New Delhi: One of the leading creators of looping animated GIF images, 74-year-old Stephen Wilhite has passed away due to complications from COVID-19. He contracted the coronavirus earlier this month and was admitted to the hospital. His wife Kathleen Wilhite was also infected with this virus.
According to a report published by NPR, Kathleen had also contracted the coronavirus and the GIF maker was admitted to a hospital in Milford, Ohio, near her home, where she was treated with antibiotics before being placed in intensive care. went. The pair could not see each other because of the diagnosis and Stefan was eventually put in a coma.
He passed away after developing complications and his wife was called by the hospital staff on March 14. Stephen passed away shortly after Kathleen went to the hospital. In his last moments he was surrounded by his family.
Stephen Wilhite was one of the principal inventors of the GIF, or graphics interchange format, which is now used for reactions, messages, and jokes. He created GIFs in the 1980s while working at CompuServe. According to a report in The Verge, he retired in the early 2000s and spent his time traveling, camping and building model trains in his basement.
While it was debated for years as to how GIF should be pronounced, it was only in 2013 that Stephen settled the debate, declaring that it be pronounced with a soft “g”. However, some people still use a hard “g” when using the word.