User:JoannaPaulaC/sandbox/Michael J. Freeman

''This article is about Dr. Michael J. Freeman, an American inventor. For other people of the same name, see'' Michael Freeman (disambiguation).

Michael J. Freeman is an American inventor, business and government consultant on trend analyses, behavioral scientist, entrepreneur, and educator. He is known for pioneer developments of smart toys, Cable television, robotics, telephony, advanced behavioral systems, among others. He has authored 42 US patents and was a professor at three U.S. universities.

Education and Career
Freeman received his bachelor's degree in Economics and Management from the City College of New York-Baruch in 1969. His MBA in Business Management and Economics followed in 1970 from Baruch College. In 1977, he received his Ph.D. in Philosophy majoring in Behavior Sciences and specializing in mental adaptation techniques, from the City University of New York.

Freeman was a professor at Baruch College of the City University of New York, at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and at Hofstra University in the Village of Hempstead, New York. Freeman was the keynote speaker at Harvard University on November 14, 2001 at the conference, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and the Future. [note: needs citation]

Freeman commercialized 42 U.S. patents in educational devices, and in the sole core technology for touch-tone phone branching and telephony that allowed the phone system via its push-buttons and tones to become the "keyboard to the home." He also has patent claims covering cable TV, addressability of cable converter boxes, digitization, interactivity, and toys. He founded a U.S. corporation and it rose to a market capitalization of $2 billion. He developed patent claims for movies special effects, laser special effects, and developed dynamic audience displays.

Inventions
In 1960, at the age of 13, Freeman was awarded first prize in the Westinghouse Science Fair, now known as the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his demonstration of rudimentary computer memory. This allowed a robot machine to be programmed to move to a destination and automatically rerun the cycles repeatedly as many times as requested, i.e. This he called rudimentary "programming."

Leachim
In 1974, Freeman created Leachim, a 6-ft, 200 pound robot, which demonstrated that voice branching could be done quickly enough to replicated speech (i.e. verbal output). This method combined phonemes, words, and sentences to form verbal responsive messages. Leachim was also programmed with biographical information on students, and to simulate 'infinite patience'. Leachim was tested in a fourth grade classroom in the Bronx New York.

Touch-tone phone branching/Automated phone menus
In 1984, Freeman introduced an advanced telephone branching technology and recorded voice interactive messaging system, a process where callers hear menu options provided by an automated telephone attendant when they reach a business.

The technology was officially called "automated phone menus" or "telephone branching."

ACTV Incorporated; Two Way Cable TV
In the early 1984, Freeman invented interactive TV, allowing "subscribers to change program content to fit their needs and interests." In order to license and expand this technology, he founded New York-based corporation ACTV. It became a publicly held corporation on May 4, 1990. It was listed in Nasdaq. Freeman served as the  company's CEO and President until 2001. Leonard Nimoy was the company spokesperson.

2-XL
Main article: 2-XL

In 1975, Freeman licensed 2-XL, an educational toy robot to the Mego Corporation, a US based toy company. The toy was "monumentally successful," a bestseller in the late 1970s. 2-XL was sold in many foreign countries and the programs were translated into six foreign languages. A number of board games were created in conjunction with the 2-XL robot.

In 1992, the toy was reintroduced by Tiger Electronics, an American toy company based in Vernon Hills, Illinois. As before, the programmed tapes were translated into many foreign languages and sold internationally.

The toy became the basis of a TV game show Pick Your Brain, produced by Marc Summers Productions and Summit Media Group. The 2-XL robot in the show served as the assistant of Marc Summers, the game show host, and was voiced by Greg Berg. 2-XL was also a "spokesrobot" for basketball player Michael Jordan and his charitable foundation in 1992 and 1993.

Talk 'n Play
Main article: Talk 'n Play

In 1984, Freeman created Talk 'n Play (also called Electronic Talk'n Play), featured in The Best of the 80s blog. It was a character-based interactive toy manufactured by CBS Toys within the Child Guidance brand. Later in 1986, it was reintroduced by Hasbro Toys, a Pawtucket RI, American Toy company, under the Playskool brand. Hasbro is the 3rd largest toy company in the world with $4 billion in annual sales; and Talk'n Play was financially important to Hasbro's balance sheet.

"The toy spurned creativity in children and was considered one of the best futuristic learning toys of the 1980s decade and was manufactured to be an excellent educational and entertainment system." Sub-licenses for programming were awarded to Sesame Street (Children's Television Workshop) and The Walt Disney Company. With this license the toy allowed interaction between children and the characters of Big Bird, Elmo, Mickey Mouse.

Kasey the Kinderbot
Kasey the Kinderbot toy was sold by Fisher-Price.

Kasey acted as a precursor of digital memory and animatronics and could teach forty different learning skills to children under seven years old.

The toy won accolades as best educational toy in 2002, and the Gold Seal award from the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio 2003. Although Kasey's voice was digital, professional female voice artist Kamala Kruszka studio-mastered the initial recordings.

In 2004, The Kasey the Kinderbot line expanded with the introduction of two lower price point toys named Toby the Totbot and Fetch the Phonicsbot, plus a DVD featuring stories about Kasey.

Interactivision
Main article: View-Master Interactive Vision

In 1986, Freeman created and licensed a video game toy system to the View-Master Ideal Toy Company Inc. This toy encompassed sophisticated digital interactivity considered advanced for that time period, and video games were produced by the Walt Disney Company and CTW (Children's Television Workshop).