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The problem with cell phones is that people stare too much at their screens. At least that’s what the guy who invented it 50 years ago thinks. Martin Cooper (94), the ‘father of mobile phones’, believes in the potential of mobile phones to help people, for example in medicine. But right now, many people are too fixated on the devices.
“It breaks me when I see someone looking at their phone while crossing the street. That’s insane,” Cooper said in a telephone interview with AFP news agency. “Maybe they’ll understand if a few people get run over,” jokes the American engineer .
Cooper uses Apple Watch and iPhone, for example to control his hearing aid, and always gets the latest model. But he also knows, “I will never in my life be able to use a cell phone like my grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
Race to invent the first mobile phones
The iPhone no longer resembles the heavy block of wires and circuits with which Cooper made the world’s first cell phone call on April 3, 1973. He was working for Motorola at the time and his team was in a race to invent the first mobile phone technology.
Motorola wanted to catch up with Bell Systems, which had dominated the US market since the invention of the telephone in 1877, with a multi-million dollar investment project. Bell engineers had already pursued the idea of a cell phone shortly after World War II and released car phones in the late 1960s.
But Cooper decided in 1972 to create a device that could be used anywhere. His team of experts in semiconductors, transistors, filters and antennas worked day and night for three months until they made a breakthrough at the end of March and introduced the DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) mobile phone covers).
The first phone cost $5000
«The phone weighed more than a kilo and the battery only lasted 25 minutes. But it was so heavy you couldn’t hold it to your ear for 25 minutes,” says Cooper. “So I was on Sixth Avenue[in New York]and suddenly I got the inspiration to call my counterpart at Bell, Joel Engel. And I said, ‘Joel, this is Martin Cooper. I’m calling you here from a cell phone. But from a real mobile phone that is portable and that you can hold in your hand.” Silence on the other end of the line. I think he gritted his teeth.”
The first cell phones cost $5,000, but provided an invaluable benefit to early adopters, such as real estate agents. “Apparently officers do two things: they show people houses and they answer telephone inquiries. Now they could do both at the same time,” Cooper laughs.
He was sure that mobile phones would change the world
According to their inventor, mobile phones improve the quality of life and could do much more. “We can expect mobile phones to revolutionize education and healthcare. That may sound exaggerated, but in a few generations we will be able to control disease.”
Just as his fitness tracker can measure his heart rate while he swims and his cell phone can control his hearing aids, Cooper believes cell phones will one day be connected to various body sensors to register diseases before they develop.
Even though it doesn’t have much to do with Cooper’s DynaTAC monster anymore, he was sure then that it would change the world. And the problem of fixation on the phone screen does not really bother him. “When television came out, people were hypnotized.” Now that is no longer the case. “Each generation is getting smarter. People will learn to use mobile phones more efficiently. People eventually get everything.” (AFP)
Source: Blick
I am Amelia James, a passionate journalist with a deep-rooted interest in current affairs. I have more than five years of experience in the media industry, working both as an author and editor for 24 Instant News. My main focus lies in international news, particularly regional conflicts and political issues around the world.
