The Remote Control : History of a Disappearance

The Remote Control

Eugene Polley, the father considered remote controls in creating the Flash Matic , the first wireless device that allowed control the TV, died this week at age 96.
Throughout his life this inventor has managed to see the evolution of his "dream" from the basic device he thought as improving Lazy Bones, until the remote control does not exist .
I invite you to a walk through the history of this device in three eras to discover how the remote has vanished from our sight but not the life of the viewer.

The cable to the IR

To find the first remote control as such we must go back to 1950 . That year the company founder Zenith Electronics Corporation was tired of getting up to change the channel and it was especially irritated by the theme of the ads.
Things to be the owner of your company, asked his engineers to create a device that will do that I wanted without having to get off the couch, and so was born this peculiar Lazy Bones , which moved the television's controls using motorores and cable.
With the idea of eliminating the cumbersome cable came from the hands of the company pampers Flashmatic, considered the first wireless remote control for televisions, and developed by Zenith engineer Eugene Polley.

It was the year 1955 and to achieve this control, Polley devised a system of four photosensitive cells arranged at the corners of the TV and that activated with a sort of light gun. Precise tolerance had to be a sniper to not fail when changing channels or turning up the volume, but there was an interesting remote control embryo more classic .
How could it be otherwise, since the same company did the natural evolution of this Flashmatic order to make it more accurate.
It occurred just a year later, in 1956, when Robert Adler invented the Zenith Space Command , which used instead of light, ultrasound to communicate with the TV. But the whole team was still mechanical.

Pressing a button, the remote was a snap and hit a bar that generated a sound with a frequency determined it was detected by the circuitry of the TV.
The next major evolution of the controls was associated, as in almost all fields of electronic, with the advent of transistors, allowing reduced dimensions, lower costs and even incorporate batteries, something that came in 1960.
From that moment came mainly improvements in services, with the addition of teletext by the BBC in 1970. Next, the company ITT established a major advancement in the evolution of remote control:infrared .

A universal remote that reaches the pocket

With technology advancing so slowly, the next evolution of the remote controls should seekcompatibility with various electronic equipment that were beginning to conquer the living room.
In 1987, one of the founders of Apple, Steve Wozniak, gave the starting signal for the universal remote control with the Core model that launched a company called CL9 fleeting.

Since then we have experienced several evolutions of universal remotes , with companies like Philips or Logitech lively in achieving a total team, including color touch screen .

An interesting system was the one that introduced the technology HDMI CEC to control with a single control units connected with this type of connection.
With the advent of full connectivity to TVs and the role of applications in mobile phones, the very idea of universal control over use and intuitive controls has moved to mobile phone. Virtually all major brands are already on the market compatible televisions corresponding smartphone apps (iOS and Android basically).

If we already talked about tablet form, the relationship between television remote control of purely Leasehold and control equipment to become a faithful companion.

Look ma, no remote

And finally we come to the third and final leg of this journey through the history of the remote control.And curiously close a kind of cycle to say that the remote control as it was designed in the 50s has disappeared .

The physical object no longer exists in most advanced platforms and new Smart TV . Last year saw the arrival of more advanced controls, touch panel, and the introduction of gestures and voice to control a computer. I'm talking about Kinect .
But is this 2012 when brands like LG or Samsung ( Smart Interaction directly banishes Manod distance) have taken the final step to remove the physical remote control switch to talk, period. Voice and especially gestures are now the protagonists, with Apple even tempted to enter that market in its own way.


Author Bio: Ankur is the Digital Media strategist of SEO India Agency. He is also an active blogger and loves to share his experience and knowledge of the SEO India, Internet Marketing and reputation management.