Contemporary computing celebrities to Kevin Mitnick

• Brent Townshend
  
  1960 Toronto [Canada]
  

  The inventor and electrical engineer who created the concept for 56k modems in 1996.
  These modems, which operated in the voice frequency band, were capable of download speeds of up to 56,000 bits per second.
  
  Initially, there were two competing modem systems: K56flex and X2.
  By the late 1990s, 56k modems were the most popular method of personal Internet access.
  The characteristic sounds emitted by these modems were not, as with previous generations, a modulated signal of the data being transferred, but rather the data being transferred.
  Communications were beginning to shift from analog to digital.

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• Anders Hejlsberg
  
  1960 Copenhagen [Denmark]
  

  In 1983, while working at Borland, Anders developed Turbo Pascal, a development IDE that integrated a compiler for the Pascal programming language. He later became the principal architect of Delphi. In 1996, he was hired by Microsoft, where he led the development of the J++ programming language. He is credited with creating the C# programming language (C Sharp) and has been the principal architect of the team developing this language since 2000. In 2012, Hejlsberg led the development of TypeScript, Microsoft's open source programming language.

• Michael Z. Land
  
  1961 Boston [USA]
  

  Mivchael Land is an American electronic musician and composer known for his compositions for several video games produced by LucasArts.
  His first work was for The Secret of Monkey Island, but he wasn't entirely satisfied with the synchronization of the music with the game, and began working on the iMUSE interactive music system, which would be used to create subsequent games in the Monkey Island series and other LucasArts titles.

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• Hillman Curtis
  
  1961 San Diego [USA] † 2012
  

  He stood out as a web designer and a pioneer in the use of Macromedia Flash Player, which for many years was an intrinsic part of the most advanced web pages.

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• Jeff Minter
  
  1962 Reading [United Kingdom]
  

  Jeff Minter (often called Yak) is an English video game designer and programmer, founder of the software company Llamasoft, and has created dozens of games throughout his career, which began in 1981 with games for the ZX80.
  Minter's games are shoot 'em ups that contain references in the title or gameplay that demonstrate his fondness for ruminants (llamas, sheep, camels, etc.).
  Many of his programs also contain psychedelic elements, as in some of the early "light synthesizer" programs, such as Trip-a-Tron.
  
  Minter's works include the music visualization program Neon (2004), integrated into the Xbox 360 console, and the video games Gridrunner, Attack of the Mutant Camels, Tempest 2000, and Polybius.

• Martin Galway
  
  1966 Belfast [United Kingdom]
  

  He is one of the most famous and prestigious composers of music for the Commodore 64's SID sound chip.
  His best-known works include Arkanoid, Wizball, and Green Beret, as well as numerous melodies used during game loading, such as those developed by Ocean Software.

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• Jony Ive
  
  1967 London [United Kingdom]
  

  The English industrial designer was hired by Apple to design its new laptop in September 1992, following Steve Jobs' return to the company.
  He was responsible for the design of the iMac, Power Mac G4 Cube, iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, and parts of the iOS user interface.

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