Google Honors Hedy Lamarr With A Doodle
On Nov. 8, Google dedicated a doodle and its homepage to Hedy Lamarr, the Austrian-born 1940s Hollywood star-turned-inventor. Google loves to celebrate women achievers especially in the space of science and technology.
Google celebrated the birthday of Hedy Lamarr, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria, with a doodle. Lamarr was of Jewish descent. Her parents were a banker and a pianist. She changed name, fled from her rich military spouse, Friedrich Mandl, and lived in America.
Lamarr, who was called "the most beautiful woman in the world" helped develop technologies used in smartphones today. When World War II broke, she became more interested in helping the efforts of the Allied forces than the roles offered to her. With a military background, she worked with George Antheil, a composer friend in using the principles behind how pianos worked to find ways in preventing German marines from jamming the radio signals.
With her friend, she invented a "secret communications" device that used "frequency hopping." It means frequencies are controlled to make it difficult to intercept the radio. The device was used by the US Navy from the 1960s, reported the Independent.
The "frequency hopping" patent that Lamarr co-authored is the groundwork for modern technologies like GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth which are relied much by most people today. According to Doodler Jennifer Hom via the official Google blog, it is no wonder why the late Hollywood star "has a mythical status at Google."
Google's Hom designed a doodle to tell the story of Hedy Lamarr. After some tinkering, she decided to tell her story in a movie format to celebrate her Hollywood life and put some old school illustrations and movie posters for the feel of the 1940s. She was able to show Lamarr in two scenarios - an actress by day and an inventor by night. It was then animated to the Adam Ever-Hadani - composed soundtrack.
Born on Nov. 9, 2014, Hedy Lamarr would have been 101 this year. She died on January 19, 2000 at age 85.
