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The Detroit Police Department began using mobile radios in their police cars. They used them to talk between cars, but it didn't work very well.
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The government used most radio frequencies for itself, but the air waves were still clogged up. The FCC was created to decide who got to use which channels.
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By the 1940's most government agencies, as well as the rich people, had mobile radios. They used them while they were on the go to talk to others.
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The first service created just for mobile phones opened up in St. Louis, MO, but the service didn't work well and it didn't last.
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A car phone service was opened between Boston and New York, but this service was a failure, too.
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The second attempt at car phones was a success. The equipment was large and heavy, but it worked, and that was an improvement over the past.
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AT & T proposed splitting phone service into different areas across the cities. These areas were called "cells".
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Dr. Martin Cooper invented a portable hand-held phone that didn't need to be powered through a car. He was the first person to make a mobile phone call.
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It took ten years for the technology that Dr. Cooper invented to become available to the public. The first public cell phones were put out by Motorola.
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Motorola came out with a new design where the mouth piece flipped over the top of the keypad. It was the first flip phone.
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Developers in Europe came up with a way to send written messages over the phone. It was called texting.
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The smart phone could send and receive emails and messages, but it didn't have a speaker or microphone. This meant it needed a headset to work.
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A company called Sanyo made a phone that could snap pictures. Later the user could download the pictures to a computer to be printed.
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A law was passed in California that said cell phone companies had to allow customers to return old cell phones to be recycled. This was because cell phones can contain materials that are harmful if left in a landfill.
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Apple released its first iphone and it changed the cellular industry. It featured a touch screen and allowed users to do almost anything they could do from a home computer, which basically changed the way people lived.
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Apple released their latest IPhone which introduced fingerscanner to the iPhone. It also came in two sizes, the first time Apple had done this.
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