Steve Wilhite, the inventor of the GIF file format, attends the seventeenth Annual Webby Awards at Cipriani Wall Avenue on Tuesday, Might 21, 2013, in New York. Brad Barket, Invision by way of Related Press
The primary GIF, created by Steve Wilhite, was of a airplane flying by means of a pixelated sky. Steven Wilhite, The Fanatic
Steve Wilhite, the creator of the GIF, died final week attributable to COVID-19 problems, mentioned his spouse, based on NPR. He was 74.
- “Honey I don’t really feel good. I don’t really feel good in any respect,” Wilhite reportedly mentioned to his spouse, Kathaleen Wilhite.
- His household took him to the hospital the place his signs started to worsen.
He ultimately progressed right into a coma and handed away shortly after, reported NPR.
About Wilhite: Wilhite was the daddy to 5 youngsters, grandfather to 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, based on his obituary.
- “Steve retired as Chief Architect from America on-line, was the inventor of the GIF, and obtained the Webby Lifetime Achievement Award in New York. He was an avid camper and liked touring ... Even with all of his accomplishments, he remained a really humble, form, and good man,” his obituary mentioned.
- “It’s simply so unhealthy. It’s simply so tragic,” mentioned Kathaleen to NPR.
What's a GIF? GIF stands for graphic interchange format.
- A GIF is a looping picture format, fabricated from compressed photographs that show like a brief, looping video, not quite a lot of seconds lengthy, based on NBC.
- The GIF “turned social media’s main technique of conveying emotion and memetic communication. The GIF format has been used as a handy method to present graphs, drawings and easy animations,” based on NBC.
How was the GIF created? In 1987, whereas working for the corporate CompuServe, Wilhite and his crew had been tasked with discovering a method to ship clear photographs with the burden of sluggish, dial-up speeds, reported CNN.
- Wilhite found out compress photographs in a means that they wouldn’t lose sharpness and would load and seem shortly on any laptop, CNN experiences.
- The primary GIF was a brief clip of an airplane.

The primary GIF, created by Steve Wilhite, was of a airplane flying by means of a pixelated sky.
Steven Wilhite, The Fanatic
How one can pronounce GIF: Within the early 2010s, there have been widespread arguments on the web whether or not the clip title was pronounced “gif” or “jif” just like the peanut butter, based on CNN.