MIT Professor Michael Dertouzos Dies at 64
On Wednesday, Scripting News pointed out that MIT Professor Michael Dertouzos passed away earlier this week at the age of 64. He was the author of a number of books and papers that advocated user interface improvements to make technology more accessible to non-technical audiences. He was also director of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, an extremely important technical resource and the US home of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
In a Reuters news article, Tim Berners-Lee, developer of HTML, said that Dr. Dertouzos was the key person in the establishment of the W3C. Berners-Lee said, "He picked up the idea (of forming the World Wide Web Consortium) and put it together. Only someone with this stature could have pulled it off."