"notes, "that the original unlicensed device was a 'couch potato'-like remote control for radio receivers." So the 1939 Philco Mystery Control once again revealed its originality.) If all this bureaucratic infighting seems obscure, what followed from it is happily familiar. "The rules adopted," Marcus writes, "had a much greater impact than any of [their] advocates could ever have imagined at the time. They enabled the development of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, the majority of cordless phones now sold in the US, and myriad other lesser-known niche"