Happy 100th birthday, Hedy Lamarr, movie star who paved way for Wi-Fi

CNet ^ | 9 November 2014 | Steven Musil

[Defiant]

She created CDMA, but gave it away, and so Qualcomm didn’t have to pay her royalties.

[Defiant]

Mel Brooks.

[Talisker]

Harnessing the torpedo knowledge she acquired from the meetings she attended with her former husband, Lamarr began collaborating with Antheil on frequency hopping...

I love a good story just like anyone else, but Antheil was an actual inventor, and Hedy got information from other scientists and engineers from meetings she had no real cause to be in in the first place - which she then gave to Antheil. What was that information? How in-depth was it? After she gave it to Antheil, how much did he extend it?

Yes, she COLLABORATED with Antheil, and so she was on the patent. But it sounds like actual scientists, engineers, inventors and businessmen developed most of this technology. To claim she "invented" it is going a bit far. She neither developed the root ideas nor their expression on her own, and there's no listing of her personal insights in the matter.

Sorry for the reality check, but Hollywood is Hollywood, and you don't get more Hollywood than Hedy Lamarr.

[martin_fierro]

To prevent remote-controlled torpedoes from being hijacked, she helped develop an early version of spread spectrum communication, which is part of the basis for wireless technologies such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Yeah, like the starlets of today stand a chance of doing something similar.

[dfwgator]

"Why did you do that?"

[jiggyboy]

well this is an interesting thread — GAAAAAHHHH!

[jiggyboy]

Indeed, they skipped a couple of steps:

“He returned to the US in 1933 to compose for film, and also became a syndicated romance advice columnist, writer for Esquire, and author of a book entitled, Every Man His Own Detective: A Study of Glandular Endocrinology.

“Legend has it that Lamarr approached him for endocrinological advice on increasing her breast size, but the two soon began chatting about weapons, particularly radio controlled torpedoes and how to protect them from jamming or interference.”

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/2012/01/09/hop-skip-and-a-jump-remembering-hedy-lamar/

[jiggyboy]

dag nabbit I should have saved that for #24

[SunTzuWu]

Ditto!!

[dfwgator]

Ditto, you provincial putz?!?

[lbryce]

YouTube:Blazing Saddles Theme Song

[PGalt]

ROFLMAO

[zeugma]

Awesome lady. Beautiful and smart.

[ShadowAce]

Yep—pretty rare combination these days.

[Constitution Day]

Wretched. When I see that photo, I don't really think of torpedoes.