#7 from wiki:
Hedy Lamarr (under her then-married name of Hedy Kiesler Markey) and composer George Antheil received U.S. Patent 2,292,387 for their Secret Communication System on August 11, 1942. This early version of frequency hopping used a piano roll to change between 88 frequencies and was intended to make radio-guided torpedoes harder for enemies to detect or jam. This idea was controversial and ahead of its time and technology. The technology was not implemented until 1962, when it was used by U.S. military ships during a blockade of Cuba,[2] after the patent had expired. Neither Lamarr nor Antheil made any money from the patent. Perhaps due to this lag in development, the patent was little-known until 1997, when the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Lamarr an award[3] for this contribution.
Lamarr's frequency-hopping idea served as the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology used in devices ranging from cordless telephones to WiFi Internet connections. The technology in particular that is often attributed to her and George Antheil is CDMA.[4]
Lamarr wanted to join the National Inventors Council but she was told that she could better help the war effort by using her celebrity status to sell War Bonds. She once raised $7,000,000 at just one event.
Lamarr had already appeared in several European films, including Ecstasy (1933), in which she played a love-hungry young wife of an indifferent old husband. Closeups of her face in passion, and long shots of her running nude through the woods, gave the film notoriety. She also gained notoriety as one of the first actresses to bare her breasts in a major film and for faking an orgasm on film. (husband) Mandl bought up as many copies of the film as he could possibly find, as he objected to her nudity, as well as "the expression on her face. |
