Best known as the "Father of the TV Remote Control," Dr. Robert Adler was born in Vienna, Austria on December 4, 1913
CHICAGO, February 17, 2007:
Robert Adler, a US inventor best known for the creation of the couch potato's dream device, the TV remote control, has died at the age of 93, according to a BBC report. He received an Emmy award in 1997 for the 1956 invention jointly with fellow engineer Eugene Polley. Adler earned more than 180 US patents throughout his 58-year career.
His widow Ingrid said the remote was not his favourite invention, that he rarely watched television and was "more of a reader".
"He was a man who would dream in the night and wake up and say: 'I just solved a problem,'" she told the Associated Press news agency. "He was always thinking science."
Adler began working for electronics corporation Zenith in 1941 and stayed at the company until a merger in 1999. Zenith produced the first remote control device, attached to the TV by a cord, in 1950. Later wireless devices communicated with the TV by flashing at photo cells in the TV, but these were affected by sunlight.
Adler's contribution was to create a device which used ultrasonic signals.
He was also known for his work on military communications equipment during World War II, and is considered a pioneer in surface acoustic wave technology, essential for modern-day TV sets.
© BBC MMVII
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