Holding the bulky brick cellphone he鈥檚 credited with inventing 50 years ago, Martin Cooper thinks about the future.
Little did he know when he made the first call on a New York City street from a thick gray prototype that our world 鈥� and our information 鈥� would come to be encapsulated on a sleek glass sheath where we search, connect, like and buy.
He鈥檚 optimistic that future advances in mobile technology can transform human lives but is also worried about and young people.
鈥淢y most negative opinion is we don鈥檛 have any privacy anymore because everything about us is now recorded someplace and accessible to somebody who has enough intense desire to get it,鈥� the 94-year-old told The Associated Press at , the where he was getting a lifetime award this week in Barcelona.
Besides worrying about the erosion of privacy, Cooper also acknowledged the negative side effects that come with , such as internet addiction and making it easy for .
But Cooper, describing himself as a dreamer and an optimist, said he鈥檚 hopeful that advances in cellphone technology have the potential to revolutionize areas like education and health care.
鈥淏etween the cellphone and medical technology and the Internet, we are going to conquer disease,鈥� he said.
It鈥檚 a long way from where he started.
Cooper made the first public call from a handheld portable telephone on a Manhattan street on April 3, 1973, using a prototype device that his team at Motorola had started designing only five months earlier.
Cooper used the Dyna-TAC phone to famously call his rival at Bell Labs, owned by AT&T. It was, literally, the world鈥檚 first brick phone, weighing 2.5 pounds and measuring 11 inches. Cooper spent the best part of the next decade working to bring a commercial version of the device to market.
The call helped kick-start the cellphone revolution, but looking back on that moment 50 years later, 鈥渨e had no way of knowing this was the historic moment,鈥� Cooper said.
鈥淭he only thing that I was worried about: 鈥業s this thing going to work?鈥� And it did,鈥� he said Monday.
While blazing a trail for the wireless communications industry, he hoped that cellphone technology was just getting started.
Cooper said he鈥檚 鈥渘ot crazy鈥� about the shape of modern smartphones, blocks of plastic, metal and glass. He thinks phones will evolve so that they will be 鈥渄istributed on your body,鈥� perhaps as sensors 鈥渕easuring your health at all times.鈥�
Batteries could even be replaced by human energy.
鈥淭he human body is the charging station, right? You ingest food, you create energy. Why not have this receiver for your ear embedded under your skin, powered by your body?鈥� he imagined.
Cooper also acknowledged there鈥檚 a dark side to advances 鈥� the risk to privacy and to children.
, where there are , and elsewhere are concerned about apps and digital ads that track user activity, allowing tech and digital ad companies to build up rich profiles of users.
鈥淚t鈥檚 going to get resolved, but not easily,鈥� Cooper said. 鈥淭here are people now that can justify measuring where you are, where you鈥檙e making your phone calls, who you鈥檙e calling, what you access on the Internet.鈥�
is another area that needs limits, Cooper said. One idea is to have 鈥渧arious internets curated for different audiences.鈥�
Five-year-olds should be able to use the internet to help them learn, but 鈥渨e don鈥檛 want them to have access to pornography and to things that they don鈥檛 understand,鈥� he said.
The inspiration for Cooper鈥檚 cellphone idea was not the personal communicators on Star Trek, but comic strip detective Dick Tracy鈥檚 radio wristwatch. As for his own phone use, Cooper says he checks email and does online searches for information to settle dinner table arguments.
However, 鈥渢here are many things that I have not yet learned,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 still don鈥檛 know what TikTok is.鈥�
鈥擪elvin Chan, The Associated Press
