In a recent interview with the BBC, Marty Cooper, inventor of the mobile phone, expressed his amazement at the level of freedom that the modern-day cell phone has brought.

Thanks to Cooper and his team at Motorola, the first mobile phone handset was invented in 1973, weighing in at around 2 kilos!

“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.”

Although Cooper claims that the original idea behind the mobile phone was to improve people’s safety and increase their freedom, he admits that the eventual social implications of his invention went far beyond those he had initially imagined.

“Technology makes your life better, more convenient, safer, educates you, entertains you, and mostly makes you more productive,” he added.

He now believes that the future of mobile phone technology is to continue along the path of making people’s lives better, specifically in the field of healthcare.

“We had a joke with the development team that said ‘in the future, you would be assigned a telephone number when you were born’.”

And 35 years later, his joke is far more of a reality than it is an amusement!

Check out the full interview here