7 key tech innovators you've never heard of

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Unsung heroes behind the gear and gadgets we use every day

5. Martin Cooper, Mobile phone
The first person to walk blissfully into street traffic while talking on a phone, Martin Cooper invented the mobile phone in 1973 while working at Motorola. He thought of the idea after watching the original Star Trek and noticing Captain Kirk using a communicator. The first cell phone, called the DynaTAC8000X, weighed 2 pounds - as much as a modern day sub-notebook computer - and cost $3,500. You could only talk on it for 30 minutes, and there was no public cell phone service - that wasn't invented until 1983. Today, about 1.35 billion people use a cell phone.

The mobile may one day completely replace that other famous invention (you know, the one by Mr Bell) that uses a landline or POTS (plain old telephone system) connection. Telephone lines are becoming less and less common - one out of eight people don't even have one any more.
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John Brandon
John Brandon
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John Brandon has covered gadgets and cars for the past 12 years having published over 12,000 articles and tested nearly 8,000 products. He's nothing if not prolific. Before starting his writing career, he led an Information Design practice at a large consumer electronics retailer in the US. His hobbies include deep sea exploration, complaining about the weather, and engineering a vast multiverse conspiracy.