I am in mouring

Eugene Polley, the inventor of the TV remote control has died.  Working for Zenith, he was the guy who came up with the workable concept of a wireless remote control.  It looked like a ray gun, and you pointed it at the corner of the television screen where it activated photo cells tied to the channel changer, the volume, etc.  That was in 1955.  Mr. Polley was 96.  Think about it, who has affected what we do, every day, more than the late Mr. Polley?  A truly great innovator.  Mark Zuckerberg who?

When is the last time you used a pay phone?

New York is getting rid of them in favor of what is in essence a big attached iPad.  Good idea.  That got me thinking of when the last time was that I used a pay phone.  And I could not remember.  It has been more than a decade and probably closer to two.

Who invented WiFi? GPS?

It is arguable, but I am going with Hedy Lamarr.  That's right, the classic screen beauty was definitely not just another pretty face.  She was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna in 1913.  She was discovered by Loius B. Mayer and worked with the like of Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Bob Hope and Cecille B. DeMille.  But did you know she came up with the frequency-hopping shared-spectrum idea.  Initially she thought she could make radio controlled torpedos harder to jam if the guidance system erratically changed between 88 frequencies.  You can look up the patent if you want (US Patent 2,292,387)  And that alone would be notable for the Hollywood beauty.  However, in true silver screen fashion, the story gets better.  Lamarr's frequency hopping idea serves as the basis for modern spread spectrum communication technologies like blue tooth, WiFi and CDMA.  So next time you are walking down the street, listening to your smart phone give you directions through your ear bud, thank Hedy.