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Martin Cooper

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Inventor

The Resume

    (December 26, 1928- )
    Born in Chicago, Illinois
    Division manager at Motorola
    Headed the team that developed the handheld mobile phone (1973)
    Recipient of US Patent 3,906,166 for a 'radio telephone system' (with seven other Motorola engineers)

Why he might be annoying:

    For the first public demonstration of the cell phone (April 3, 1973), he called up his counterpart at rival AT&T and basically taunted him.
    His first cell phone weighed 2.5 pounds and had a battery that lasted 20 minutes. ('That wasn't really a big problem because you couldn't hold that phone up for that long.')
    By the time Motorola began selling cell phones to the public, he had left the company (1983).
    He complained that modern smartphones are a 'monstrosity' loaded up with too much technology.
    He is responsible for that guy next to you in the theater who thinks now is a perfect time for a phone conversation even though the @!%#&! movie has already started.
    He predicted, 'The cell phone in the long range is going to be embedded under your skin behind your ear along with a very powerful computer who is in effect your slave.' (Until the computers revolt and take over, which will be much easier when they have direct access to your internal organs.)

Why he might not be annoying:

    Earlier, he developed the first portable handheld police radios for the Chicago police department (1967).
    He said the inspiration for the cell phone was Captain Kirk using his communicator in Star Trek.
    He said, 'We had no idea that in as little as 35 years more than half the people on Earth would have cellular telephones and they give the phones away to people for nothing.'
    He dislikes being identified as the father of the cell phone, noting 'It really took teamwork and literally hundreds of people to create the vision of what cellular is today.'
    In response to complaints about the intrusiveness of cell phones, he noted 'It doesn't take a cellular phone to make people rude.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 7 Votes: 14.29% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 15 Votes: 13.33% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 8 Votes: 62.50% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 17 Votes: 47.06% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 16 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 27 Votes: 55.56% Annoying