Cellphone Pioneer Wins Prize Named for Radio’s Inventor
It seems hard to imagine a time before mobile phones. But they may not have arrived when they did without the work of Martin Cooper, which this week is being recognized with the $100,000 Marconi Prize.
The first cellphones were built into cars, along with a lot of circuitry in the trunk. Cooper led the team at Motorola that helped prove the feasibility of a handheld version, culminating in a celebrated demonstration on a New York street in 1973.
