Steven
Roth was one of those guys who could see farther than most of us and,
even more rare, make that vision a reality.  He died in his sleep
this past weekend in his home near Pittsburgh.  The Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette obit sub-hed: “One of the pioneers in field of
'information visualization' a 'reluctant manager'

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05165/521102.stm



Roth was a founder of Maya Viz Ldt.,
one of the  more interesting firms to emerge from the Carnegie
Mellon University's Robotics Institute in the 1990s.  Maya Viz
took infographics to higher levels of graphic clarity and data
interaction. 

“Described as 'dreamer,' a 'visionary' and most often, 'incredibly
passionate' by his colleagues, Mr. Roth was probably best known for his
oft-spoken desire to 'change the world' by developing software that
allowed complex data and numerical information to be represented
graphically, and in a way that humans could better see, use and
manipulate it.”