Pei-Yuan Wei (; d. 2023) was a Taiwanese-American businessman who created ViolaWWW, the first popular graphical web browser.
Career
Pei-Yuan Wei was born in Pingtung County, Taiwan. He graduated from Berkeley High School in 1986. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a member of the student club, the eXperimental Computing Facility (XCF).
In the 1990s, Wei was a founding employee of Global Network Navigator, one of the first Internet-based businesses. Later he worked for various Palm OS-related businesses. Since 2008, Perry has lived in both Taiwan and the US, devoting most of his time to taking care of his ill family member.
Controversy
Pei-Yuan Wei was at the center of a controversy over patents relating to embedded objects in a web browser, which revolves around whether his browser, ViolaWWW, had the capability to launch embedded objects, prior to the date a patent was filed by Michael David Doyle of Eolas, and the University of California.
References
External links
- Pei's Home Page (archive.org 2010-10-18)
- Viola Home Page (archive.org 2022-03-31)