Author name: Paul Schatzkin

With the news of Neil Armstrong's passing yesterday , I am reminded that what always most impressed me about the moon landing in 1969 was not the fact of the landing itself, but the fact that more than half-a-billion people on earth witnessed the event via television – still the largest audience ever assembled for

I got a really interesting e-mail message last week from a reader of The Boy Who Invented Television telling the unlikely tale of the day William Randolph Hearst almost took an interest in Philo T. Farnsworth's little invention.  

Craig Faulkner ([email protected]) writes: 

My maternal grandfather, R.L. Litchfield, was a longtime employee and close personal friend of William Randolph Hearst. Among his ancillary duties as an executive in the Hearst newspaper empire, my ‘Pops’ would also assist with fielding and giving Mr. Hearst his opinion on the many requests which would regularly be submitted for financial backing of various and sundry enterprises. Pops traveled widely and saw much. In his later years he would sometimes invite my young son and me to sit at the end of his bed and he would tell us stories about the many interesting people and places he had known. Almost invariably my son would chime in with a request for his favorite: “Pops, tell us again about the man who invented the television.”

One day in the late 1920’s Mr. Hearst [or Randy, as Pops called him] rang him on the phone at the office with a request that he go check out an inventor who had a laboratory over on Green Street, there in San Francisco. The inventor, one Philo T. Farnsworth had an electrical device which, “he says can broadcast pictures through the air. He wants me to finance the further development and eventual commercial production of the thing. Litch,” [as Randy called my Pops] “go over there and take a look at this fellow and his gadget and tell me what you think, will you.” 

So my grandfather rounded up one of his associates who knew a little something about electricity and off they went. After the brief formal greetings, Philo asked the one man to stand next to a black box with a hole in the side in front of some extremely bright lights while he took my Pops into an adjacent area. There, on a little tiny glass screen, was an image of the other man standing nearby. Pops said the two of them looked the apparatus over very carefully and determined that there were no wires connecting the two devices.

So, see if you can follow along as we connect the dots: Peter Gotcher, the Chairman and co-founder of Santa Monica-based music startup Topspin Media, has scored an Emmy award, for his work in co-founding firm Digidesign. The Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award was given over the weekend to the founders of Digidesign, by

Inventor and television pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth was born August 19, 1906 in Beaver County, Utah. The family moved to a farm near Rigby, Idaho during World War I. There, Philo set off on the path that would earn him the designation as “the father of television. via sfcompanion.blogspot.com I don't remember this date every

Finally, somebody comes right out and asks the question that I've been asking for like three years now: What is going on with this man? Here's a guy who battled drug addiction and got busted at the Burbank Airport for holding. He's been in the tabloids himself. Now he takes on all these Perez Hilton

You know, it's really a shame, in a way, the way all this is unfolding with "The Farnsworth" on "Warehouse 13" — now that the producers have licensed their gizmos for commercial production:  QMx will be pre-miering the first piece in the line, The Farnsworth, at San Diego Comic-Con this week. The Farnsworth is a