Do you remember when you had your first phone? Do you remember who your first call was made to? Who was the first message sent to? April 3, 2023 is the 50th anniversary of the birth of mobile phones, from the initial surprise to today's dependence, mobile phones have brought people too many surprises, but also caused many problems. Martin Cooper, an American engineer known as the "father of mobile phones," said: "This little device in our pocket has almost limitless potential, but right now, we may be a little too obsessed with it." ”
On April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper was standing on the sidewalk of Sixth Avenue in Manhattan with a brick-sized, cream-colored device in his hand, he pulled a notebook out of his pocket, clicked a few times on the large device, and then put it to his ear and said, "I'm calling you on my cell phone, but it's a real cell phone, a personal, handheld, portable phone." Cooper was a Motorola engineer at the time, and the call was addressed to Joel Engel, head of Bell Labs, AT&T. At the time, Motorola had been competing with Bell Labs to build mobile phones. In 1983, Motorola's first commercial phone went on the market with a price of $3,500, a price equivalent to nearly $10,600 in 2023. The phone is 33 cm long and weighs nearly 1 kg, so it is also nicknamed "Brick".
In 1987, Motorola opened an office in Beijing to introduce mobile phones to China. Because of its unique size and weight, mobile phones also have a new name in China - "Big Brother", and owning a "Big Brother" marks the difference in identity and status. In the 1990s, mobile phones grew so rapidly that they shrank in size, and about 1 million Americans owned them. In China, Nokia, a "rising star", continued to innovate to make durable, portable mobile phones, and in 1997 launched a mobile phone with the model 6110 that could play the "Snake" game, attracting a large number of users. After that, Apple quickly occupied the market in China and even the world with its unique technology, and the development from 3G to 4G made the mobile phone have rich functions such as shopping, downloading music, and real-time navigation. According to China's 2021 Global Mobile Market Report, there are currently more than 4 billion smartphone users in the world, and China leads with 954 million smartphone users, with a penetration rate of 66%.
The cultural function of mobile phones is worth mentioning that many writers and artists envisioned the future of mobile phones long before engineers and scientists developed shrinking mobile phones. Motorola's design is not only built on radio technology, but also borrows from the plot of science fiction. For example, Motorola's first flip phone in the 1990s was invented by Cooper borrowing the radio watch used by Detective Dick Tracy in the American cartoon "Supreme Detective" at that time. Professor Lisa Yaszek, who studies science fiction at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said "communication technology has always been part of modern science fiction". The plot of science fiction forms a symbiotic relationship with real-world technology, and as mobile phones become smaller and more functional, science fiction writers depict all the ways mobile phones may fit into modern life. For example, Robert A. Heinlein, an American science fiction man, mentions "pocket phones" in his novel "Assignment in Eternity." Mobile phones are also part of a utopian vision of the future, and women have been at the center of stories of new communications technologies written by some writers. Cooper once told the BBC: "Wireless is freedom. People are freed from the shackles of phone lines, and mobile phones really make people's lives better. ”
Writers imagined that mobile phones could become fashion icons, a prediction that became a reality in the 2000s. In 2002, the bulky "Big Brother" gave way to ultra-thin phones, and Motorola's 2004 release of the ultra-thin Razr was available in a variety of colors, from light blue to pink. Users can even customize their phone ringtones. According to reports, a 2004 song "Crazy Frog" earned $40 million with the most downloads. The mobile phone is not only a practical tool, but also a fashion accessory, allowing everyone to guess someone's taste and disposable income through the mobile phone. The release of the first Apple phone in 2007 meant that the colorful case was destined to be replaced by a uniform sleek design, and while the first generation of Android phones used a slide-out keyboard similar to the BlackBerry, Apple's minimalist design and touchscreen quickly became the standard for smartphones. In 2022, Apple accounted for 50% of the US market share, surpassing Android for the first time. In October of the same year, Apple's monthly market share in China reached 25%, the highest level in history, and it became the largest mobile phone brand manufacturer in China for two consecutive months.
How will mobile phones change in the next decade? Scientists and engineers have made reasonable predictions, such as wireless charging, 6G technology, folding mobile phones becoming mainstream... Science fiction writers have fantasized about applying a "fungus-based communication system" to mobile phones. Botanists have found that in 90% of plants, there is a "mycorrhizal network" through which plants communicate. In March, the University of the West of England's Non-Traditional Computing Laboratory invented a computer motherboard with mushrooms. Andrew Adamatzky, the lab's director, described the experiment, in which he mixed mycelium cultures with wood chips into closed plastic boxes, then inserted electrodes and recorded the electrical activity of the mycelium, only to find that they emit something similar to biological neurons that scientists can use to encode to create computer programming languages. Martin Kaltenbrunner, an electronics engineer at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, confirmed that the technology can not only be applied to mobile phones, but also help reduce e-waste.
Other scientists have asked "what technology will replace smartphones?" Bill Gates said that electronic tattoos will be the future, and this technology can attach chips to the skin to monitor and collect personal information. Google is working with tech company Chaotic Moon Studios on the technology. Elon Musk envisions an era of convergence between humans and machines, and Neuralink, the company he founded, is researching the download of human brains into computers to achieve brain-computer fusion and usher in the era of "superhuman cognition". "If we don't, AI will eventually replace humans." Musk said.
News and image sources: CNN, Smith Sonian, some pictures from the exclusive article of the Internet iWeekly Weekend Pictorial, please do not reprint without permission