According to American engineer Martin ‘Marty’ Cooper (94), who invented the mobile phone 50 years ago, “addiction has become a problem, and privacy is a serious problem.” However, he is convinced that we are only at the beginning of mobile communication.
The ’90s are back this week in Barcelona, where the Mobile World Congress is taking place. It is no coincidence: in 1973 – exactly fifty years ago – the first to build a mobile phone was Marty Cooper, on Sixth Street in New York. He is generally regarded as the father of the mobile phone. Received Lifetime Achievement Award in Barcelona.
Cooper believes a lot has happened in half a century. Fifty years ago there was no internet and no digital cameras. He said he never imagined that mobile phones would quickly become the laptop computers they are today. And this has not only positive results. “Privacy is a very serious issue, and addiction is a problem,” he admitted.
“Today’s smartphones have become very complex, with many applications and a screen that does not fit the shape of the human face,” said the American engineer. “If I don’t have an earpiece and I’m on a call, I have to hold this flat piece of material on my head with my arm in an awkward position.”
under our skin
This is exactly why the smartphone will change so drastically, according to him. Because mobile phone use has not yet taken off. “We are only at the beginning,” he predicted. One day, the smartphone will be a tiny chip behind the ear. I am convinced that the next generation will have a device under the skin. Such devices would not need to be charged, Cooper said, because “your body is the perfect charger.”
• Martin Cooper, inventor of the mobile phone: “The battery of the first mobile phone should last only twenty minutes, because no one can carry that device any longer.”
“You take in food, your body produces energy. It takes very little energy to operate an earpiece,” he explained. The idea that humanity will soon have chips or sensors in the body is not new. Several startups are already connecting the human brain to computers, such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink.
Even in 1973, we already knew that one day everyone would have a mobile phone. And it’s almost time. Today there are more cell phones in the world, with two out of three people having their own cell phones. And it became an extension of man.
