Tributes from all over the world flowed in for Apple founder Steve Jobs who died yesterday at age 56.
US President Barack Obama said the world had lost a visionary.
The news of his death, and then the tributes and condolences, were in news alerts, tweets and messages pulsing through the gadgets inside.
Marks of respect soon flowed from around the world. "iSad'' was a trending topic on Twitter. Mac Users Group Mexico released a statement that concluded, "Let's breathe deeply and say VIVA STEVE JOBS!''
There were more traditional tributes closer to Silicon Valley. People placed flowers and scrawled chalk messages in front of the gates of Jobs' Palo Alto home, where family and friends gathered. Someone wrote "Thank you Steve'' in lipstick on the window of an Apple Store in Santa Monica.
"Steve Jobs was a great visionary and a respected competitor,'' said Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, co-CEOs of Blackberry-maker Research in Motion.
"Today the world lost a visionary leader, the technology industry lost an iconic legend and I lost a friend and fellow founder,'' said Dell Inc. founder and CEO Michael Dell.
"For those of us lucky enough to get to work with Steve, it's been an insanely great honor.
Jobs managed to live more than seven years with a rare form of pancreatic cancer that grows more slowly than the common kind. But his need for a liver transplant two years ago was a bad sign that his troubles with the disease probably were not over.
The Apple founder long kept information on his illness behind a firewall, and no new details emerged immediately after his death.
However, medical experts unconnected with his care say Jobs most likely needed the transplant because his cancer returned or spread. They said his death could have been from cancer, the new liver not working, or complications from immune-suppressing medicines to prevent organ rejection.
A liver transplant can cure Jobs' type of cancer, but "if it were to come back, it's usually in one to two years,'' said Dr. Michael Pishvaian, a gastrointestinal cancer specialist at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Jobs declared he was cured after surgery in 2004 for an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, a much more treatable form of pancreatic cancer than the more common form of the disease that killed actor Patrick Swayze two years ago.