The concept of something like a cell phone may have begun with Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist radio in 1946; at that time radios were made with glass tubes and were usually much bigger than a breadbox. Even in the fifties and sixties with the advent of transistors, radios were considerably bigger than a pack of cigarettes. Although the first cell phone was actually invented in 1947 by Bell Labs it wasn’t until 1973 that Motorola developed a feasible cell phone and that was actually a car phone because it was too big and too heavy to carry.

Today cell phones are small enough to make a wrist radio possible, but apparently the style hasn’t and may never catch on. Their functionality has gone far beyond anything envisioned by Chester Gould (Dick Tracy’s creator) what with photography, email, text messaging and internet access.

In the early days of cell phone technology a single cell tower would serve a whole city, providing some twenty-five channels in all. Now each city is divided into dozens or more cells each providing nearly a thousand different frequencies allowing for millions of simultaneous users.

Cellular phones are normally battery-operated, and require very little power. The low power results in small batteries, and this makes small handheld cellular phones possible. Today digital phones process millions of calculations each second translating sounds to binary code and back again. The ability to do this together with modern miniaturization places them among the most revolutionary devices in the modern world.

The current list of cell phone accessories includes, antennas, cases, chargers, batteries, faceplates, headsets, holsters and keypads. There are more accessories being created all the time and variations on existing accessories proliferate indefinitely. Stylish cell phone faceplates can transform your cell phone and the available themes are quite astounding, including professional sports teams, psychedelic patterns and simple floral designs.

Recently "personalized" ringtones and ring-back tones have become popular. These sounds may consist of music, messages, or special effects. It is even possible to set different ringtones for different individuals so you can tell who is calling by the sound your phone makes.

Reverse Mobile is a cell phone service that anyone can use for a small fee. These are online services, which have gathered together information from public access databases. These resources assist anyone in searching for all sorts of information on people including their cell phone numbers.

At this point in time the latest development is probably the Iphone. Apple’s new pocket computer-cellphone-iPod- game player, it is at least the flashiest new kid on the block. I wonder if Microsoft will be inspired to sponsor a challenge to this advancement from a traditional rival. If they don’t I’m sure others will.

What other steps will there be on the road to microchip implants that give telepathic like abilities to communicate hands free with any person or computer on the planet. I suppose I may have read to many science fiction magazines, but this does seem to be the way we are headed.