The Turing Award, the Nobel Prize of computing (but really how can we fault Nobel for not having a computing prize when computers for Nobel would have been people), has been won by Edmund Clarke (CMU), E. Allen Emerson (UT at Austin) and Joseh Sifakis (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/CARNOT Institute) for research on Model Checking. The citation reads
For their role in developing Model-Checking into a highly effective
verification technology, widely adopted in the hardware and software
industries.
The winners will share a $250,000 prize ($150,000 more this year due to the sponser ship of the Googlemonster.)
That’s either a 500-fold a 1000-fold increase in prize money in a 26 years. I recall that when Stephen Cook won the Turing Award in 1982 the prize was either $250 or $500 (somehow $250 sticks in my memory) and a framed paper certificate.