The long-distance telegraph began with a portentโSamuel F. B. Morse, standing in the chambers of the US Supreme Court on May 24,1844, wiring his assistant Alfred Vail in Baltimore a verse from the Old Testament: โWHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT.โ The first thing we ask of any new connection is how it began, and from that origin canโt help trying to augur its future.
The first telephone call in history, made by Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant on March 10, 1876, began with a bit of a paradox. โMr. Watson, come here; I want to see youโโa simultaneous testament to its ability and inability to overcome physical distance.
The cell phone began with a boastโMotorolaโs Martin Cooper walking down Sixth Avenue on April 3, 1973, as Manhattan pedestrians gawked, calling his rival Joel Engel at AT&T: โJoel, Iโm calling you from a cellular phone. A real cellular phone: a handheld, portable, real, cellular phone.โ
Excerpt from: Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths