Cell phone inventor dreams of human embeds

By Sinead Carew

NEW YORK (Reuters) - When Martin Cooper invented the cell phone 35 years ago, he envisioned a world with people so wedded to wireless connections that they would walk around with devices embedded in their bodies.

But while phones have come a long way since the former Motorola researcher made the first-ever wireless call from a busy New York street corner in April 1973, Cooper says the industry has fallen short of his expectations.

"Our dream was that someday nobody would talk on a wired telephone. Everybody would talk on a wireless phone," the 79-year-old electronic engineer told Reuters.

Cooper said he was so enthused after his first mobile call that he liked to joke that phone numbers would become so important that "when you were born you would get a phone number and if you didn't answer it you would die."

"The idea is that the phone number becomes part of you," said Cooper, who is also waiting for the day when he merely thinks about calling a particular person and the phone will automatically dial the number.

While the popularity of mobile phones has skyrocketed, with more than 3 billion people owning cell phones now compared with only 300,000 in 1984, Cooper said in telephone interviews from California and New York that he sees much more room for wireless in industries ranging from health care to power.

"Thirty-five years later we've finally got the idea that people want to be free to communicate while they're moving around but unfortunately we've just barely mastered that for voice," he said.