From the January 24, 2000 issue of Wireless Week, "Hollywood Diva's Invention Leads Industry To CDMA"
wirelessweek.com
>> Hedy Lamarr may be remembered in the public's mind more for her sensual images on the screen, but she also had a creative mind that developed a key wireless technology.
Lamarr, found dead in her Orlando, Fla., home Jan. 19 at the age of 86, helped invent the spread spectrum technology that has become central to the future of wireless services. She and a friend, musician George Antheil, were granted a 1942 patent under the title "Secret Communications System." There are technical differences, but Qualcomm eventually developed the fundamental concept for its CDMA technology.
Born in Austria in 1913 as Hedwig Eva Marie Kiesler, Lamarr said in interviews that the spread spectrum idea grew out of her failed marriage to Nazi munitions manufacturer Fritz Mandl. Lamarr escaped her marriage before World War II, coming to Hollywood in 1937. After the war broke out, she wanted to find a way to keep the Germans from jamming U.S. military radio signals. The idea for spread spectrum came to her while she sat watching Antheil hit the keys on a piano and following along with her own key strokes.
"Hey, look, we're talking to each other and we're changing all the time," Lamarr told Antheil, according to her son, Anthony Loder.
Lamarr, who never received royalties from her patent, was honored by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 1997. The U.S. Army first used the spread spectrum technology for communications during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. <<
- Eric - |
