Thomas Edison announced his invention of his "talking machine" - the tin-foil cylinder recorder that preceeded the phonograph. He appears to have envisioned it as a business dictation machine. In Sep 1877, he wrote that its purpose was "to record automatically the speech of a very rapid speaker upon paper; from which he reproduces the same Speech immediately or years afterwards preserving the characteristics of the speakers voice so that persons familiar with it would at once recognize it." The indented tin foil, however, would survive only a few playings. By the first public showing of a phonograph, which took place in New York City in early Feb 1878, its practical applications had not yet been realized.

President Wilson used a radio telephone set up on the south portico of the White House to direct the maneuvers of a dozen army airplanes flying over the Potomac river several miles away. His telephoned directions went direct to the flight commander in the air. The instrument was similar to those used by American aviators in France in the latter part of World War I. Col. C. C. Culver actively developed the equipment. He began the project in Aug 1910. No new invention was needed, only adaptation and adjustment of existing techniques. By Aug 1916, he was able to send a radio telegraph signal from a plane. Enlisting expert help from the telephone companies, by Oct 1917, voice messages could be send between a plane and the ground. The system was put into service for military wartime use.