Top 10 Unknown Gadget Pionerds

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those who invented and/or perfected gadgets, those who developed or perfected underlying technologies most gadgets include, such as LCD screens, flash memory and USB, those who developed software or wireless standards on which most gadgets operate such as Wi-Fi, MP3 and GPS, and entrepreneurs - or entreprenerds - who created or led companies that produced most of our 21st century innovations.

Unlike famous and successful independent inventors such as Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, most the folks who invented the gadgets and technologies that enable our 21st century lives perform in relative obscurity. These 'pionerds,' a portmanteau of 'pioneer' and 'nerd,' are mostly hidden within the folds of fat and faceless corporations that end up snatching most of the innovation credit.

I've classified these largely unknown pionerds, many of whom are in the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame of which I am an elector, into four classes:

Here are my choices for the first group, the top 10 unknown gadget pionerds (a couple are partners), in chronological sequence.

2: Eugene Polley/Dr. Robert Adler, Remote Control Do you enjoy channel surfing? Thank Zenith engineers Eugene Polley and Dr. Robert Adler (pictured above). In 1955, Polley invented the Flash-Matic, the first wireless remote control. The Flash-Matic was essentially a flashlight that activated four photo cells in the corner of compatible TVs to perform basic functions. A year later, Adler advanced the couch potato art using more efficient and reliable ultrasound in his Space Commander remote control. Ultrasound would be the remote control standard for 25 years until superseded by infrared (IR) and radio frequency (RF), but our slovenly TV watching behavior all started with Polley and Adler.

3: Ralph Baer, Video Games Brookhaven National Lab researcher Willy Higinbotham built the first video game - a ball-and-paddle game in 1958. Four years later, Steve Russell and a group of MIT researchers programmed Spacewar, designed to be played on mainframe computers. Like Higinbotham, Russell and his MIT mates created their games as academic experiments. But in 1966, Loral researcher Ralph Baer patented his own ball-and-paddle game designed to be played on a home TV and licensed it to Philips' Magnavox. In 1972, Magnavox introduced the first home videogame console, the Odyssey, launching the home video game craze.

9: Larry Weber, Flat-screen HDTV With unique single-mindedness, Larry Weber spent 20 years turning plasma display technology into large screen flat screen TVs for consumers - first with his own garage-based company, Plasmaco, then with Panasonic, which unveiled the first large consumer flat screen HDTV in 1999. Once Weber perfected flat screen plasma, Sharp pioneered the development of large screen LCD in the early 2000s. But the credit for creating our wall-sized flat TVs goes to Weber, who received an Emmy for his work.

10: Jim Barton/Mike Ramsay, DVR You've heard of TiVo, right? Well, behind TiVo are these two guys. Since DVD recorders didn't work the same way as VCRs, three entrepreneurs wanted to create digital video recorders using hard disk drives. Anthony Wood founded ReplayTV (and later Roku), while Ramsay and Barton founded TiVo. Both devices made it stupid simple to time-shift - record, store and playback our favorite shows, as well as pause a 'live' broadcast. But TiVo was first to market on March 31, 1999, created a recording-TV verb ('TiVo'd') and put us in control of our TV schedule.