Karl Steinbuch

Karl W. Steinbuch (June 15, 1917 to June 4, 2005) was a German engineer and computer scientist born in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, who earned a doctorate in physics from the University of Stuttgart in 1944. Joining Standard Elektrik Lorenz in Stuttgart in 1948, he rose from computer design engineer to director of research and development, filed more than seventy patents, and completed the ER 56, the first fully transistorized computer built in Europe. He coined the German word Informatik for computer science, and in 1958 became professor and director of the Institute for Information Processing Technology at the University of Karlsruhe. He developed the Lernmatrix, an early implementation of an artificial neural network, and wrote influential early predictions of networked and multimedia computing, including a 1966 anticipation of what would later be called the internet of things.