp pendleton marine corps base near oceanside calif to mary kay dixon and george hawley and grew up in new providence nj about 17 miles west of newark while still in high school he interned at bell labs where his