Carnegie Mellon Entertainment Tech Co-Founder Pausch Dies

Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Randy Pausch has died of pancreatic cancer, according to reports today. Pausch may be best remembered in the game community for co-founding the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU and for creating Alice, a free 3D programming environment that lets the user easily create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Pausch, 47, earned nearly overnight internet fame in 2007 for his talk at CMU’s “Last Lecture” series, in which announced to the world that he had terminal cancer, but continued the speech by describing his childhood dreams and ways in which people can help others achieve their dreams. Pausch then wrote a book, The Last Lecture (Hyperion), which became a New York Times bestseller. "Randy had an enormous and lasting impact on Carnegie Mellon," said university president Jared L. Cohon in a statement to the press. "He was a brilliant researcher and gifted teacher. His love of teaching, his sense of fun and his brilliance came together in the Alice project, which teaches students computer programming while enabling them to do something fun -- making animated movies and games. Carnegie Mellon -- and the world -- are better places for having had Randy Pausch in them." Pausch died in his home in Virginia, according to reports.