[HN Gopher] 'Father of cell phone' reflects on making first call...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       'Father of cell phone' reflects on making first call and history 50
       years ago
        
       Author : hhs
       Score  : 7 points
       Date   : 2023-11-10 01:02 UTC (21 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (whyy.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (whyy.org)
        
       | happytiger wrote:
       | It's so crazy that he's lived long enough to watch his invention
       | go mainstream and now reach the point where it is basically about
       | to be obsoleted.
       | 
       | I, like so many, am at the point where the "cell phone" part of
       | my cell phone needs to go away -- the signal to noise for voice
       | isn't worth it. It's basically just junk mail at this point.
       | 
       | Of course I want voice, but it's stepped back to a distant fifth
       | or sixth for utility on my mobile devices, and no longer the
       | reason I carry cell phones.
       | 
       | Of course the invention is intrinsically far more than voice, but
       | it's interesting that the inventor has lived long enough to watch
       | the utility of his original vision and invention _decline_ (as
       | voice calls specifically).
       | 
       | I wonder if there is an enshitification phase for all
       | technologies that become profoundly commercially successful.
        
       | hhs wrote:
       | At the bottom of this piece, regarding the future, Martin Cooper
       | says:
       | 
       | "We still have a way to go. I think phones are too complicated
       | now. The way we use them is not very natural. Holding a phone up
       | to your ear with your elbow opening is not what you'd call a very
       | natural way of talking. We have a way to go. I think that the
       | cell phone is still in its infancy. I think that the children of
       | today's cell phone, if I could use that analogy, are going to be
       | used for things like connecting to your body, measuring things on
       | your body, understanding when you're starting to get sick. But
       | talking to a computer somewhere that does a physical examination
       | of you -- not every year -- but every 30 seconds. I believe that
       | the cell phone is going to be an important part of eliminating
       | disease. And I really mean that."
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-11-10 23:01 UTC)