I remember reading the colored comic strips section every Sunday in the newspaper.. One of my favorite main characters was Dick Tracy. Every week he would capture the bad guys by outsmarting them with his new secret wristwatch phone. As the years went by, the secret wristwatch was not only a phone, but through technology advancements, the phone also had a television screen on it ( Does that sound familiar?). Remember this was back in the fifties and sixties when Dick Tracy was using this type of technological gadgetry. With his famous phone/tv wristwatch, he was always out-smarting the crooks and bringing law and order to the big city.

I believe that the technology this comic strip portrayed helped fire up advancements in the real technology world of today.

Dick Tracys wristwatch gadget reminds me of todays cell phones and ipod/mp3 technology products forty years later. Dick Tracy is not popular in the comic strip any more, but the technology that he used is getting old, obsolete, even. We now have electronic products that are a hundred time better. The new technology is as small as a wristwatch but many more times faster and more capable.

I remember back in the late sixties and early seventies when the cell phones looked quite different than those of todays standards. They were ugly; they were about seven inches long, three to four inches wide, and three inches thick. They were also black with white numbers and had a long antenna. In order to operate the phone, you had to have a FCC licence and besides that, it could not be used for business or entertainment, only for on-site communications. They were expensive, and the majority of phones were used by the U.S. Government and utilities companies. The radio frequencies were bounced from one translator tower to another. Each transmission was recorded to make sure that the rules were followed ( Remember that Dick Tracy was using a small wristwatch with a phone and tv screen with video capabilities in the late sixties and early seventies).

In the late eighties, the federal government started getting pressure from the big companies to loosen up the restrictions on the federal airways. The private companies saw the potential in radio waves and many other types of frequencies. They lobbied Congress to purchase the air way frequencies. Also remember that Ma-Bell was being split up in the eighties and there were numerous private companies in competition with each other who purchased the rights to many of the air way frequencies, and with the development of technology and digital electronics, along with satellite transmissions, this soon gave way to the bustling, new cell phone industry.

With the major advancements in digital electronics, the increase in memory capacity, and the advent of smaller computer chips, have all catapulted electronic products to very high quality level. Multiple features in electronic products have helped cell phones become indispensable for everyone. For example land lines (regular telephone service) features offered are call waiting, caller identification, message recording, redial, and day and time.

Cell phones today offer the same features as the land lines, plus more, for small fee. Additional features are color digital camera, contact list calendar, built in recorder, text messaging, musical rings, ( My daughter has downloaded her cell phone with special songs for each of her frequent callers; my ring is the old song Big John). Other features are music downloads, Internet access, e-mail, blue tooth and blackberry capabilities, text pictures, and videos.

I have a cell phone that has more features than I know how to use. The main thing I use the cell phone for is calling or being contacted by friends and family. The other feature that I use is checking my e-mail when I am traveling. My phone slides in half. The lower half is a miniature keyboard so I can type or watch pictures or use the Internet display, even in wide angle. If I want to pay extra money, I can be hooked up to digital satellite.

So if you think about how far cell phones have advanced since Dick Tracys comic-strip, you could say, Dick Tracy, eat our dust!.

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