Here?s a little-known fact you can text a friend today when you?rebored: Some of the first public cell phone system tests were done in the early 1980s in the Baltimore/Washington area by Motorola and the American Radio Telephone Service.
“Most people don?t realize the beginning of cell technology was developed in the Baltimore/Washington region,” said Martin Cooper, considered to be the inventor of the first wireless handset.
Cooper made the first portable cell call more than 34 years ago, when he worked with Motorola.
While mobile phones had been used in vehicles for years before Cooper?s call, Cooper and his team of inventors were awarded a patent for a phone designed for portable use in 1975.
“The first phone was about 2 1/2 pounds, about 10 inches high, 4 inches deep and 1 1/2 inches wide,” Cooper told The Examiner. “All it did was make phone calls. The battery life was 20 minutes, but you couldn?t hold it up that long anyway.”
Cooper?s work has led to a U.S. wireless industry that is expected to generate more than $210 billion in revenue in 2007, according to the Telecommunications Industry Almanac.
He?s proud of his contribution to changing the way people communicate and the way the world works, but Cooper won?t be purchasing an iPhone anytime soon.
“The idea of turning a phone into a universal object, I strongly object to,” Cooper said, referring to the multiapplication phones that have flooded the industry in recent years. “When you make a universal device, it doesn?t do everything very well. Let?s have individual devices that deliver optimum performance.”
With that idea in mind, Cooper?s wife, Arlene Harris, last year created the “Jitterbug,” a cell phone that celebrates simplicity and is targeted toward baby boomers and their parents. The $147 phone, developed by GreatCall and Samsung, makes and receives calls. No camera, no music player, no Internet access.
“Jitterbug has everything you need to manage your own phone experience for comfort and well-being,” Harris said in a statement. “For example, if your mother doesn?t want voicemail on her cell phone, it won?t be there to confuse her.”
“Our dream … was to bring the freedom of true mobile technology to all consumers,” Cooper said. “Jitterbug brings us a step closer to fulfilling that dream.”
