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Inventor of the TV Remote Control Dies

Posted by Soulskill on from the rest-in-peace dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Yes, kids, you used to have to walk across the room to change the TV channel. That changed with the introduction of the 'Flash-Matic,' a revolutionary device that was 'Absolutely harmless to humans!' and could 'even shut off annoying commercials while the picture remains on the screen.' Eugene Polley, inventor of the now ubiquitous TV remote-control died Sunday of natural causes at age 96. In 1996 Polley received an Emmy for his invention, but during his 47-year career, he was awarded numerous patents and worked on projects ranging from advances in radar to push-button car radios."

3 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Duplicate idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think the '1996' in the article threw him off; actually this should be about the inventor of the wireless remote control, it's from 1955 (the one with the wire was from 1950 and was called the Zenith 'Lazy Bones')

  2. If it was invented tomorrow... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... I wonder what the MPAA / RIAA / The Bad Guys would say about muting their precious commercials?

    I'm sure a "do not mute" flag would quickly appear in the DVB stream.

  3. Re:Duplicate idea by ortholattice · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, the first remote control was invented by Tesla in 1898 (U.S. Patent 613,809). He used it to remotely flash lights on a boat, amazing an audience. Eugene Polley specialized it to "for a TV". Sort of like many modern inventions consist of an earlier idea + "on the internet". (OK maybe not that simple but I thought I'd toss it in for a good troll...)