BOMBSHELL – HEDY LAMARR
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-born American movie star of the 1930s and 1940s and who is less well-known as an inventor, whose work was ahead of its time and eventually led to the invention of WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS. This 2011 PBS documentary is the story of her life.
Lamarr fled from Austria and a stifling young marriage to an arms dealer. A few years later, feeling uncomfortable with her Hollywood wealth at the beginning of World War II and having significant knowledge of secret weapons and the technological challenges of the time, she sought to do what she could to help win against the Nazis. She had the idea for a frequency-hopping signal that could not be tracked or jammed and with her friend, composer and pianist George Antheil, developed a device that synchronized a miniaturized player-piano mechanism with radio signals, which they patented in 1942.
At the time, the US Navy was not receptive to considering inventions coming from outside the military but in 1962 an updated version of their design finally appeared on Navy ships.
Lamarr had a tumultuous love life and was divorced 6 times. By the time she was 50, she was washed-up in Hollywood and destitute, unable to provide for her 3 children. In the 1980s, her spread spectrum, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), frequency-hopping invention finally paid off, with the advent of cellphones and standardized wireless communications.
Lamarr passed away in 2000 at the age of 85. In 2014, Lamarr and Antheil were posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Contributed by Alexandra Bruce
ADDENDUM: Bonus feature
Hedy Lamarr, 1969 TV Interview on Merv Griffin's Show
Alexandra "Chica" Bruce is a Brazilian-American author and filmmaker. She is the author of six non-fiction books about popular culture, science and spirituality. Her latest, released in September 2009 is “2012: Science or Superstition.” This is her third book for The Disinformation Company, following “Beyond The Bleep: The Definitive Unauthorized Guide to 'What The Bleep Do We Know!?’” and “Beyond The Secret: The Definitive Unauthorized Guide to ‘The Secret.’” She completed work on three feature films as a Co-Producer, 2nd Unit Director & Consultant at Equilibrium Entertainment, LLC: "Discover The Gift" DVD/book was released in Germany on September 30, 2010 and in the US by Random House/Crown Publishing Group on June 17, 2011; "2012: The Beginning", and "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder" release dates TBA.
Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
