Out of the ditch : immigrants and entrepreneurs -- From teleprinters to transistors -- Car phones : encountering the AT&T monopoly -- From Loser to leader : quartz crystals -- From mobility to portability -- A cup of coffee goes further than a dropped ceiling -- Dawn of wireless : the war in Washington that created cellular -- The theater of innovation -- The brick christened DynaTAC : birth of the celll phone -- Eureka doesn't happen -- Putting cell phones in people's pockets -- Fulfilling my family legacy. Bridge : Marty's maxims -- How the cell phone changes lives -- Taking on poverty -- Affordable and accessible wireless is the public interest -- Transforming how we learn -- Enhancing how we work together -- From sick care to health care to human 2.0

"The cell phone changed the world. It revolutionized how people communicate, freed them to get in touch with one another at any time, and in any place without the constraints of the wired network. The cell phone led to the creation and growth of new industries. Yet the true story of its creation has not been told... Cutting the Cord tells that story. It centers on a battle for control of how people communicate, involving government regulators, lobbyists, police, technology breakthroughs, failures, quartz, and a horse. At the center of that story was is Martin Cooper, an engineer, entrepreneur, and futurist. The chapters in of his life influenced the creation of the cell phone. Industry skirmishes became a political war in Washington, -a struggle to prevent a monopolistic company from dominating telecommunications. The drama culminated in the first-ever public call made on a handheld, portable telephone-a cell phone. Despite that, the cell phone we know today almost didn't happen. Without the vision of a small group at Motorola, the last 40 forty years would have been significantly different. Their story is inspiring and instructive. After a twenty-nine-year career at Motorola, Cooper became an entrepreneur, helping launch companies dedicated to accelerating cell phone adoption. The story of the cell phone has much to teach about innovation, strategy, and management. This book also relates Cooper's vision of the future of for personal communications. That story is far from finished. We have so far only achieved a small fraction of the cell phone's potential impact. The cell phone empowers people from all walks of life. It is reshaping how children learn. The ways we work together will soon seem primitive because of continued advances in the cell phone communication. Most of all, the cell phone will continue to transform medicine and healthcare, contributing to the eradication of disease, the extension of life, and close coupling of human and artificial intelligence"--