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The Cell Phone: Marty Cooper's Big Idea

May 23, 2010 4:59 PM

Hear the story of the invention of the cell phone from the man whose team came up with it at Motorola. The inventor, Martin Cooper, is still at it, improving the gadget he came up with 37 years ago. Morley Safer reports.

The Cell Phone: Marty Cooper's Big Idea
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by realist2011 April 3, 2011 7:41 PM EDT
I keep mine in the glove box switched off ,it is rarely used except for emergency ! I don`t want to be married to a cell phone so that I need to carry it every where and even plonk it on the dinner table in front of me everytime I sit down to eat or drink !
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by boiko May 30, 2010 7:37 PM EDT
Well for better or worse...Martin Cooper IS the recognized inventor of the cell phone.

Here's a great interview with him on C-Span:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CZ4oLw58ek

Who is David Reynard? This is where it's gets interesting..
"Cell phone safety became an issue in 1993 when Tampa Bay resident David Reynard filed a lawsuit against a cell phone carrier and maker for indirectly causing the death of his wife (Consumer Reports 2004). CNN?s Larry King Live even devoted an entire show to the lawsuit and Reynard?s conviction that the fatal brain tumor his wife suffered resulted from overuse of her wireless phone (Carlo 2001, p. xiii). However, the suit was dismissed by a Federal court in 1995 for ?lack of valid scientific evidence,? and similar suits since have yielded no better results (Foster 2000)." Now we know the truth..

-mike-
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by First_Lady_of_CANADA May 25, 2010 11:18 PM EDT
Something is worng with this men... he is "SICK" psychologically... like EDISON who died trying to invent a device to communite with the dead people (TRUE) ...
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by debbiecovell May 25, 2010 10:34 AM EDT
I would like to know why you didn't post my opinion of the Jitterbug company?
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by f150cougar May 25, 2010 12:53 AM EDT
I don't have a cell phone and I hate the dam things...people are so rude with them...I work in a Liquor Store as a clerk...and they come in with
that dam phone in there ear...talking away and ignoring everything around
them and could careless...I wish we could go back to the days of pay phones
so they could not carry the dam thing around with them all day...if they
wanted to make a call they would have to walk out of my store and walk
over to a pay phone and then make a call and then come back in the store
and then I would have their full attenion when they place their order!!!
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by dreynard May 24, 2010 7:46 PM EDT
I was surprised when I saw this article. Marty Copper seems
like a nice guy and very interested in celular telephone but he was not the first provider or made the first call on a real system. The system you saw on the show ( as 1973 ) was a cordless phone surrouned with a
futeristic container. With in 200 feet was a transceiver plugged
into a regular telephone line. Of course it could call all over the world so could any regular (1973) phone plugged into that line.

In Dec 1973 ( same year ) David Reynard in Tampa Bay Florida turned on
the first complete ( 1400 square mile ) system for customers and
in mid december and called his wife at home from a completely
portable belt worn phone and drove 12 miles to get there
having a completely uninterupted call with perfect clarity.
He still owns cellphone number 1 that he made the call
on and several pieces of the original system that were of his invention.
January of 1974 doctors couldn't get them fast enough and
Motorla and other manufactures couldn't keep up with the orders.

Motorola didn't roll out the "Brick" that actually worked till 1984.

Reynard's system grew to 4 counties and had five channels all documented at the FCC KWT243 and KZB 437 callsign.
No installation was ever done in any vehicle because the range was built into the system, built and crafted by Motorola and Mr. Reynard.
Mr. Reynard also built the duplex interface that was used in the
system. No it didn't have Outlook on it but it made and took
calls for over 400 doctors 24/7 untill 1997 when it was finally turn off.

We both know why CTIA put up a "figure front" other than Mr. Reynard.
No offense to Mr. Cooper.

David Reynard
dreynard@sprintmail.com
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by metak8 May 24, 2010 12:52 PM EDT
Marty: exposing your buying patterns and other behaviors does not guarantee that marketers will create more targeted/custom offers. There are plenty of opportunities to do this now, and most still miss the mark. The main reasons behind not digitally exposing your behaviors should be familiar to ancients like Morley & Marty: modesty, privacy, and not revealing anything that can be treated as a liability/vulnerability.
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by jpewther1 May 24, 2010 4:46 AM EDT
One thing that Marty Cooper mentioned is that in the future, there will be no need for cash or credit cards in order to buy stuff. Presumably he meant that we'll all have some sort of chip implant or mark for computer identifcation instead. With all due respect for what a bright and likable guy Marty is, this part, if it happens, is bound to turn into a terrible disaster. Because there are millions of Christians who are expecting exactly the same thing, based on the prophecy found in Chapter 13 of the Revelation to John. Thus any such mark or chip implant which enables buying (or selling) would be interpreted by these Christians as "the mark of the beast," something that Christians are forbidden from accepting. (Anyone who accepts the mark of the beast will burn eternally in the lake of fire.) So that whether or not the prophecy of Revelation 13 is really from God, a situation where some people accept a mark or chip implant and others refuse it as "the mark of the beast" will create a terrible, angry division between those who have the mark, and those who have refused it. If the majority accept the mark, the minority who refuse it may be put to death, just like the prophecy says, because the majority will be so angry at the minority for daring to suggest that the mark they have taken marks them as slaves of the Devil.
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by adamdick10 May 24, 2010 1:31 AM EDT
Hes got a great vision for the future. The cell phone will be in the ear like a blue tooth but nano scale that has already been invented. The computer monitor will be in our contact lens that is being developed in a primitive stage at washington university. this device will be checking every level from our cholestoral to our euphorea to see if we are depressed. It will be powered by RF or from the mitochondria in our body (read popular science). Think of the posibilities. Photographic memory, night/thermal/infrared vision. 4D holographic images coming out of our eye like a projector. The screen will be hard to see if it is right on the lense but new inventions of smaller scale pixels in gold that are in the peco scale make this possible or a projection an inch or two infront of our eye.
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by GreenGestalt May 23, 2010 11:02 PM EDT
Old joke by Gahan Wilson: A man is walking down the street carrying a cell phone, one of those early ones like he was holding at the start of this video.

"This is wonderful! I can talk to myself all day and nobody looks at me twice!"

---

I'm tempted to be mad. I saw the cell phone as a form of slavery. I resisted it as long as possible. But if he hadn't made it, it would have been made anyways.


Since it's now (almost) possible to contact anybody at any time, we need to work out protocols that keep it from becoming a new "slavery" especially in these modern times. We do need some "Alone" time where we can be totally incommunicado without being put on the list for downsizing as retaliation or being seen as cold to friends and family.
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