Scitex, EFI Legend Arazi, 76, Passes Away

ISRAEL—Efraim "Efi" Arazi, founder of digital printing firms Scitex and Electronics for Imaging (EFI), has died at the age of 76, Israel National News reported.

While a student at MIT in 1969, Mr. Arazi built the camera the Apollo 11 crew used to broadcast the first pictures of the moon. NASA continued using his camera until 1995. At the age of 25, he invented an auto-focus mechanism that catapulted him to the foreground of the electro-optics industry.

While in Israel, he established the Scitex company, which introduced the first digital prepress computer and CCD scanner to the world in 1979. Mr. Arazi stepped down as president and CEO in 1988.

In 1990, he founded EFI, which is credited for inventing a controller and program that made it possible to turn any copying machine into a high-quality color printer, according to the News. The company sold more than a million controllers.