Marshall Brain, M.S.

The San Francisco Chronicle article The Robots Among Us: If robotics technology now stands where computing did in the ’70s, what can we expect in the future? said

“Sometime in the next 30, 40, 50 years we will have human-level machine intelligence,” predicts Marshall Brain, a computer science teacher turned author and technology forecaster.
 
“We are the only intelligence ever to have evolved, there’s no evidence to indicate anyone else can do what we do,” says Brain, 46, who wonders how humans will respond when their tools start talking back.
 
“What is about to happen is totally unprecedented: a second intelligent species is poised to appear,” he says.

Marshall Brain, M.S. is most widely known as the founder of HowStuffWorks, an award-winning resource website that offers clear, objective and easy-to-understand explanations of how the world around us actually works. The site, which he created as a hobby in 1998, simplifies topics ranging from science and technology to health and finance for millions of curious minds each month, and offers independent expert reviews and ratings through Mobil Travel Guide and Consumer Guide.
 
In addition to being a successful entrepreneur, Marshall is also the author of more than a dozen books and a member of the Academy of Outstanding Teachers at North Carolina State University. He is a distinguished speaker who is masterful in simplifying complex subject matter into a digestible format for audiences of all ages and experience levels. Computing, consumer electronics, aerospace, networking, industrial machinery, gadgets, health and science are just a few areas of Marshall’s interest and expertise. He has been a guest on numerous radio programs nationwide and has been featured on CNN, CNN Headline News, Martha Stewart Living Radio, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.
 
He authored Manna, Robotic Nation, The Day You Discard Your Body, Marshall Brain’s How Stuff Works, Marshall Brain’s MORE How STUFF Works, The Teenager’s Guide to the Real World, What If?, How Much Does the Earth Weigh?, and Motif Programming: The Essentials… and More, and coauthored Win32 System Services: The Heart of Windows 98 and Windows 2000 (3rd Edition), Visual C++ 2: Developing Professional Applications in Windows 95 and NT Using MFC/Book and Disk Windows CE 3.0 Application Programming (With CD-ROM), Understanding DCOM, Windows NT Administration: Single Systems to Heterogeneous Networks, Sybase System XI: Performance Tuning Strategies, and Microsoft Technology: Networking, Concepts, Tools.
 
Marshall earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rennselaer Polytechnic University and a M.S. in Computer Science from North Carolina State University. Before founding HowStuffWorks, he taught in the computer science department at NCSU and ran a software training and consulting company.
 
He resides outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife and four children.
 
Read his blog!