Gadgetory

Hi folks, it's Michael Fisher with Pocketnow and I'm here with Dr. Martin Cooper — founder of Dyna, LLC, Motorola veteran and the wireless industry pioneer widely considered the father of the portable cellular telephone. Dr. Cooper, thanks for joining us. Hi. Call me Marty. FISHER: Your work at Motorola in the 1950s and 60s included things like wirelessly controlled traffic signals and police radios and other things that, at the time, may have been considered more conventional than the project you would ultimately spearhead that we're talking about today. So despite this, Motorola became convinced of the need for a handheld portable cellular telephone... and despite the fact that no revenues would be generated from that project for, what I've read is, about 20 years. So, my question is: was it you who advocated for this project and if so, how did you manage to get the company on board and the people you ended up working with as well? COOPER: Well, I'll tell you Michael, it wasn't easy. FISHER: *chuckles* I bet. COOPER: It's... really Motorola's motivation at that time. We were a leader in the two-way radio business. FISHER: Right. COOPER: Mobile radio... and the essence of that business is spectrum, just as it is with cellular today, and we were running out of spectrum and our main motivation — the motivation of the company — was somehow to acquire more spectrum for land mobile radio. The FCC was prepared to convert a lot of TV spectrum and a lot of... what they called "high frequency" then is not high frequency anymore. FISHER: *chuckles* COOPER: to land mobile purposes, but they were looking for something that would change the future. More efficient use of the spectrum, new services, and along comes AT&T and they said, "Oh, we'll take care of everything! We've got this new thing we call 'cellular telephony' and we will not only provide a car telephone service, but we'll also take care of land mobile and air-to-ground. So just turn it all over to us: we'll be a monopoly and the FCC won't have to worry about these things." Well, we weren't... uh... very happy about that. FISHER: Of course. COOPER: Because we would've essentially been out of business. But aside from the monopoly aspect, the idea of car telephones was totally anathema to us because we were already getting into the portable devices... and we discovered that once people have a portable device, they can't live without it. We're talking about commercial people, now. You'd walk- we'd walk down the aisles in an airport and you'd see the airport employees with their... handheld two-way radios in their hands! It was, like, part of their operating procedures. So we got the message: people are naturally, fundamentally mobile. And so, we took- we, Motorola, took AT&T on at the FCC... but you understand that our bread and butter was two-way radios. FISHER: Of course. COOPER: This "cellular" thing was something new so.... I was the lone ranger at that time. I was the maverick... and little by little, we worked on the management and the real tipping point was when we produced that first portable cellular telephone. FISHER: And I understand that when you had produced it, the first call that you or anyone made on a portable cellular telephone was to your chief rival... at the Bell labs! COOPER: Well, it was serendipitous, but yes, that is what happened. I was talking to a reporter and it was the first public call we'd ever made and... we were very nervous about the fact that, "was this thing going to work?" nevermind "were we going to do anything earth-shaking?" but that's- I'd just thought, "You know it'd be a good idea to call Joel Engel... FISHER: And so here you are with a handheld device is, you know, many times smaller than that, you're walking on the street to New York, you're talking to your chief rival, announcing to him that you've beaten him to it... What was his response and did you maintain a relationship from that point onward or no? COOPER: Well, the response was silence... FISHER & COOPER: *laughing* COOPER: He actually was taken aback. He doesn't remember that phone call and I guess I can't blame him. But they certainly were not pleased. AT&T, their viewpoint was that we were an annoyance. They were the biggest company in the world, they had built labratories and we were this little upstart in Chicago, so they'd really didn't think that we amounted to anything at that time. FISHER: In the same interview where I read that story — it was an interview with the MIT Technology Review — You mentioned... you let people on the streets try out the same device in New York City on that day. Do you remember anything of the sort of what it was like for those people? COOPER: The thing that we observed was that people were astounded. You know how... are you a New Yorker? FISHER: I am, in fact, yeah! Originally speaking, yes. COOPER: New Yorkers are blasé, they're not like we west coast people. FISHER: It's true. COOPER: You walk down the street and people look right through you! FISHER: It's true, absolutely, yeah. COOPER: People were stopping and staring at us because, at that time, there were no cordless phones, no cellphones, so, here we had this guy dialing a number on a phone... it was quite astounding... and shortly thereafter, we went to the top of the Hilton and we did a press conference. And one of the reporters said, "can I call my mother in Australia?" And she dials this number and — talk about being astounded: the idea of talking to the other side of the Earth on a little handheld phone FISHER: Right. COOPER: Little did she know that the wireless part of that phone call was from the Hilton to across the street. FISHER: You had a cell site set up on a neighboring building? COOPER: Precisely, that's exactly right. FISHER: In the same interview, you said that the U.S. would ultimately have a more effective telecom industry because the winning standards were determined by competition and not committee and the standards we're talking — you know, CDMA versus GSM and TDMA, I guess, at the time this was a 2001 interview — Do you think... it's 15 years later, do you think that prediction has come true? COOPER: Well, so far it has. I mean, just think about how it's evolved. We started out with what was called AMPS which was a derivative of what AT&T came up with. We took them on and a whole bunch of the individual details of this thing... but the bottom line was we had a structure and that lasted for well over 10 years and then there were at least four, five... new-era interfaces that came into play, all competing with each other. FISHER: Right. COOPER: I'm not sure that the best man won, but the bottom line is we ended up with two basic systems: GSM, which the Europeans championed, and CDMA, which was championed in the U.S., and that competition went on for a number of years and what evolved out of that is LTE. And I have to tell you, Michael: it's not the end. LTE is going to evolve for a while, but we are going to have new-era interfaces and there are going to be lots of changes in this industry. FISHER: There have been some developments in the past five years and in the past 25 in terms of smartphone platforms... ...'cause we spend a lot of time at Pocketnow talking about smartphones in addition to the tablets and wearables... COOPER: Sure. FISHER: And we've seen a consolidation of a wide availability of choices — from Blackberry to Palm, you know, and to Symbian and so on — to these two main players, iOS and Android. And a lot of people say that that was inevitable all the time and that's just the way it's going to be. Do you... do you agree that that's the best thing for industry or that is inevitable or do you think that the space- it's become less compelling as a result? COOPER: Well, I do. I hate the concept of treating us all like we're statistics. I think that every person is different from every other person and, you know, when you buy a car... you can design your own car right down to the last detail. Isn't that right? FISHER: Yeah, absolutely. COOPER: And be different than a million other cars. And here you get the cellphones and you walk into the store and they've stopped selling flip phones and- You're pretty much stuck with either an Android, Apple or feature phone. And I think that's wrong. I think we've gotten about as far as we can go with the megapixels, megahertz... FISHER: Oh god, yeah. COOPER: ...megabits per second. FISHER: The spec race. COOPER: All of those metrics, we've gone to the limit of what we can observe or hear or sense. So, I think we've gotten to the end of the hardware age and we're going to start moving into what I call the "brain age." We have lost sight of the fact that good technology is invisible. The technology should be there, it should be our slave, it should be doing things for us... but we should be unaware of it. All these operating systems are really intrusive... and the most intrusive part is the concept called the "app." FISHER: Ahh. COOPER: I think the concept of the app is the most user-unriendly... talk about "throwbacks..." FISHER: Why is that? What makes an app more user-unfriendly than some...? COOPER: Well, think about it. You're looking at the advertising for Android and Apple... FISHER: Yeah. COOPER: They keep competing with each other, but how many million apps are actually (good)... we're talking maybe 1.4 million apps for each of those... Now, how can any user... who really wants the technology only to make his life better... not to become a techie, to become involved, how can anybody curate a million apps? It doesn't make any sense at all! So, I think we're going to start moving now, since we've gone about as far as we can go with the hardware, into this age of... "What does a cellphone really do to help you?" "How can this cellphone be an extension of your mind and body?" And that is what I think is going to be the next- and we started it... already. You know, there are now apps — hate to use the term — that actually try to anticipate your needs and respond to them. FISHER: Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah. COOPER: Just barely starting now, but that is going to evolve. FISHER: And baked-in services as well, yeah, some of that stuff is being ingrained into the platforms as we go forward — like Google Now on Android devices — just trying to anticipate what you are going to be search for and deliver it to you before you ask for it. COOPER: You bet. You bet! I think the whole idea of the app is going to disappear. FISHER: You've said a few times over the years that you think, in this same vein, that when this industry matures, people are going to have many different devices for many purposes — this is sort of a common theme with discussions with you, you know, where it's this "one size fits all" device really can't do any one job very well, it does every job in a sort of mediocre way, but... we've seen sort of the opposite happening right now in the marketplace as devices, you know, shrink to- or... well, first shrank and then blew up again to these sort of all-in-one media player/camera/communication device/text communication device... Do you think that trend will ultimately reverse itself and we'll be carrying a lot of specialized devices? 'Cause I got to tell you this is a bit more convenient... for me, even though I routinely carry two phones maybe I wouldn't if I wasn't in this field. So, what do you think about that trend? COOPER: It's convenient, but it's sub-optimal. Because you're not exactly telling the truth 'cause I'm looking at you right now and you've got a thing stuck in your ear... FISHER: I do and I've got a watch on, you know, a wearable. COOPER: There you go. So you're starting to distribute to devices already. But when you start getting- well, the watch is a good example: I'm not sure if the watches are going to be successful. But the people that I've seen that are hooked on the watch, they can't live without their watches now because they don't reach for their cellphone every minute. FISHER: Absolutely. Absolutely, I'm one of them. Yeah, yeah. No question. COOPER: Well, now I'll do my research. FISHER: Sure, please! COOPER: Do you actually use your cellphone less- I mean, do you reach for it fewer times now? Because you got your watch on? FISHER: Yes. And it surprised me a number of years ago when I first wore my first watch because yeah, it surprised me the number of notifications I received that I didn't have to act on. Like, somebody liked you post, somebody left a comment. Not every time do I need to respond, so it's nice to say, "oh, okay, that's nice." And I go back to my business rather than pulling my phone out, so yes, I do find it more convenient. COOPER: Well, so I have to say, Michael, that you're already starting the trend. And that is: you're starting to distribute the devices. Turns out that your watch, your arm is more convenient to do than reaching for the cellphone. A very subtle difference, but it's so subtle as to create new industries. And when you start doing things like... measuring your... heart rate or measuring the fluid in your lungs, you can't do that with a cellphone. And in fact, I've already saw the start from the beginning... This... cellphone is sub-optimal phone! You get this flat piece of plastic and stick it up to your face! FISHER: Oh yeah, it's very uncomfortable. Yeah! COOPER: That doesn't make any sense at all. So, if you start by trying to optimize every device, every function that the phone does, you find out that maybe you will start distributing things in different ways for different people. So, some people want some device that they're listening to, other people will have glasses... and they will think that the wristwatch is very inconvenient, which it really is, you know, your arm is way down there, your eyes and ears are up here, why would you put something down there that you want your eyes and ears to access? FISHER: So, will you be picking up the next iteration of Google Glass, then? Will we see that on your head in the next interview? COOPER: Yeah, well, I try everything, but uhh... I don't know if I'm become less flexible but it's getting harder and harder to keep up with technology. FISHER: In terms of where it's been progressing... we talk a little bit about these "sub-optimal" form factors and stuff like that but what about the communication itself? You know, phones are less and less voice-centric over time and that's why... a device like I'm holding which, if you're listening to the audio version of this, folks, is a Galaxy Note 5, you know, holding it up to your head is very uncomfortable, but no one really talks on the phone anymore — and that's a horrible generalization, but — more often than not when I see people in public using a mobile device, they're texting, they're browsing the web or something like that. Does it ever seem... I don't know, cumbersome to you? That these less efficient means of communication are supplanting a more straightforward voice call? COOPER: Well, they would be. They're not less efficient if people are using them that much. So, I think texting — for people who really understand how to text — for what it does (for short communications), it's very efficient. People do naturally tend toward becoming more efficient. So, if they start a text, I give them credit for that. A lot of things they can't do just because manufacturers don't provide that. We're still experimenting, we're trying things out, and little by little, now that we're getting off of this kick of megapixels, megahertz, megabits per second and starting to work on "how do you make somebody's life better?" That is the definition of what technology is. It's the application of science to create products and services to make people's lives better. FISHER: Just a question on... invention. This is an interesting thing I've been thinking about recently: I read a book about the invention of television by Filo Farnsworth — the sort of struggle for control with RCA and everything in it — there was this thing about a century ago where people- where the "lone inventor" was a concept... You are today recognized as the "father of the cellular phone," but you invented the phone while heading up a team of people working together in a large corportation Do you think that individual inventors are still- is there any hope for that model? Or are corporations the only way forward for real, earth-shattering innovation? COOPER: Well, the revolutions are still happening, I mean, Google didn't start with a huge corporation, they started with a couple of guys sitting in a room, drafting around a new way of searching. So, there is still the opportunity, but to do the big things, you end up having to have lots of money and lots of people to do it, so, I don't think that has changed anywhere from what the past was. There are still lots of inventors around, there are people trying to be creative, that's what the app industry is all about: these are all creative people that are inventing things. But the really big inventions take tons of money, and I'm involved: I'm on the boards of companies, I have friends who have invented things and if you want to do something startling, a change in paradigm, it takes tons of money, but it also takes enormous patience and the world is fundamentally conservative. People don't want to do things differently. So if you want to break the barriers, you really have to have a lot of perseverance. And money. And patience. FISHER: You once made a prediction about this industry — which, I think, was rather prescient — A number of years ago, you said, "We'll take a picture with a push of a button and it'll appear on our website within seconds for our friends and family to enjoy. You'll download a five-minute song in 20 seconds directly to a device that plays the song. Or games. Imagine a kid in Shanghai and a kid in Cleveland playing together with absolutely no geopolitical barriers. Someone still has to figure out how to charge you for all these things, but they will." First of all, that's... that's some vision. COOPER: Did I say that, really? FISHER: You did say that, yeah. COOPER: I don't recall that! By the way, do you have the source of that? FISHER: Yeah, I can send you the link. COOPER: I'd be grateful if you would do that. FISHER: Sure! COOPER: Well, I think there are three revolutions that are starting to happen now and that by 2030, — it'd be a lot sooner — they're going to have enormous impact. We are still mostly in the "game" stage. You know, Twitter... Most of the things you do on a cellphone, even email, You think about it, what's the biggest advantage of reading email on your cellphone when you're going to be in your office or someplace where you can see the email on a real screen? But... healthcare... There are now sensors and health technology available that will sense diseases before they happen. And what if you could sense that one of these things is getting out of control before it's in actual control of your body and zap it? Much easier than waiting until the cancer spreads throught your body. The sooner you catch a cancer, as an example, the better. FISHER:Sure. COOPER: You could stop the cancer when it was just a few cells starting to get out of control. The only thing-... barrier that we've got (shouldn't say "only" because it's a big barrier) is developing sensors that are sensitive enough and understanding what's going on. Well, that's already progressing in a very meaningful way. People will be wearing devices or will have them implanted that will talk through their cellphone — which it's not really a cellphone anymore, I call it a server. FISHER: Yeah. It's a personal hub, really. COOPER: ...I'm gonna write that down. "A personal hub." Going to try to give you credit for that one. FISHER: But yeah, it's we route everything through, right? COOPER: And we'll have all of these optimal devices... you'll have a phone maybe embedded behind your ear, you'll have a visual device that might be right on your... FISHER: Cornea? COOPER: Eye. Or maybe a better form of Google Glass. And all of these things are things that you picked. They're optimized for you because you want them and they help you become an individual. And that is really what the future of the cellphone is. FISHER: Is there a boundary which you personally won't go? I know I've said that when we get to implantable stuff, you can probably me count me out. I don't think I'd be terribly comfortable with a a voice communicator — a phone embedded in my ear — but is there anything- would you have any compunctions about that or would you do it tomorrow? COOPER: Well, just think about this, you know, I've... I used to be a tennis player. I'm showing you my scar, here. I've got a titanium plate in my thing. In my wrist. FISHER: Wow. COOPER: Took about... maybe an hour in the hospital to put this thing in and I went home. FISHER: *incredulously* Is that all? COOPER: And I got... well, my wrist is now perfectly good. If you can get this phone that I described behind your ear, inject it five minutes at the Verizon store, why would you object to that? FISHER: You know, I... COOPER: You won't even notice it! FISHER: This is true... COOPER: And think of what you're going to have! You're going to have this super-powerful computer back here... that you could call on at anytime instead of reach for your phone... FISHER: Right, I could be surreptitious as well. I could call it up and no one would be the wiser. COOPER: And this computer — stuck behind your ear — is attuned to you. It learns your vocabulary, your ways of thinking, anticipates your needs... and it's there all the time. FISHER: So you would go for it tomorrow, you would have no problem with it at all? COOPER: I wouldn't even think about it. FISHER: *chortles* But I'm going to wait until the technology's a little mature. Because they're going to make mistakes along the way, and I don't want to be one of the mistakes. FISHER: They sure are, I don't want a version 1 thing in my head, either. COOPER: No betas! FISHER: No! FISHER: I grew up — and this is going to lead to a famous question you get all the time — I grew up watching Star Trek. And I loved- I LOVED the handheld communicators on the show. And the fact that I now have them in the real form, in the real world, makes me very happy. But you were cited for many years as saying that Star Trek was your inspiration for some of the work you did on your first phone, but then I saw in another interview that you debunked that. That, in fact, we had another fiction property to thank. Which one was it? Was it Star Trek or was it Dick Tracy? COOPER: Well, I mean, it really was Dick Tracy, I mean... the culture we had was, as I have mentioned before, people are naturally, fundamentally, inherently mobile. And who figured that out? It was Dick Tracy who figured that out. Star Trek came along much, much later — 1965 — but by 1965, we were into it. We were building radio pagers, the IBM serviceman was now on-call with a pager. There were no cellphones, so... and... people were using two-way radios at airports... We figured it out then and we were just dying to build a wristphone because Dick Tracy had one and finally, I got to the point where I could make one. It was... maybe as big as your fist — it was very big wristphone. FISHER: But you did it! COOPER: But I'll damned Dick Tracy didn't come up with a wrist-videophone. The Star Trek thing... happened because there was a movie that was how William Shatner changed the world. FISHER: Ohh. COOPER: They came over to my house and got me hooked on this being an actor and they had me flipping a flip phone up and down FISHER: OH! COOPER: Supposed to be the Star Trek Communicator... FISHER: Right! Yeah! COOPER: And we started a myth and boy, is it hard to kill a myth. FISHER: It sure is! You know, I think I may have seen that documentary as a matter of fact, come to think of it. COOPER: I thought it was terrible, but... I thought I was pretty good. FISHER: Finally, we talked about you carrying a lot of phones and I know- I don't know if you still do — this was about five years ago I read that you had a lot of phones around. At the time, you had a first-generation Droid. I'm- everyone's dying to know what you carry today... and if you carry multiples, what you'd have to narrow it down to. COOPER: Well, I do. I still carry multiple phones... that's... FISHER: Oh yeah, that's the Moto X (2014)! COOPER: It's actually my third one, cause I really am nuts about the, uh... FISHER: The wood back? COOPER: Wood back and the size... but that's not the reason that I use them. I've been using a Moto X now for maybe nine months and they are trying to do these... anticipatory apps. So, I just wiggle this thing and my phone is now a camera! FISHER: The camera starts up. And then you "chop-chop" it twice, you've got a flashlight! As a matter of fact, I've very familiar with [it], because I carry the same phone I've carried the Moto X for two generations now as my personal device. COOPER: Is that right? Do you use these anticipatory features? FISHER: I do and you know, you can "chop-chop" it twice for the flashlight... and chop it again to... have you done that one? COOPER: I'll work on that after. FISHER: It takes- COOPER: Oh, it does that! FISHER: Yeah! So there you go. COOPER: I'm not sure how long I'm going to do that because new features come out all the time and the next big thing that I'm looking for is... the consummate charging. I think it's archaic, the idea of having to plug a phone in. And so I'm — with full disclosure, I just joined the board of a company that's I think has the ultimate solution to charging and that's... don't do anything. Just walk into a room and your phone charges. So, they call it far-field charging. And I think that's going to ultimately be the only way. Why? Because... if we get to this world where I describe that you've got a phone on your glasses, one behind your ear, a patch on your body and a fitness device on your wrist, how are you going to keep those things charged? You're not going to plug them all in at night. FISHER: Right. It's great timing, I'm sorry, we were just talking about this this morning, the Weekly podcast, we were just discussing the future of wireless charging and that far-field charging was... We probably talk about that once a month, I think, as one of these... holy grails in our field. Because battery capacity, you know, batteries constantly need to be topped up, and people don't seem sufficiently engaged by the short-range wireless charging pads that we have now, even though I love them. COOPER: Yeah. The company is Energous. FISHER: Energous. COOPER: And if you're a techie, super-ingenious stuff. I mean, we're talking about taking energy from a little box somewhere in a room and bring it right on your cellphone and no place else. That is wonderful technology. FISHER: I don't know if you still do trade show appearances, but any chance you'll be accompanying them to do an in-person demonstration anytime soon? COOPER: Never know. If you haven't figured out, Michael, I'm the ham of the world, so... give me a stage and I'm on it. FISHER: Well, I will continue looking for those stages, then! Please let me know the next time you're going to appear on one. COOPER: Good. Closed Captioning provided by Jules Wang *sped up audio from Sony Tablet P Throwback video plays*