• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        Leonid Kupriyanovich, a Moscow engineer, developed a series of experimental pocket-sized radios in the 1950s and 1960s:

        • In 1957, Kupriyanovich patented a wireless phone device that weighed about 3 kg.
        • In 1961, he presented a portable phone that weighed 70 grams and could fit in the palm of your hand.
        • Kupriyanovich’s radiotelephones shared a common base station, which we now call a cell tower.
        • Kupriyanovich’s “Altay” radio-based cell network was used by emergency services and remained popular after the fall of the Soviet Union.

        However, the Soviet bureaucracy prioritized using early cell phone research to develop car phones for the Soviet upper ranks instead of mass producing cell phones for the general public.

        https://psmag.com/features/cellphone-revolutionary-objects/

        • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
          1·
          3 days ago

          So should we give credit to people like Marconi and Tesla for inventing what we know today as the cell phone? I suppose the delineation isn’t necessarily so clear.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            3 days ago

            So should we give credit to people like Marconi and Tesla for inventing what we know today as the cell phone?

            For the telephone, certainly. And for a host of other radio-based technology. You should probably include Michael Faraday and James Maxwell.

            But Kupriyanovich holds the patent on wireless telephones, specifically.