Eye on techonology: The first cellphone call was made 40 years ago today

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In the last four decades, the world has gone from the Zack Morris monster handset to portable computers that can fit in pockets.

Photo: Wired

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch |
Source/Credit: CNET News
By Roger Cheng | April 3, 2013

Martin Cooper changed the world when he made the first cellphone call 40 years ago.

The former Motorola vice president and division manager made the call on the company's DynaTAC phone while standing in front of the New York Hilton on Sixth Avenue. His first call: to the head of research at Bell Labs, which had also been racing to build the first cellphone.

Cooper's call did more than untether people from their traditional fixed phone lines; it opened the door to true mobility and continues to affect virtually every aspect of our lives.

Long gone are the clunky phones such as the DynaTAC, or the large cellphone famously used by Zack Morris on "Saved by the Bell." In their place are sleek smartphones and tablets with massive brains and access to a super-fast wireless connection. People don't just use their mobile device to make phone calls -- in fact, they do a lot less of that now -- they use them to browse the Internet, order delivery food, play word games against other, and keep up with the ever-increasing tsunami of e-mails.

Cooper remains a revered figure in cellphone history. He had another moment to shine at Motorola's Razr event last fall, when current Motorola executives introduced him and the throngs of jaded bloggers and reporters stopped their typing to pay their respects for his accomplishments.

A lot has changed since Cooper worked at Motorola, and the company was a world-beating giant in the telecom industry. Now, what's left of the Motorola cellphone division has largely been swallowed up by Google, which now dominates the industry with its Android mobile operating system. What hasn't been gobbled up by Google and its partners (primarily Samsung Electronics) is left to Apple, the other major player in the field.

As part of the 40th anniversary, Cisco put together an infographic ([here]) that highlights some of the milestones that got us from Cooper's first call to today's Google Glass and beyond. In 1992, the first commercial text message is sent ("LOL") Two years later, Tetris makes its debut as the first cellphone game. In 2004, the first Wi-Fi-certified cellphone is introduced, and is now a commonplace feature as the wireless carriers look to unload as much traffic as possible on Wi-Fi.

The graphic also highlights the introduction of Apple's App Store in 2008, marking the first of a new generation of application stores and inspiring legions of developers.

Looking ahead, the advent of cellular technology has enabled wholly new connected devices, as evidenced by an image of Google Glass making its way to the infographic. The carriers, meanwhile, are looking to connect everything from cars to dog collars and medicine pill bottles. By 2017, Cisco believes there will be more than 10 billion mobile devices around the world, with video accounting for 66 percent of all traffic.

But it all goes back to that simple first phone call.



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Roger Cheng is an executive editor for CNET News. He also wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.




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