Cell Phone Pioneer Predicts Future Phones Will Be Embedded In Your Skin
In a recent interview on NPR, Martin Cooper—American engineer, inventor, former head of the communications systems team at Motorola, pioneer in the wireless communications field, and considered the father of the handheld cell phone—shared his vision that led to the first cellular phone call and what he thinks the future holds for one of humankind's most prominent (for better or for worse) personal accessory.
Cooper says that he had a vision to revolutionize the mobile phone world. Prior to when his handheld phone made an appearance in 1972, mobile phones were confined to automobiles. Cooper felt that "a cell phone ought to be an extension of a person, it ought to be with a person all the time." Little did he know how fateful and prophetically true his vision would be—our dependance on our phones almost knows no bounds.
Still, in 1972 he started the process of creating a phone that could fit in a pocket, and by the following year, his Motorola division had a functional cell phone system. On April 3, 1973, Cooper made the first ever call from a handheld brick phone, blowing people's minds in the process. The pocketable part of the idea was a stretch, of course, but the point was already made.
Commenting about the rapid spread of technology, Cooper says, "We knew back in 1973 that someday, everybody would have a cellphone, and we're almost there. Two-thirds of the people on Earth have one. So we had a joke that said that someday when you were born, you would be assigned a phone number." Adding to that, Cooper thinks that a cell phone revolution is at hand where we will potentially have parts of a cell phone embedded under our skin. "You won't have to charge a cellphone, because your body is a perfect charger. You ingest food, and you turn it into energy," he predicts.
