A telephone number shouldn't represent a home or a car or a restaurant, but instead a person.
— Martin Cooper
The only thing that was in my mind when we made that first phone call was, ‘Is it going to work?' We had all these parts hand soldered together, engineers standing by with the soldering iron - just in case.
When you get involved in a startup, you have to be passionate.
Whatever happened to courtesy? What can be so urgent that you have to look down at your phone in the middle of a dinner conversation with people who matter to you? You can't wait five minutes before staring at your phone?
I'm at the doctor's office. I'm in the waiting room. And there's this guy on his cell phone, talking really loud. Does he think he owns the place? Apparently. I think this is so offensive. But you have to remember: It doesn't take a cell phone to make people rude. People were rude before there were cell phones.
Engineers and entrepreneurs are fundamentally dissatisfied with the way the world is and want to make it better. There are so many things you could do with technology if you can match it up with real problems.
Star Trek made dreaming legitimate.
WattUp is one of those rare breakthroughs that recognizes that the so-called 'battery' problem in wireless devices is solved with a charging solution that is transparent to the user. The cell phone with a dead battery can become a relic of the past. The days of wired, mat-based and proximity charging are over.
The best technology is when you are free to do what you want.
I think projects often fail because people do not have a clear understanding at the start what they are trying to deliver.
Even though you can't get along without your smartphone, there are not many essential services on your smartphone. They're mostly convenience; you could live without it. Essential means you die without it. A gadget that warns you're about to have a heart attack - that's essential. We're about to go into that phase with smartphones.
If you want people to think out of the box, you shouldn't create the box in the first place.
I think an engineer has not matured until he or she has conceived of a product and participated in every stage of bringing it to fruition, if that makes sense. And not many engineers get to do all of those stages.
The public doesn't adopt radical concepts very quickly.
I have a mantra that people are naturally, fundamentally and inherently mobile.
My favourite example of good technology is the automobile. I travel all over the world and if I want to drive a car anywhere, I get in and put the key in the ignition, shift out of park and drive. I don't need an instruction manual.
The only thing I don't like is being called the 'grandfather of the cellphone' because that makes me a little older than I prefer to be.
There were a lot of naysayers over the years. People would say, ‘Why are we spending all of this money? Are you sure this cellular thing will turn out to be something?'
What's the biggest function of a cell phone? What does a cell phone do for humanity? It makes people more productive.
Yes, I was the one people credit with inventing the cell phone. Now, whenever anyone gets a dropped call, they blame me.
You should not be a slave to your telephone. The technology is there to serve you, not the other way around.
I'm a science-fiction fan. All science fiction ends up being reality.
I like to think about the future and how things can be done better than they are now. That's what engineers do.
I think young people don't appreciate that when you're in your 70s, you'll lose patience for techie stuff and you may decide that you want a simple device.
We should be focused on how to make people's lives better. That is the purpose of technology.
We thought our vision was right, which was that someday everyone would be walking around carrying phones with them.
Cellular companies don't innovate, they just buy more spectrum.
My rule is, if you want to build something that does all things for all people, it's not going to work real well.
I think that wireless has the opportunity to solve a whole bunch of problems, including I believe world poverty.
I wouldn't use a phone with less than a 4-inch screen anymore.
It doesn't take a cell phone to make a person rude. There are rude people all over the place. But people are learning. I have never heard a cell phone ring in the movies. We are going to learn how to live with the advantages of new technology.
Every two and a half years, every spectrum crisis has gotten solved, and that's going to keep happening.
The instruction manual for my Motorola phone is bigger and heavier than the phone.
We did envision that some day the phone would be so small that you could hang it on your ear or even have it embedded under your skin.
Given a choice, people will demand the freedom to communicate wherever they are, unfettered by the infamous copper wire.
I have trouble going to sleep at night, because you always get the feeling that there is another thing you could do.
What we did with this mobile telephone was create a revolution. Before the mobile phone existed we were calling a place, now we are calling a person.
Anyone who dials a phone while driving is flirting with death. And anyone who texts while driving is insane.
Once you've lived in Del Mar or the San Diego area, why would you want to live anyplace else? It's the neatest place, whether it's the culture or the small-town atmosphere the whole San Diego area has.
As soon as I get a typical day, I'll know I'm in trouble. I like doing different things all the time.
We predicted the concept of a telephone that isn't tied to a wall or a desk. We anticipated that everyone would have a cell phone. We joked that when you're born you would be assigned a cell phone and if you didn't answer you had died.
If you asked me what the most important thing in my life is, it's learning.
I think if you have a big enough wallet you can solve anything but the key is to solve it with the least amount of expenditure.
We all know how tough children are with toys. It turns out grownups are much worse.
I'd been taking things apart and inventing things since I was a little kid… I still have memories as a child trying to really understand how things work.
My wife has forced me to wear designer jeans, and I find... there must be two or three hundred different kinds of jeans you can wear, all of which are made out of denim and look roughly the same. People are different. They have different tastes, different bodies. Cellphones ought to be the same.
The first cell phone model weighed over one kilo, and you could only talk for 20 minutes before the battery ran out. Which is just as well because you would not be able to hold it up for much longer.
I use Verizon. My wife uses Cingular. I also have an AT&T phone for the car.
Somehow in the last 100 years, every time there is a problem of getting more spectrum, there is a technology that comes along that solves that problem.
Of course I have an iPhone and I use that, interestingly enough, mostly for my calendar because it synchronizes with my calendar. I take pictures with it and I show people pictures of my grandchildren.
