National Inventors Hall of Fame
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National Inventors Hall of Fame honors creators of Unix, power drills and more
The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) joined Engadget on stage today at CES to announce its 2019 class of inductees. While the official induction ceremony won't actually happen until May 2nd at the National Building Museum in DC, we can tell you that 19 separate innovators representing 12 different inventions will be honored. The group ranges from relatively obscure creators of a programming language used by engineers and scientists, to house hold names like S. Duncan Black and Alonzo G. Decker -- or Black & Decker -- the inventors of the first portable handheld drill. The festivities will be hosted by Danica McKellar, best known as Winnie Cooper from the Wonder Years, but also an accomplished academic and mathematician.
GPS pioneer Roger L. Easton inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame
Well, it looks like it's the season for pioneering inventors to be honored, with Chuck Thacker's recent Turing Award win now followed up by Roger L. Easton's induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Pictured at left above, Easton started working at the Naval Research Laboratory in 1943, and later helped develop MINITRACK, the very first satellite tracking system, which in turn led to the concept Easton dubbed TIMATION (short for "time navigation"). That was used to aid in the launch of four experimental satellites over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, the last of which was the first satellite to fly in the GPS 12-hour orbit and the first transmit GPS signals. In fact, the relativistic offset correction Easton applied to that satellite is still used by every GPS satellite now in orbit, and it also helped to experimentally verify Einstein's theory of relativity for good measure. Easton didn't call it quits when he left the lab, however, and eventually served two terms in the New Hampshire State Assembly, and even ran for Governor in 1986.
