Peter Joseph Kennedy, longtime resident of Boca Raton, Fl, mostly recently of Weston, Fl, passed away August 3, 2020 due to complications of Alzheimer’s disease.
Pete, as everyone called him, will always be remembered as a creative mind and inventor, but his greatest idea came in a simple way.
One day, while riding an elevator, he noticed the use of proximity detectors on the floor buttons in an elevator, and realized that could have other practical applications, especially to a hand-held device. That thought led him to develop an idea to allow the screen to recognize finger movements, rather than just touch. The “pinch and zoom” idea was born, patented, and has become a staple of daily life, on every phone, and every handheld device.
And this patent "Shape Detecting Input Device" has been hailed as one of the greatest inventions of our time.
https://uwyo.libguides.com/patents/examples
Pete was born September 13, 1941 in New York, and moved to Miami, Florida as a small child. His father was an uneducated immigrant from New Foundland, who worked as a painter. While he was in high school, Pete taught his father how to read. His mother was a first generation American, who dropped out of school during the depression. She worked at hotels on Miami Beach as an entertainment coordinator. Humble beginnings for Pete, indeed.
You could rightfully say that Pete was a self-made man. He was a person who would always take things apart just to learn how they worked (much to his mother’s chagrin), and had a small electronics repair business in high school. He attended the University of Miami, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, and went on to get a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering. He became a licensed Professional Engineer, and held professional certifications in Human Factors and Ergonomics.
His career started when he went to work at IBM in the mid 1960s, first starting as a clock technician at Kennedy Space Center during the Apollo program, and later moving to the burgeoning facility that IBM built in Boca Raton, Florida.
There, he worked on projects related to printers for several years, before moving on to work with typewriters. He worked on IBM’s Selectric Typewriter, helping refine the design of the ball that was used to revolutionize typing. He also was involved in finding the best natural angle for the typing surface, to ensure comfort and maximize speed - and perhaps most importantly, he had a role in figuring out what the keys should “feel” like when typing.
This would serve him well. In the early 1980s, he moved on to the PC division, and was a founding member of IBM’s Human Factors department. His knowledge of the typewriter layout guided him in creating the first keyboards IBM produced to go with a computer.
There’s a short story here. Pete was a proponent of switching away from the familiar “QWERTY” layout to the Dvorak style, because research showed that it could be faster and more efficient. Unfortunately, the new style wasn’t adopted, and the standard remained as the “QWERTY” style.
The takeaway is that Pete took this type of thing in stride, as he always did. He was always the good “company man.” You make your case and if it’s unsuccessful, you make sure that the decided outcome gets your full attention, and you do your best.
With that in mind, he focused on making the transition from a typewriter to a personal computer easier. The new keyboard was familiar; it had a similar natural angle, layout, and a feeling like you were typing on a typewriter.
And that became the standard keyboard that’s still in use today. The comfortable,ergonomic keyboards came about because he worked hard to make them that way, and that has carried forward over the years.
Overall, the human factors department ran the gamut of nearly everything IBM had in mind for PCs: software, hardware, hand held game controllers, even packaging - so computers were nestled in protection but easy to take out and assemble at home.
He helped setup labs to conduct scientific studies, and the team figured out how to best design experiments to thoroughly test their products. All of this became a model for the industry. The human factors department was the proverbial gold standard, and the team were truly considered experts in the field.
He worked on monitor designs, how to best use the single color monochrome screen, and helped figure out how to best leverage early color displays to avoid eye fatigue. He was behind the idea of creating a standard font that was anti-aliased (ie, easy to detect and read on the screen), and wrote and lectured extensively on the topic.
After leaving IBM, Pete went on to work for Dell in Austin Texas, and then Compaq, in Houston Texas, bringing a wealth of Human Factors design knowledge to their growing product lines.
A few years later, he went to Sony-Ericsson in North Carolina, where he played a large role in designing the early cell phones. He looked at the usability of the phones, and more importantly, he focused on the feeling of the keys as people were starting to text. He also helped design an automatic means to adjust the brightness of newly introduced color screens in various lights.
Many of his designs were revolutionary and industry-leading, as they were described in marketing materials at the time, and they often became the de facto standard used in the industry.
While there, he also came up with an idea to allow for the Amber Alerts to be pushed directly to your phone, and patented it. You can thank Pete when you get an alert about a missing child on your phone.
He was nearly ready to retire, and spend more time with his grandkids, when Apple Computers reached out, and offered him a job. An industry analyst said of the move (paraphrasing) “If they are hiring Pete Kennedy, with his pedigree, then they must be coming out with something remarkable.” And they did, as Pete was working on the iPod, and later, the original iPhone. It was absolutely a team effort to make these products, but Pete had many of the ideas that make them tick.
He once told his grandkids about the pinch and zoom: “Although I was the one that came up with the concepts, nothing can be done alone. I thought it was my professional duty to include other people that helped me to develop the final patent. You will therefore see their names listed on the patent. Note, there is a list of several inventors on each of these.” That’s who he was. He never sought glory, rather he was contributing to the greater good. Humility was a primary calling card.
He had a gift of sorts, to just see a need and look to fill it. Often, ideas would just come through everyday life. One day, while sitting at his desk, he realized that many features of the mouse interacting with the monitor could be replaced by a simple touch on a dial or the glass display of a hand-held device; scrolling and clicking an entry on the screen could all be replicated with your finger, and that became a “dashboard” for the iPod, and carried into the iPhone.
And it was during his time at Apple that he patented the proximity detector that’s leveraged in pinch and zoom.
He finally (unofficially) retired in 2005, and moved back to Florida. But, he still had a desire to create and share his ideas - so he continued to consult, invent, and create for the next decade.
He has over 20 patents in his name (some on his own, some with a company he was working for), nearly another 20 that are still in review, countless professional publications, and a variety of ideas and inventions to his name. He was still producing ideas and working on patents until the disease took away his ability to be creative. Several of his later patents may still turn into something amazing one day; only time will tell.
He was always a big proponent for education, and enjoyed sharing what he knew with any/every one. At one point in the 1980s, the physics teacher at his sons high school abruptly quit; Pete stepped in and taught the class for a few weeks while the school looked for a permanent replacement.
He loved to volunteer at his grandchildrens’ grade schools, and was named senior volunteer of the year in 2009 for Broward County, Florida.
And there was a nice writeup in the paper in Darien, CT sometime after that.
https://patch.com/connecticut/darien/inventor-peter-kennedy-inspires-dhs-students
On the personal side, he had a dry sense of humor, and told the same (tired, dad) jokes repeatedly. But he always had a smile on his face and was always friendly and pleasant to everyone.
With his happy demeanor and the white beard, he decided to start playing Santa one holiday season. He enjoyed taking on the persona and interacting with people, and kept it up for many years.
Throughout his life, you could often find him puttering in the garage doing something creative: sometimes he’d work with electronics, sometimes he’d garden, sometimes he’d be welding, sometimes he’d be trying something new. He was always a voracious reader, subscribed to several science journals, and watched more educational shows than anyone can remember. Shows like NOVA on PBS were must-see tv.
He loved trains, rode a tandem bicycle with his wife (even though he learned to ride as an adult), and for a few years got really interested in magic. He did a little consulting, and started a couple of small companies with friends along the way, so he could do more than sitting behind a desk.
He always took an active interest in whatever things his boys were into. He wasn’t a particularly big sports fan or a music lover, but he’d head out to a ball game or concert, just to be close to them.
And finally, something must be said about his eating habits. He was always noshing on something; he seemed to always be hungry. He liked to joke (or maybe it wasn’t a joke?) that during college he read a book ‘365 ways to prepare ground beef’ because he kept it simple. He ate a banana every morning, and that was one thing about him that is a truly lasting memory. He enjoyed cafeteria-style food more than most people do, which was kind of a quirky, amusing thing about him. As a working man, he had a few go-to places for lunch; diner-types, where he would order the same thing almost every day. Usually it was a turkey sandwich, but at one point, he had tuna on wheat every day for nearly a year. As he said, If its working, why change?
I might also point out that he passed away just after finishing a big breakfast, so we know he left us with a full belly - which really which made his family smile.
There’s another funny food-related story about him that’s worth sharing. He had various food allergies, and he left it to his wife to help keep track of it all. When they’d go out to eat, he would ask “Audrey can I eat this?” On a cruise some years ago, this became a joke that the ships comedian picked up on and used in his act, to uproarious laughter - especially from some relatives.
He is survived by his wife, Audrey, his two sons David and Michael, their wives, and 6 grandchildren - with whom he loved spending time.
Although he annoyed his teenage sons with his endless questions, he taught them how to think critically and to solve problems. They both became engineers as well, mostly due to his influence on them.
In his time with his grandchildren, he passed along the idea of rationality and application of the scientific method to problem solving. His influence on them can be seen there, too. The oldest of them are budding scientists, too.
His love of life, and what he did for a living, was inspiring to anyone who met him. He will be sorely missed.
He always reminded people to do their best. And he always encouraged thoughtfulness, and sharing what you know. I’m quite sure he would ask anyone who reads this to embody this ideal: share your knowledge with others, be a teacher, a mentor, and encourage others.
A final note: The family would like to ask that in his honor, you consider a donation to one of the many organizations working on Alzheimer’s research. Surely, we will find a cure so that other great minds don’t fade off in the same way.
One option is the Alzheimer’s association which is doing great work to find a cure. As they say “the first survivor is out there.”
https://act.alz.org/site/Donation2?df_id=32112&32112.donation
But there are other other options too, or you might simply join a walk to raise awareness, and help raise money for research. These are a couple of the other good ones out there:
https://alzfdn.org/support-us/donate/
https://philanthropy.mayoclinic.org/page.aspx
