a day ago
- Automotive
- Washington Post
He pioneered the cellphone. It changed how people around the world talk to each other — and don't
DEL MAR, Calif. — Dick Tracy got an atom-powered two-way wrist radio in 1946. Marty Cooper never forgot it.
The Chicago boy became a star engineer who ran Motorola's research and development arm when the hometown telecommunications titan was locked in a 1970s corporate battle to invent the portable phone . Cooper rejected AT&T's wager on the car phone, betting that America wanted to feel like Dick Tracy, armed with 'a device that was an extension of you, that made you reachable everywhere.'
