Can you hear me now? Hard to believe, but the cellphone has now been around for half a century. Its inventor, Marty Cooper of Dyna LLC, made the world’s first mobile call on a DynaTAC cell phone while standing on the street in midtown Manhattan.
Fast-forward five decades, and his invention has transformed the world. At first a means of speaking with others while on the go, today’s smartphones are so much more – a telephone, camera, video player, pocket-sized stereo, gaming device, and pretty powerful computer, and it all fits in the palm of your hand.
Smithsonian Magazine has a great retrospective on Marty Cooper – recipient of the 2015 IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Awards – and his wonderous creation that’s worth a read.