Russell Kirsch, a computer scientist credited with inventing the pixel and scanning the world’s first digital photograph, died August 11 at his home in Portland, Oregon, The Oregonian reported. That first square image, that article said, measured a mere 176 pixels on a side — just shy of 31,000 pixels in total. There’s even a word for this effect: “pixelated.”“Squares was the logical thing to do,” Kirsch told the magazine in 2010. It was something very foolish that everyone in the world has been suffering from ever since.”Kirsch later developed a method to smooth out images by using pixels with variable shapes instead of the squares. Russell Kirsch is survived by his wife of 65 years, Joan; by children Walden, Peter, Lindsey and Kara; and by four grandchildren.-AP

Source: The Standard August 14, 2020 01:46 UTC