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Marty Cooper (Twitter: @MartyMobile) is the inventor of the cell phone, a TIME Magazine Top 100 Inventor in History, a Wireless Hall of Fame inductee, a Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering and Marconi Prize winner and chair of the business advisory team at Owaves. We are honored to speak to Marty as he launches his first and only book detailing the invention of the cell phone during his years at Motorola, and to discuss where he sees the future of wireless technology heading. Joining Marty for this discussion are the Founder and CEO of Owaves, Royan Kamyar, M.D., MBA; Senior Director of Community at Owaves, Lauren Serpico, Ph.D., CPT; and Elaine Fang, M.S. candidate at the London School of Economics. ~ With gratitude to Marty for this wonderful interview, from the whole Owaves team!         

<figure class="aligncenter"><figcaption>Cutting the Cord: The Cell Phone has Transformed Humanity, Rosetta Books, 2021.</figcaption></figure>

Show Notes & References:

00:00-07:25 ~ A Retrospective Introduction

Reference: The Cell Phone: Marty Cooper’s Big Idea, 60 Minutes, 5.21.10

07:26-12:15 ~ Glimpse of the Future

• Marty is Owaves’ Chairman of the Business Advisory team.

Reference: Owaves team page

• Life has evolved on earth for almost 4 billion years

Reference: Early Life on Earth — Animal Origins, Smithsonian Institute

• The first humans are believed to be over 6 million years old.

Reference: Introduction to Human Evolution, Smithsonian Institute

• “I think we have an amazing opportunity to use the data that comes from the cell phones that we carry with us, to understand what it takes to live an appropriate life.”

• “I think that’s what Owaves is all about. What is the fundamental nature of a human being?… The human body/being is the result of a billion years of evolution. If we don’t take all the inherent aspects of evolution into account as we live, we live a less complete life.”

• “I’m enchanted by the opportunities for data analytics. Just think about how much we could learn about a person, if we measured virtually everything that is happening to you in life, in a way that doesn’t intrude in your privacy. Wow, is that an important, and difficult problem… But if you could take all that data, and just analyze the data, think about what you’ll learn about what it is appropriate to have a full and complete life that is consistent with evolution!”

• Wellness tip: Go Hiking!! 

• Over 35 million older adults fall each year in the United States, according to the CDC.

• 1 out of 4 older adults will fall each year, making falls a major public health concern.

Reference: Fall risk statistics from CDC

• Apple Watch introduced fall detection with the Series 4 in fall of 2018.

• “It’s interesting, identifying a fall may seem like a straightforward problem but it requires a tremendous amount of data and analysis,” Apple COO Jeff Williams said at the time. “We collected data on thousands of people and captured data on real-world falls.”

• Specifically, the company worked with a combination of movement disorder clinics and friends and families of employees to collect 250,000 days worth of data on 2,500 people before launching the feature, according to Apple.

• “When you trip, your body will naturally pitch forward and your arms will go forward to brace yourself,” Williams said at the event last year. “However, if you slip, there’s a natural upward motion in the arms. These are motions Series 4 is ideally suited to recognize. With a new accelerator and gyroscope, the Watch analyzes wrist trajectory and impact acceleration to determine when a fall occurs.”

• As fall detection is moving forward into new territory, the holy grail of fall prevention still remains out of reach. But in a world of artificial intelligence and big data, it’s not out of sight. As devices like the ones described above collect more and more data on what telltale signs precede falls, many believe we’re moving to the point where a device could intervene somehow and prevent a fall from happening. Fabry thinks a hearing aid could accomplish this by offering a warning or even coaching in the moment.

• Apple declined to comment on whether it was looking into prevention. But the company would be at a disadvantage in some ways because of the hard line it’s taken on data privacy. Apple isn’t collecting any kind of training data from its fall detection features, even in aggregate, the company said. It’s all stored locally, for the benefit of that particular user and, if they choose to share the data, their caregiver.

Reference: How fall detection is moving beyond the pendant, MobiHealthNews, 4.19.19

• This year, Apple introduced a number of mobility updates, including: walking speed, step length and walking asymmetry

Reference: Apple Watch automatic fall detection, and mobility updates

12:16-20:38 ~ The Invention of the Cell Phone

• 64% of the world owns a cell phone. There are 5 billion cell phone users worldwide. Our current world population is estimated at 7.8 billion.

Reference: Number of mobile phone users worldwide from 2015 to 2020, Statista

• Experts estimate 4.2 billion people worldwide own a toothbrush.

Reference: Benson, Chris. Cell Phones and Toothbrushes: Technology in the Orthodontic Practice. The Progressive Orthodontist. 

• About 3.3 billion people own a toilet worldwide, according to UNICEF

Reference: Saving Lives, One Toilet at a Time, UNICEF USA

Reference: More Cell Phones than Toilets, World Bank Blogs, 4.12.10.

• Essence of a cell phone: 1) people like to communicate, and 2) they are inherently mobile!

• First personal computer was the Altair, developed in 1974.

Reference: Personal computer, Britannica

• Digital camera invented by Kodak in 1975.

Reference: Kodak’s First Digital Moment, New York Times, 8.12.15

• The world wide web became publicly available in 1991.

• The word “internet” was first coined in 1974 by government researchers

Reference: History of the Internet, Open Book Project

• Large-scale integrated circuits were not available until the mid-1970s

Reference: Digital computer, Britannica

• The Bell System was founded in 1877 and