Posts Tagged: "remote control"

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently announced the agency’s remotely-piloted Ikhana unmanned aircraft successfully completed its first flight within the National Airspace System (NAS) without the use of safety chase aircraft. This accomplishment is an important step towards the incorporation of unmanned aircraft within the NAS for various applications including the monitoring of forest fires, search and rescue operations and even general aviation.

December 17th of this year marks the 57th anniversary of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s issue of a seminal patent in the field of television remote controls. Today, we want to feature the story behind the development of perhaps the earliest wireless technology to enter the American home. Greater than 95 percent of American households own a television set, although that percentage has dropped in recent years. As a result, television remote controls have enjoyed an incredible rate of permeation into the American household; as of 2012, Americans were using approximately 335 million TV remotes, a rate of about three per household. But did you know that wireless control was originally pioneered by Nikola Tesla?