FRAGE 2: Can you name the movie actress who co-invented the basic spread-sprectrum technology used in cell phones today?
Tipp: Sie war Österreicherin.
ANTWORT: Hedy Lamarr (1913-2000). Die Österreicherin Hedy Lamarr war nicht nur eine schöne Filmschauspielerin der 30er und 40er Jahre, sie war auch sehr intelligent. Zusammen mit dem Komponisten George Antheil hat sie ein technologisches Verfahren erfunden, wobei man die Fernsteuersignale für Torpedos verschlüsseln konnte. Dieses Verfahren wurde 1942 patentiert und heute benuzt man die gleiche Idee für Handys. - The Austrian Hedy Lamarr was not just a beautiful movie actress of the '30s and '40s; she was also very intelligent. Together with the composer George Antheil, she invented a technological process that allowed the encoding of remote control signals for torpedoes. This process was patented in 1942 and today the same idea is used for wireless phones.
The U.S. military never used the Antheil-Lamarr patent, in part because the technology at that time was inadequate. Only now, in the age of the wireless phone, has their system really come into its own. Instead of "frequency hopping" (the term used in the patent) today's term is "spread spectrum," but the basic idea is the same. First used secretly by the U.S. military in the 1960s, commercial interests are now using this "new" technology in the 1990s for digital wireless phone systems. But the patent expired in 1956, so Lamarr never made any money from it.