WEBVTT - The History of Smartphones: Part 1 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:05.760 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from House Stuff. 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:14.920 Hi there, everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.640 Strickland and I'm Lauren, and today we wanted to talk 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:21.200 a little bit about the history of smartphones, and before 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:23.239 we really get into it, I thought we'd probably dive 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.920 just a bit into our own personal history with smartphones. Lauren, 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.120 do you own a smartphone? I do, in fact on 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.040 a smartphone. Gosh, Lauren, what kind of smartphone do you own? 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.000 I have an iPhone for okay, so iPhone for one 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.640 of the very popular models out there. I actually have 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:40.879 an iPhone four as well, though I use mine as 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.559 an iPod touch because it's a hand me down. My 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.720 wife has an iPhone five. She loves it. She and 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:50.080 Syrie have nice long conversations of which I get to 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.880 take no part. But I also do have my own 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:58.200 legitimate smartphone, legitimate and that it's actually connected to a 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.600 cellular network, because my phone is not. I have an 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:06.520 Android phone HTCG two to be precise, which was the 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.560 successor to the HTCG one that'll come in handy later. 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.160 But uh I was a late adopter to the smartphone 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:18.039 UH model, as first by late adopter. Yes, do you 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:22.120 mean before two eleven, because because that's when I adopted 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:25.200 the smartphone. Yeah. Yeah, And as we'll see, that was 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:29.640 that was fairly late, uh, considering when smartphones first started 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.000 to hit the market. But then I was also a 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:34.320 late adopter to cell phones in general. I was one 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:36.760 of those curmudgeons who said, why would I need a 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:38.959 phone so people can get in touch with me whenever? 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:43.960 That's what answering machines are for. Uh, because get off 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:47.560 my lawn. But I thought we'd talk about the history, 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:49.440 and also we need to kind of define what a 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.720 smartphone is in general, because that's changed over time a 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:55.080 whole bunch, that's right. These these days, I think it's 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.480 basically defined as um, something that has apps that you 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.400 can download so that you can change what software is 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.640 on your phone personally. Yeah, exactly, very true. And in 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.360 the past that was it was more just kind of 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:09.520 a combination of a cellphone and p d A at 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.760 the same time. Yeah. Yeah, some basic features that made 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:14.920 it more than just a device that could let you 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:18.080 call on the go, but let you send messages in 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.000 various ways or or even serve the web. So a 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:22.600 lot of the stuff that we would we would think 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.639 of as a feature phone was originally what we would 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:28.720 call a smartphone, because a feature phone now is pretty 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.760 much anything that's not a smartphone, apart from, you know, 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:36.600 a brick that makes calls. But to really understand how 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:41.120 smartphones evolved, um, well, we started talking about the history 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:42.760 of it, and we realized that we kind of had 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:45.760 to go a little further back than smartphones or cell 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.960 phones or telephones because but essentially a smartphone is is 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.600 it is a telephone that is mobile, and what what 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.360 a mobile telephone is is technically a radio. Um, so 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:59.960 you go all the way back to what was six 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:04.040 Alexander Graham Bell. Yeah, that's alex as I like to 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.079 call him. Yeah, he came up with this idea. He 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.760 called it the electrical speech machine, and uh in eighteen 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.320 seventy six. And before him, there had been a lot 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.920 of work in physics for discovering things like the nature 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:20.239 of electromagnetism and how that could create certain waves, and 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:22.360 there was a there had also been development of a 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:27.359 thing called the telegraph, which was I know, nuts, right, 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.800 but I can send messages across distance, yeah, exactly, and 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:34.720 you don't have to use a horse or smoke or 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:39.400 a horse that's smoking. It's awesome. So yeah, the the 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.360 at this point we're talking about actually transmitting voice over electricity, 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:48.000 which was a phenomenal idea. And uh, the nice thing 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.600 about this is that you're looking at these different disciplines 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.280 that kind of combined to say, you know, there's probably 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:58.200 the potential to make a wireless communications system. We've figured 0:03:58.240 --> 0:03:59.880 out how to do it by wire. We've got this 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:04.000 other work that physicists are doing in electromagnetism and radio waves. 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.520 I bet that we can figure out this this relationship 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:12.240 between electricity voice electromagnetism, make it work in some crazy 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:16.400 way to transmit voice across great distances without wires. And 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:18.200 there are a few people who are thinking of crazy 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:22.760 thoughts like that. Uh Marconi, he was one of them. 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:25.240 Kind of big, yeah, kind of big. There was the 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:30.360 internet Darling Tesla. Yeah yeah, when you say his name, 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.920 doves fly out of the internet. Uh yeah. While he 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:39.680 did make some amazing discoveries and was a phenomenal physicist 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.680 in his day, also was a crazy, crazy man. He 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:44.600 is his his picture is looking at us from the 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:48.279 podcast wall right now, staring staring deeply into me and 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:50.680 judging me. That might also be my I get a 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.760 little grouchy with Tesla. Edison also very important during this 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.719 time up by the way, that's your queue taboo. You 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:02.960 cheer Tesla and you boo Edison. That how the internet works. Well, 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.039 he killed elephants. He did kill elephants. That's true. He 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:09.160 used alternating current to shock elephants to death. But we're 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:11.040 kind of getting off base anyway. At this point, we're 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:13.400 talking about radio. So now radio, of course plays an 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:15.400 important part because when you get to the point of 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:20.840 cellular telephones, you're really talking about another version of radio communication. 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:23.680 So you've got the the development of the telephone and 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.440 the development of radio all going on at the same time. Uh. 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:29.880 And then we'll skip ahead a little bit because although 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:31.520 there are lots and lots of things we can talk 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:36.159 about during this time, ultimately they don't really uh inform 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:38.280 our discussion about the history of the smartphone. I would 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:42.440 go all the way to oh, I'm I'm actually not 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.160 familiar with this, with this particular reference that ves wireless 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:50.200 even wireless. Okay, so there's actually a clip online where 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.719 you can watch this silent film. And I did not 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:55.839 know about this until this morning. So I don't think 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:57.960 that I'm brilliant because I put this in our notes. 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:00.359 I just found out about it a thought it was 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:03.080 too cool to pass up because I was looking around 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.720 and someone jokingly referred to it as the first smartphone. 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:09.760 It's a silent film that shows two women walking down 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:12.039 the street having a conversation, or at least that's what 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:15.040 we assume they're doing, because we can't hear them. They 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.520 could be making bird noises for all I know. They 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:21.800 come up to a fire hydrant, and as two women 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:26.760 in the early twentieth century would do, they stop at 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:29.480 the fire hydrant. Clearly, of course, they wrap a wire 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:32.840 around the end of the fire hydrant and they and 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:35.440 the other end of that wires holds up to a radio. 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:38.599 And then there's another wire from the radio going to 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.520 an umbrella, which one of the two ladies opens up 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.200 and holds up into the air. And then they fiddle 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.560 with some knobs on the radio that is now wired 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.160 to both the umbrella and the fire hydranydrant. And then 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:55.680 it cuts with the magic of cinema to a radio 0:06:55.760 --> 0:07:00.880 operator who is holding up a transmitter to a phonograph 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:05.400 and plays music from the phonograph through the radio transmitter, 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:08.440 which the two ladies on the street are apparently listening 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.400 to the umbrella. And yes, yes, so this was this 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.400 was what people were calling the first smartphone because it 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:20.280 was using wireless radio technology to transmit communications exactly. I 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:22.400 like to think of it as the first iPod commercial. 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.360 But yeah, that's why I put that in there, because 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:28.960 someone jokingly referred to it as the first smartphone, which 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:32.160 really it only had one way communication. You can only receive. 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:34.200 There was not a transmitter, right, they didn't have a 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:36.840 microphone waked up to it exactly. Certainly that was going 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.920 to be in the sequel. Yes, yes, it was Eve's 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:44.600 Witness to the Reckoning. Um did not yet did not 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.040 do well the box office, sadly. That's why I had 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.200 to put that in there, just because the clip is online, 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:52.920 and I'll share a clip of that in our Facebook 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:54.600 page so you guys can get a look at it 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.600 because it's it's entertaining, It sounds spectacular. If this were 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.880 not audio, then I would want to play it right now. 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.640 Uh no, But but we we had some actual mobile 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:08.640 call technology going on by the correct that's correct. You 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.720 got a T and T and bell Labs now Bell Labs, 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.400 is the research and development arm of a T and 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:18.440 T correct and Bell Labs very much known for developments 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:22.440 in wireless communication as well just communication technology in general. 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:28.120 So in the nineteen forties they developed the first wireless network, 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:32.520 and that's kind of being generous, Uh what was it? 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:36.000 What was it like? Back in so imagine that you 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:40.480 are in a big metropolis and your big metropolis has 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:44.280 a wireless network that consists of a single tower with 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.400 a transmitter on it, and that transmitter is capable of 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:53.560 handling oh maybe a dozen channels of communication, so that's 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:55.920 all it could handle at one time. So in other words, 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:59.000 even if you had a lot of people with the handsets, 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:03.200 you could have of them actually operated simultaneous or maybe 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:04.720 even just six because I don't know if it was 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.559 too like it was two ways, but I honestly don't 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:10.200 know because I didn't have enough information there. But but 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:14.360 the the first wireless call was made by a truck driver, 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.240 showing that even back in the nineteen forties we were 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:21.480 not practicing safe driving techniques. And it was a hand 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.880 set like like a rotary phone. Hands do you know 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.760 what a rotary phone is? Lauren? I remember rotary phones 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.120 from when I was about three. Lauren's a little younger 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:33.360 than I am, so, so the rotary phone handle, it's 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:35.880 this giant handle, right, and it's got like a cord 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:40.040 that goes down to the base unit of this wireless telephone. 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:42.400 And how how large was the based unit of a 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.559 wireless telephone? Well, I don't have the specific dimensions, but 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:47.760 I can tell you it weighed eighty pounds and for 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.200 our friends who used the metric systems, thirty six point 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.520 three kilograms. So not exactly fit in your pocket mobile, 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:57.640 not so much something that you want to want to 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:02.080 take around with you, you know, I mean vacations. I 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:05.440 assume it's camera was really crappy, Yeah, terrible. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:09.200 a zero megapixel camera, right. Yeah. The only app could 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:11.600 I could run is call this person, and that's only 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.400 if you dialed it. Um. Yeah, eighty pounds. Yeah. If 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:17.400 Steve Jobs had come out in two thousand and seven 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:19.400 and unveiled the iPhone and it weighed eighty pounds, I 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:21.559 doubt it would have done quite so well on the market. Yeah, 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:24.360 not so much, but for those purposes. Yeah, and it 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.120 cost fifteen dollars a month to have the service which 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.800 if you were to do an inflation calculator as I did, 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.680 which had the latest year as eleven, that's the most 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:39.960 recent figure, but in the fifteen dollars a month would 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:44.120 be a hundred thirty eight dollars a month, which which actually, yeah, 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.800 that I would take that today. Yeah, that's actually lower 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:49.840 than what I'm paying. Although although I suppose that, yeah, 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.400 that that that eighty pounds of lugging equipment around is 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:55.679 maybe well, I would also be in better shape. I 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:59.000 wouldn't need to download any physical fitness apps to my phone, 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:01.680 because just carrying the phone would be physical fitness. Maybe 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:03.880 maybe we need to bring back the eighty pound phones. 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:07.960 Maybe maybe this is this will solve the oats any traffic. 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:10.800 If any of our listeners out there launch a company 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.120 where you market an eighty pound smartphone, we demand at 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:18.000 least some sort of residuals because we ain't getting rich 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:21.240 from podcasts and folks. Also a prototype send one over. 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:27.200 Yeah okay, So moving on, we get to nine. Now 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:32.280 this is where we start seeing companies look into developing 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.400 cellular networks. So going beyond that single transmitter model I 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.360 was just talking about. Now we're looking at building the 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:43.079 foundation that would allow people to make sell calls. Right, 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.560 and by cellular, of course, we mean a telephone that 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.120 can go through a network of towers and keep the 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.160 signal exactly, yes, because that's a that would be an issue. 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:54.679 If you were to move outside the broadcast range of 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.520 a transmitter and a receiver, then you would drop your call. 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.679 So if you have a network of these transmitters and receivers, 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.320 then the theoretically you can move from one to the 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.360 other and you'd be fine, but you'd have to figure 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:10.640 out how to coordinate. Yeah, you gotta you gotta build 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.040 the architecture so that the phone when it moves from 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.720 one to the other, gets handed off from one tower 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.880 to another tower, or a communication ceases. This is not 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.400 a trivial problem, and it will take many decades of 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.560 work and and lots of infrastructure goes into it. And 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.400 uh yeah, and so so even though we technically had 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.240 the capacity to make these calls, to make these mobile 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:34.559 calls back in the nineties, we would not have the 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.160 infrastructure to do so. I mean, I mean, I guess 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:40.920 it started in right, Yeah, No, you're exactly right. Even today, 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:42.840 I mean, certain parts of Atlanta we drive through and 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:44.720 I'm just like you can you gehit that dead section? 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.360 There's a section on okay, And I apologize to all 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:49.080 the people who are going to hear the pronunciation of 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:51.040 this street, but this is how we say it in Atlanta. 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:55.400 Ponstall le in when you go downstall. I'm sorry, it's 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:58.240 not pomps Own, which is what how my wife pronounces it, 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:01.319 being from Philadelphia, she refuses to sleep in Florida. Yeah, 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.280 they can't. I'm a little bit physically incapable of saying it. 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.320 After after about eight years, I worked it out. It's 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:10.400 it's tough, but yeah, there are certain dead sections. Clearly, 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:12.520 we still have to keep building those networks out if 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.800 we want to have universal coverage across the United States. Um, 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:19.679 that sounds weird. Universal coverage across the United States Universal 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:24.880 if it's universal, doesn't make it international anyway. Moving on, so, so, yeah, 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:29.120 we're talking decades of work to build out the cellular networks, 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:31.440 which at the at that time, you know, no one 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.160 was using because there was there wasn't nothing networks, right, 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.120 it was physically impossible to crazy, Yeah, and it wasn't. 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:40.080 It wasn't in fact until the nineteen seventies that they 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:42.520 managed to pull off that first cellular call. It was yeah, 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:46.280 Martin Cooper. Okay, so this is a great, great story. 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:51.360 Martin Cooper and executive with Motorola. Are you imagine this? 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:56.840 You head up a research and development facility within Motorola. Sure, okay. 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:01.600 You know that you have uh uh peers in the 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.720 industry who are working on cellular networks at the same 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:07.719 time that your group is working on them. Yes, the 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.679 big one being Bell Labs of a T and T. 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.920 You and your team managed to make a cellular network 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:18.480 and a phone that will work on that network, and 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.000 you can make a call to anyone. Who is the 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:26.440 first person you call? My mom? I'm not sure. Well, 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:30.200 Martin Cooper decided to call the head of the research 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.080 and development team over at Bell Laboratories because the very 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.640 first cell phone call was a crank call. That is amazing. 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.240 Isn't that phenomenal? How many more cell phone calls would 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.600 follow in that wake? Did he ask if his refrigerator 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.320 wasning Prince Albert in a can? Actually I don't think 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.240 he did any of that, but but yes, the famously, 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.520 he very cheekily made a phone call to the two 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.840 executive over at Bell Labs which was kind of tweaking 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.320 their nose at the same time as having this historic 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.680 moment on that phone was also a little a little clunky. 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:04.800 It was not eighty pounds, but it was about one 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.760 point seven five pounds, which is around point eight krams. 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:15.360 And it had a cute nickname Brick, which you know, obviously, 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.520 if if I saw a phone marketed as the Brick, 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:19.280 I'm just thinking, boy, I gotta get my hands on 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:23.120 that thing. Oh yeah, oh yeah, the eyebricks. Canna get 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:25.960 the lead weight too, that would be awesome. So but 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:30.920 this this obviously showed a shift in telephone technology. It 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.560 would still be quite a few years before cell phones 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.840 became a common thing in the consumer market, but we 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:42.000 started to see them get adopted for advanced users, for 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:46.480 business users probably yep. We also those first adopters, those 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.280 early adopters who would like to be on the bleeding 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.200 edge of technology before it's even proven. They would go 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:53.640 out and get one. They were really expensive, they were 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:57.920 not very um practical, but this was the beginning of 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:02.720 that that trend. Um. Now, the next thing I have 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.000 here is nineteen seventy four, and uh, ladies and gentlemen 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:09.200 of Greek ancestry. I would like to apologize profusely for 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.480 what I am about to attempt, because nineteen seventy four 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:17.720 was when Theodore George and here we go, Paris Cavacos, 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.320 that's my best guest. Paris Scovaco said, it's a Greek name, 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:24.720 so obviously I probably have butchered it. But he patented 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:28.440 a concept. Uh he actually he submitted the patent in 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:30.640 nineteen seventy two, but in seventy four he was granted 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.800 the patent for a concept for what would be a 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.360 or an early smartphone, and I wasn't called that at 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.000 the time. Of course, it was called an apparatus for 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:44.480 generating and transmitting digital information. Smartphone is catchier. I see, 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:47.080 I see why that one stuck. Although I would say, Lauren, 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:51.160 you you're familiar somewhat with the the realm of the 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:55.720 steampunk a little bit, I would think that steampunk fans 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.960 what they really need to do is just go through 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:03.480 and look at patent titles, because every patent title is 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:05.480 really more of a description of what the device does. 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.640 And if you've ever seen anyone who creates steampunk gadgets, 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:11.480 that's almost always what they name their stuff. It's not 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.680 a simple name. It's a descriptor. It's as many words 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.080 as you can possibly fit into a single phrase without 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:19.520 losing your breath and falling over. And the word ether 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.240 has to be in there somewhere. Well clearly, yeah, I 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.720 mean obviously it's the most important part. Also, don't forget 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.960 your goggles. Uh, that's neither here nor there. Moving on, 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.160 so so so in in seventy four, um um, our friend, 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:35.880 our friend Teddy. Yeah I like that. Yes, Teddy put 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:38.399 in this patent um and then proceeded to do absolutely 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:41.320 nothing with it. Is that correct? Well? Yeah, I mean 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.520 it kind of just sort of languished because while the 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:49.520 concept was there, the technology wasn't really up to task 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.800 to fulfilling on that promise. Because the idea was to 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:57.520 have this handheld device that could transmit digital information at 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:01.760 the time in the in the handheld device would not 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.080 really be able to do that efficiently. We're talking about 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.720 I mean, we were in nineteen seventy four. I'm again, 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:10.960 you would be more familiar with this because you were ancient. Um, 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:13.680 but I was not born in seventy four. Thank you, 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.160 I don't have to wait a year. But yes, yes, 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.240 hand handheld devices at the time could could do not 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:24.959 very calculating. We had some, We had some We had 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:29.600 some really good graphics calculators first starting around the around 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.840 the seventies. Yeah, Hewett Packard had some some calculators and 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:34.679 IBM of you as well. But they were more than 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.760 the size of our laptops. They were closer to that 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:40.719 than a than a slider phone, definitely. And in nineteen 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:42.600 seventy four, you're also talking about this is this is 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:45.640 right at the very bleeding edge of the personal computer. 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:49.800 Are so a smartphone, which in a way is like 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:54.600 a a a distant cousin of the PC that fits 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.080 in your hand. Clearly, it would be unreasonable to think 0:18:57.080 --> 0:18:59.159 of something like that existing in seventy four when the 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:03.000 actual PC still itself was not much, not really a thing. 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.119 Yet you have to wait another couple of years for 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:08.560 those to become a thing. So when when did when did? Um? 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:10.760 I mean because one of the ancestors of smartphones had 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.399 to have been p D a Personal Digital assistance which 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:16.760 which came onto the scene in the early eighties, Is 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.240 that correct? So there's this company called Scion, and that's 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:23.440 going to become important in a little bit too. Ssion 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:27.040 created this device called the organizer. Now, the first organizer 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:30.880 was more of a curiosity. It was part calculator, part 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:35.160 database manager, or part part like digital note taker. So 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:40.359 imagine that you have a watch that also lets you 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.440 type stuff in it, but you can't do anything else 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:45.680 with the stuff, so you can make it just sits 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.680 in the watch forever. Right, Yeah, you could delete it eventually. 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:51.520 I think they had to use Actually I don't think 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:53.159 it's this one, but there is one p d A 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.359 I read about where the only way to reformat it 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:00.320 was to bathe it an ultra violet radiation, which, of course, 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:02.320 I mean I have one of those devices at home. 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.760 So yeah, the dogs love it. I'm kidding, I'm kidding, 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:11.320 they hate it. So yeah, the the organizer, all it 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.000 was was a clock in this a way of taking notes. 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:17.840 But you couldn't you couldn't organize it in any other way. Really, 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:19.720 it was like you could put I could put down 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:22.000 your name and your phone number, and then under on 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:24.800 the next line under I might put eggs, milk, bread, 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:27.160 you know, et cetera. And then on the next line 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:29.600 down I might say, um, you know, write down what 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.560 a person's address, And there's there's no rhyme or reason. 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:37.000 There wasn't there was no particular operating system, right. But 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:41.080 one just two years later they introduced the organizer too, 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:44.000 and that one was really the very first pd eight 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:46.239 had a lot more features that actually had allowed you 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:50.560 to organize stuff into different categories, and it laid the 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:53.360 groundwork for what the p d A would be over 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.000 the next really the next decade and a half. P 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:59.600 d a's, I mean they technically still exist, but mostly 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.560 they've been co opted by smartphones. It's one of those 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:04.919 many things that we have replaced in our pockets with 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:09.840 a single We went from so we went from seventy 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.600 four to eight four. What's our next jump? I think 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:14.920 our next jump is all the way to ninety four. Yeah, 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.520 we'd like to take these decades people. Um, And that 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:20.280 was that was when that was the first time that 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:22.040 that a p d A and a cell phone really 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:24.720 got got kind of smooshed together. Right, Yeah, So what 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.560 IBM dead? It was IBM IBM took a PDA and 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:30.000 they took a cell phone, and they put them in 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:32.639 a room together and put on some very white music. 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:36.960 And about nine months later, the Simon Personal Communicator came 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:41.720 out and that's how smartphones are born. Actually that's mostly 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:43.480 a lie, but no, they did. They did come up 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:46.680 with a product called the Simon Personal Communicator, and yeah, 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:49.399 it was part cell phone, part p d A. So 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.760 in a way it's the kind of like the great 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:57.240 grandfather of smartphones. And it could send facsimiles. Is that correct, Verry? 0:21:57.320 --> 0:21:58.919 What wasn't that one of the first messages that it sent. 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:01.920 I believe during one of their their stage shows they 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:03.680