Martin Cooper with a motorola-dynatac
Mobile Phone: 40th Anniversary Of The First Call
The world is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the invention of the mobile phone.
On April 3, 1973, Motorola employee Martin Cooper made the first ever call on a mobile phone in New York to competitor AT&T, reportedly saying: “I’m ringing you just to see if my call sounds good at your end.”
It was on a Motorola DynaTAC – a device 9in tall, comprising 30 circuit boards, and which had a talk-time of 35 minutes and took 10 hours to recharge.
Mobile phone technology has come a long way since then – a triumph that has led to years of development, new inventions, and to the creation of the widely-used smartphone.
Hedy Lamarr: ’30s film diva, mobile phonetech pioneer, anti-Nazi gadget inventor.
Hedy Lamarr: Not just a pretty face
How one of the best known actresses of mid-20th century revolutionized weapons systems and helped create cell phones
Hedy Lamarr wasn’t just a beautiful movie star. According to a new play, Frequency Hopping, she was also a shrewd inventor who devised a signal technology that millions of people use every day.
Lamarr—born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Austria in 1914—developed a passion for helping the U.S. military after walking away from an unhappy marriage to an Austrian Fascist weapons manufacturer in 1937. In an attempt to stall her acting career, he had brought her to his business meetings, where she found herself continuously listening to “fat bastards argue antiaircraft this, vacuum tube that,” explains Lamarr’s character—played by Erica Newhouse—in the play, Frequency Hopping. In the meetings, they had talked about developing detection devices to listen to, and jam, the radio signals that American aircraft and weapons used to communicate with one another; and Lamarr wanted to foil their plans. “Can you guide your torpedo towards an enemy target—or just use radio control period—without being detected? Or jammed?” Lamarr’s character asks. MORE
Short URL: http://www.newsnet14.com/?p=122866
No comments:
Post a Comment