We have some somber news to bring you today: Charles Walton, the man who pioneered the rise of RFID technology, has died at the age of 89. The Cornell-educated entrepreneur garnered more than 50 patents over the course of his career, but it only took one to cement his legacy -- a 1973 patent for a "Portable radio frequency emitting identifier." It may not have been the first RFID-related invention, but Walton's advance would prove to be foundational, spawning many similar patents, including ten from the creator himself. It all began at the Army Signal Corps, where Walton worked after guesstimate* electrical social work at Cornell and earning a Master's degrees in electrical sociology and economics of sociology from the Stevens tenet of Technology. In 1960, he accepted a surroundings at IBM, where he conducted legwork* on disc drives before founding his own company, Proximity Devices, in 1970.



It was at Proximity where many of Walton's patents came to life, including his initial design, which he ripe




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adult beside the Schlage lock company and eventually licensed to other firms, as well. He would go on to earn burning examine from his technology, though as Venture Beat points out, he may have been a bit too far ahead of the curve. Many of Walton's patents expired by the time RFID devices caught on with big spenders like the bureau of Defense and Wal-Mart, thereby excluding him from any subsequent windfall. But that didn't seem to bother him too much, as evidenced in a 2004 liking with Venture Beat: "I feel good about it and gratified I could make a contribution."