Remember when movie
stars invented stuff to save world?
A year into the war on terrorism, we need glamorous movie stars to go
into their garages and invent enemy-whomping technology.
Beyonce Knowles, Angelina Jolie, Ben Affleck —
surely someone like that will come up with a breakthrough that will help
make America's foes react like those bugs that yelled "Raid!" in the TV
commercials.
And then, after the war, the stars' inventions
will no doubt change civilian life around the world.
After all, it happened before at a similar
juncture in history.
Well ... once. But it was very inspiring.
Sixty years ago, actress Hedy Lamarr, an
Austrian-born hottie who'd met Hitler and did the first naked scene in a
full-length feature film, was awarded a patent for radio technology
intended to help American torpedoes blow up German ships.
Her invention forms the basis for just about all
of today's burgeoning wireless communication technologies — digital cell
phones, 802.11, satellite-guided smart bombs.
Not only is Lamarr's contribution real, it's
getting recognition in the National Women's History Museum in
Washington, D.C. And it has won an award this year from that towering
establishment of the nerd universe, the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, or IEEE.
Note: If IEEE comes up in conversation, call it
"I-triple-E," not "Aiyeeee," which would make people think you had a
severe gas pain.
Even now, though, it doesn't seem that many
people in tech realize what Lamarr did. "This really sounds unbelievable
to me!" says Bill Gross, founder of Idealab, when asked about Lamarr.
Another prominent venture capitalist, who in fact
invests mostly in wireless start-ups, confidently says, "I believe he is
a holder of many patents." He?
Lamarr grew up as Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in
Vienna, a city famed for its tiny sausages in a can. At 19, she became
internationally famous because of her nude swimming scene in the
Austrian film Ecstasy in the early 1930s. In those days, nobody
got naked, not even for baths, so this was quite scandalous.
She married millionaire Austrian arms dealer
Fritz Mandl, who regularly met with Adolph Hitler and Italian fascist
Benito Mussolini. Mandl often brought along Lamarr, and while the guys
ogled her, she picked up a lot of hot tips on the latest advanced
weaponry.
She decided she hated the Nazis, and her husband,
too, so she escaped to London. Things get a little fuzzy at that point,
but somehow she met Hollywood mogul Louis B. Mayer, who signed her to a
movie contract. She moved to Hollywood and changed her name, though I
can't understand why she didn't stick with Hedwig.
Lamarr became romantically involved with composer
George Antheil. As the story goes, Lamarr was listening to Antheil play
piano and was thinking about how to make an anti-jamming radio control
for torpedoes.
A little bizarre, don't you think? It's no wonder
Antheil didn't back away slowly, then move to an undisclosed address in
Greenland.
Anyway, the constantly changing notes gave Lamarr
an idea: Instead of sending radio control signals to a torpedo using one
frequency, which can easily be jammed or intercepted, send it over
constantly changing frequencies in a pre-arranged pattern, like notes in
a song. If both the sending device and receiving device are synchronized
on the same pattern, they'll be able to communicate. An enemy who
doesn't know the pattern would never find the signal.
In that pre-electronic age, Antheil designed a
mechanical player-piano-type device that would provide the pattern for
the sender and receiver. On Aug. 11, 1942, they were awarded patent
2,292,387 for their "Secret Communication System."
The Navy never used it, mostly because it wasn't
possible to squeeze a player-piano contraption into a torpedo. After the
war, the concept of frequency-hopping faded to black. No one did
anything with it until engineers at Sylvania Electronics dusted off the
concept in 1957 and used transistors to make it work. It was first used
on ships sent to blockade Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis.
Now the concept is called spread spectrum, and
more than 1,000 spread spectrum patents have referred back to the
Lamarr-Antheil patent as the basis for the technology. Qualcomm's
code-division multiple access (CDMA) cell phone technology is based on
spread spectrum. So is high-speed, 802.11 wireless Internet access. So
is the U.S. military's Milstar satellite communications network.
Turns out the technology is good for more than
just secrecy. It allows many times more devices to operate in the same
radio spectrum without interfering with each others' signals. Though my
CDMA cell phone and yours operate in the same spectrum, they don't
interfere with each other because they're working off different patterns
of microsecond frequency changes. The signals never bump into each
other.
Lamarr died in 2000, but by then wireless devices
based on her idea had spread around the globe and changed the way people
live and work.
This year, IEEE is honoring women who
"distinguished themselves as engineers." Lamarr is one of them, which is
a small consolation for never having made a cent on her long-expired
patent.
Perhaps there's some oversteering here, toward
giving Lamarr too much credit for our wireless world.
"I wouldn't rate spread spectrum as the greatest
innovation in cellular telephony," says Arno Penzias, a venture
capitalist and former head of Bell Laboratories. Bell Labs conceived of
the interlocking cells of radio coverage that form the basis for
cellular phone networks. Cells and spread spectrum often work together
in today's wireless systems.
Still, Lamarr is one of a kind. The history of
celebrity inventors is otherwise a tad spotty. Harry Houdini won a
patent for a diving suit. Danny Kaye got a patent for a toy that, when
you blew into it, unfurled three snakes. The best one: Steve McQueen
patented the bucket seat.
Lamarr's story might inspire other stars to
explore their inner inventor, unlocking a talent pool at this time when
the nation needs breakthroughs in engineering and science.
I bet that's what Britney Spears is really doing
on her "break."
Bill: This is the Hollywood actress who the 120 professor
called "invented frequency hopping CDMA".
After reading this article, I think I will try to find the
movie "Ecstasy". And from now on, everytime I see a CDMA, I
will rememeber CDMA was "invented" by the once naked Hollywood movie
star Hedy Lamaar.
Bill: This reminds me of
an article I have seen before. (the page is in English, nevermind
the encoding)
