SMH reports today that President Obama presented the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and the National Medal of Science to leading US scientists and inventors, in a White House ceremony. These awards are said to be the highest honour to be given by the US government.
One of the award winners was Stephan Sasson who was the first builder of the digital camera prototype in 1975. These cameras “revolutionized photography, as all these folks back here can testify,” Obama said to the press.
Awards also went to Federico Faggin, Marcian Hoff and Stanley Mazor, who designed in 1971 the Intel 4004, the California firm’s first commercial microprocessor, and Stanley Prusiner, the man who discovered prions, misfolded proteins that can cause mad-cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
