What’s your evidence, Richard Easton??!?

  • vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2313·
    6 months ago

    Our mother who art in WiFi
    Thy beacon come
    Thou handshake be done
    In ac as in 802.11

  • VubDapple@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1812·
    6 months ago

    From the wiki page

    During the late 1930s, Lamarr attended arms deals with her then-husband arms dealer Fritz Mandl, “possibly to improve his chances of making a sale”.[41] From the meetings, she learned that navies needed “a way to guide a torpedo as it raced through the water.” Radio control had been proposed. However, an enemy might be able to jam such a torpedo’s guidance system and set it off course.[42] When later discussing this with a new friend, composer and pianist George Antheil, her idea to prevent jamming by frequency hopping met Antheil’s previous work in music. In that earlier work, Antheil attempted synchronizing note-hopping in the avant-garde piece written as a score for the film Ballet Mechanique that involved multiple synchronized player pianos. Antheil’s idea in the piece was to synchronize the start time of identical player pianos with identical player piano rolls, so the pianos would be playing in time with one another. Together, they realized that radio frequencies could be changed similarly, using the same kind of mechanism, but miniaturized.[4][41]

  • Icaria@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1515·
    6 months ago

    This post is inaccurate. Neither WiFi nor GPS use FHSS, nor is Lamarr anything close to singularly credited with FHSS’ invention (the earliest patent is credited to Nikola Tesla). This also implies that the Allies used her parent - they did not.

    Also Richard Easton is the son of the man who invented GPS and had every right to be skeptical of this claim, and it looks like Internet dipsh*ts have bullied him into deleting his twitter account over this.

  • zik@lemmy.worldEnglish
    124·
    6 months ago

    This is mostly wrong: while she did invent what would later be called Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS), it isn’t used in modern WiFi or in GPS. It is used in Bluetooth though.

    I should point out that techniques like FHSS are only a part of what makes up a radio communication method. You can’t say it was “the basis of Bluetooth” just because FHSS is one of the many technologies used in Bluetooth. She certainly contributed though.

    • Toes♀@ani.socialEnglish
      6·
      6 months ago

      You got me curious, is that true across all the different options for wifi such as 802.11b and a?

      • zik@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        6 months ago

        Yes, it’s been obsoleted in wifi since 2014. DSSS was always the preferred option and FHSS was never used much in WiFi.

      • zik@lemmy.worldEnglish
        19·
        6 months ago

        It was hardly ever used in WiFi. Two spread spectrum schemes were available in the original WiFi spec, FHSS and DSSS. DSSS was always preferred over FHSS and in practice FHSS was hardly used and eventually obsoleted a decade ago due to lack of use. It was never “the basis” of WiFi as claimed in the meme - that’s simply incorrect.

        Don’t get me wrong. FHSS is cool and it’s a great achievement. It just has little bearing on WiFi and absolutely no relationship to GPS.

        Better examples of FHSS would be Bluetooth (which you already mentioned), cordless phones, R/C toys and some military communications.

        • spujb@lemmy.cafeEnglish
          6·
          6 months ago

          fair, rescinded.

          you did put a false quote in your top comment tho. thats my main issue: “invented bluetooth/wifi” was nowhere in the original post. that’s a straw position you constructed yourself then took down easily because obviously it’s not true.

  • Sotuanduso@lemm.eeEnglish
    1151·
    6 months ago

    To be fair, I’d be skeptical if you told me Andy Griffith was the father of 3D printing.

    Though I’d google it instead of asking for evidence first.

        • Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish
          2·
          6 months ago

          plus he literally tried to snotnose the official twitter of the US Cyber Command posting something that is deeply within their field in their offical capacity for women’s history month. It does rather present him as acting in bad faith

            • theneverfox@pawb.socialEnglish
              1·
              6 months ago

              She invented the foundation of the technology

              We call Alan Turing the father of modern computing, because he invented the foundation of the technology

              Women more directly involved wouldn’t be the “mother” of the technology, they would be the “creator”

                • theneverfox@pawb.socialEnglish
                  1·
                  6 months ago

                  Einstein didn’t lay the foundation for the technology, he laid the foundation for the standard model. We call him the father of modern physics. He made the math work, the bomb was already being developed by the Germans. He didn’t come up with the idea, he didn’t come up with the technology, he just consulted.

                  Oppenheimer built and led the team that built the bomb. The theories weren’t complete, the technology didn’t exist, no one had laid out an equation that enabled the technology - they did all that in the Manhattan project.

                  Every person called the father or mother of <field of science> is a hero, in both the literary and personal sense. They represent looking at something in a new way - their name is an embodiment of a certain way of thinking.

                  You took a shot at that for no reason

  • henfredemars@infosec.pubEnglish
    69·
    6 months ago

    Note that this frequency hopping is no longer used in most WiFi networks today. It is, however, critical to classic Bluetooth, and BLE still somewhat uses it. I have no idea how it’s related to GPS.

    • Socsa@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      251·
      6 months ago

      Frequency hopping in wifi was never well supported. 802.11a was primarily DSSS and afaik, very few, if any consumer devices supported the FHSS mode.

      • henfredemars@infosec.pubEnglish
        19·
        6 months ago

        Indeed. Just speaking from a signals point of view, frequency hopping is not competitive for high bandwidth applications. It is however surprisingly durable in the presence of interference despite its simplicity. We’re seeing this play out in newer Bluetooth standards.

        • maynarkh@feddit.nlEnglish
          9·
          6 months ago

          Isn’t it still extensively used for RC stuff like drones and model aeroplanes / cars though? Asking as an amateur.

          • Warl0k3@lemmy.worldEnglish
            11·
            6 months ago

            It very much is! It’s widely touted as a safety feature, since interference on one frequency means you wont lose control of the flying blender for more than a few milliseconds (well, usually…)

          • henfredemars@infosec.pubEnglish
            6·
            6 months ago

            Yes. It works well because this is an application that requires low bandwidth, and interference could cause you to lose control and is even expected with multiple operators in the vicinity. You definitely want to have resilience to other interfering signals.

        • theneverfox@pawb.socialEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          From a human perspective, yes, that’s exactly what it does

          If you want to get pedantic about the technical details, it’s not time splitting if you’re not splitting the time…

          • henfredemars@infosec.pubEnglish
            1·
            6 months ago

            Technically speaking, isn’t differentiating between any two things pedantic? For example the moon, and chocolate, both are things. If you don’t want to get pedantic about it.

            • theneverfox@pawb.socialEnglish
              1·
              6 months ago

              What I mean is if you don’t slice time into slots, you’re not using time slicing. It doesn’t make sense to talk about time slicing at all anymore

              Two devices can transmit at the same time with all sorts of setups, even on the same frequency. And it’s not inaccurate to describe time slicing as “a method to allow multiple devices to transmit and receive simultaneously”

              The question isn’t valid. Being truly pedantic would be pointing out that any number of devices can transmit at the same time, you didn’t say the messages would be received

  • Margot Robbie@lemm.eeEnglish
    713·
    6 months ago

    It goes to show that being a good actress doesn’t mean that you can’t also be good at tech, even if you don’t like to to brag about it.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.worldEnglish
      63·
      6 months ago

      Reminds me of that time someone got into a Twitter beef with Rage Against The Machine. They dropped the “it’s not like you have a degree in political science or anything” line. The lead guitarist went to Harvard for social sciences.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      I’m from a Tech and Science background (unfinished Physics degree, most-definitelly-finished EE degree and then about 2 decades at the bleeding edge of Informatics) and some years ago came in contact with the Theatre Acting world for a couple of years whilst living in London (UK), doing various short courses, seeing fringe Theatre and getting acquainted with various (not famous) actors and directors.

      Most were surprisingly (for me, at the time, with my pre-made ideas from my Science background and 2 decades in Tech) intelligent people.

      Good acting using modern acting techniques and good directing do require quite a lot of brains to pull do well, IMHO, since in things like method acting well before there’s any acting of what’s on a script, there’s a whole process of analysing them and various techniques for discovering the emotions of the character (best I can describe in a short space), at least for stage acting.

      The only main difference in capabilities, I would say, is that at least in Acting there is a much higher proportion of Extroverts than Introverts, the very opposite of the proportion in Science and Tech, and Introverts are the ones with the personality type that’s detailed oriented and hence more likely to come up with things like new or changed processes for doing things (IMHO).

    • Icaria@lemmy.worldEnglish
      28·
      6 months ago

      This is one of the strangest sentences I’ve ever read, even with context. In the history of the human race, has anyone specifically accused good actresses of not being good with tech?

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
        3·
        6 months ago

        If I remember correctly at the time powers that be kept standing in the way of her presenting this tech to the military purely based on her gender

      • Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        A lot of classic hollywood actresses still have the dumb bombshell idea attached. Didn’t help that the studios actively created the marketing as such.

      • spujb@lemmy.cafeEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        not every argument needs to be borne out of a counterargument. this is a mean comment in response to a genuine and meaningful analysis of human potential.

        • Icaria@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          I’m as much at a loss for what you’re saying as the guy above you. No, this is baffling. It’s like when non-native English speakers or kids use conjunctions incorrectly and try to connect two entirely unrelated things.

  • AVincentInSpace@pawb.socialEnglish
    707·
    6 months ago

    Calling Hedy Lamarr “the Mother of Wifi” because she invented FHSS is like calling E. A. Johnson, who invented the first capacitive touchscreen in 1965, “the Father of the iPhone”.

    • spujb@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      462·
      6 months ago

      i’m pretty comfortable with calling him that. capacitive touchscreens are a big deal sounds like he deserves the praise.

      • CitizenKong@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        6 months ago

        Shout out also to John Underkoffler who was the technical advisor on Minority Report (and later Iron Man). The gesture controls in that movie heavily inspired the first smartphones.

          • CitizenKong@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            6 months ago

            He did a TED talk in 2010 and there are several articles about him. Not much news in recent years, I guess he wasn’t very succesful in turning his motion control concept into a viable product. I interviewed him about eight years ago.

      • AVincentInSpace@pawb.socialEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        Capacitive touchscreens are a big deal but it kind of minimizes the work of the other technology that goes into a smartphone, like wireless internet, low power mobile CPUs capable of 3D graphics, lithium-ion battery packs, etc., to say nothing of the design engineers that worked on the exterior, the hardware, and the operating system and deserve credit for the iPhone way more than he does. Crediting the holder of a patent from over 40 years before the iPhone hit the market with the creation of the iPhone is stretching the truth at best.

        • spujb@lemmy.cafeEnglish
          2·
          6 months ago

          children generally are able to have multiple parents.

          if i give credit to Alice for being Bobby’s mother, i’m not minimizing the parenthood of any of Bobby’s other parents. just giving credit where due.

          i would not hesitate to give a couple dozen people the title of father/mother/parent of the iPhone. seems quite appropriate and fair.

    • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.worldEnglish
      157·
      6 months ago

      Capacitive touchscreens are the essential technology not just in the iPhone but in all smartphones. Without them we’d still be using flip phones and BlackBerry chiclet keyboards. I think it’s fair to call Johnson the father of the smartphone!

          • Marcbmann@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            6 months ago

            And touch screens were in devices other than smart phones before smart phones came along.

            So again, father of the touchscreen, sure. But he did not make smartphones happen. He has nothing to do with 99% of the technology in smartphones.

            • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              6 months ago

              He invented the capacitive touch screen. The resistive touch screen was in many devices long before smart phones (bank machines being a common example). The resistive touch screen was fine for those applications but it was useless for the smart phone (too slow to respond). The capacitive touch screen’s first killer app was the smartphone, namely the iPhone.

            • Honytawk@lemmy.zipEnglish
              32·
              6 months ago

              Sure, but the touchscreen is arguably the thing that defines a smartphone. It is the part you interact with and the only part the user really sees.

              We had phones before capable of surfing the web and taking and editing pictures. Like Blackberry. But those aren’t really seen as smartphones, more like slightly smarter dumbphones.

  • FBJimmy@lemmus.orgEnglish
    697·
    6 months ago

    Great to recognise this invention.

    I was surprised by the choice of ‘Mother of Wi-Fi’ though - Wi-Fi hasn’t used ‘frequency hopping’ as such since 802.11b was released back in 1999 - so very few people will have ever used frequency-hopping Wi-Fi.

    GPS only uses it in some extreme cases I think, but I’m not an expert.

    However, Bluetooth absolutely does depend on it to function in most situations, so ‘Mother of Bluetooth’ might have been more appropriate.

    • sik0fewl@lemmy.caEnglish
      828·
      6 months ago

      So her invention isn’t used for Wifi now, but was used in the initial design of it? You might even say she helped give birth to it…

      • FBJimmy@lemmus.orgEnglish
        494·
        6 months ago

        I guess my point is that it isn’t a particularly important part of the design of Wi-Fi - they included it in the very first iteration in 1997 and realised by 1999 they didn’t need it. Therefore Wi-Fi would likely have been born regardless of the invention; Bluetooth would not.

      • VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        51·
        6 months ago

        Yeah but her work built on someone else’s so we’re taking it all away from her and calling them parents of her work so she gets nothing…

        Doesn’t feel as fun anymore, does it?

        Let the guys dad have some credit for his work, give her credit for her work - I don’t get what’s so controversial.

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      6 months ago

      However, Bluetooth absolutely does depend on it to function in most situations, so ‘Mother of Bluetooth’ might have been more appropriate.

      Considering the namesake of Bluetooth, the “Mother of Bluetooth” sounds like the kind of person who would have a tea party with “Grendel’s Mother” from Beowulf.

    • AVincentInSpace@pawb.socialEnglish
      192·
      6 months ago

      There are plenty of women in STEM who deserve more recognition. Lise Meitner, discovered nuclear fission. Gladys West, came up with the theory that laid the groundwork for GPS. Grace Hopper, inventor of the program linker, without which modern software development would be impossible. Ada Lovelace, arguably the first programmer ever. But calling a woman whose name is one of two on a patent that furthered the development of a radio communication technique originally devised 40 years earlier by Nikola Tesla which Wi-Fi no longer uses “the mother of Wi-Fi” and putting her on a pedestal just because she’s a woman, parading her (and only her) around every Women’s History Month, and calling anyone who claims she didn’t actually invent Wi-Fi (because she died around the time of its creation) a “troglodyte” is not a good look.

  • Frogodendron@beehaw.orgEnglish
    362·
    6 months ago

    It’s a brief five-minute Google search for me, but it seems that everyone has problems with both reading comprehension and/or causality evaluation.

    I think it’s great that such a patent exists and that the technology was invented by her. Yet, even checking the frequency-hopping spread spectrum page on Wikipedia shows that it was only one invention in the long series of discoveries and technologies, which was neither the first, nor the most crucial of them, and this particular option seems to be one of the sources of inspiration for later technologies (along with a bunch of predecessors).

    The rest of the criticisms regarding the choice of Wi-Fi over Bluetooth is already mentioned in the comments of others.

    I really don’t want to minimise the contribution of an individual towards the development of sophisticated technologies, and I have zero qualms about this individual being a woman, I just think that the presentation oversells the achievement which might cause additional mockery from those who do think that women (and actresses at that!) have no business in anything serious.

    What I actually find impressive, however, is that a woman, at the time where women’s rights were far from what they are today (just read about her first marriage, that must have been hard), could be both an actress, an inventor, a producer, all while leading quite a bitter life it seems. Not many can boast that.

    I guess where I’m going with that is that she, as many others, may be best praised as an example of a complex person that had many achievements as well as many hardships. Using her as a basis of “Didn’t think an actress could do something worthwhile? Gotcha!” statement seems a bit shallow.

    edit: However, since this post showed me that a person like Hedy Lamarr has existed in the first place (yeah, I’m not well-versed in mid-20 century American culture, sorry), and interested me (and likely a bunch of others) enough to Google her biography, I’d say it’s a net positive regardless.

    • Traegert@lemm.eeEnglish
      152·
      6 months ago

      Don’t try and oversell “famous woman does tech thing”. Try and and make people aware of the women who actually did really cool tech things. Marie Curie was a bad ass