All language subtitles for The.Secret.Genius.of.Modern.Life.S02E03.Smartphone.1080p.HDTV.H264-DARKFLiX

Take three.

Hand speed.

Do you ever stop to consider
just how lucky we are

to be completely surrounded

by genuine wonders of human
ingenuity?

All of these super clever
bits of tech

designed just to make our lives
a little bit better.

The problem is, we're now
so used to these devices...

These are plug-ins?!

...that we've forgotten to remember
how clever they are.

I'm Professor Hannah Fry,

but you can think of me as your
extremely qualified tour guide...

Oh, my gosh.

Don't mess with me!

...to the secret genius
of everyday objects.

How do I get myself
in these situations?

In each episode, I'll take
one seemingly ordinary item...

...and I'll look at it...

Oh, yeah, there we go.

...in frankly obscene detail...

This tiny little bit is the thing
that makes your microwave work.

...meet the people who
helped make it...

We really like ears here,
we're kind of obsessed with them.

...and follow the twisty,
turny journey

through the history of
its invention.

Here, carelessness could bring
instant tragedy.

And fire.

This time, it's the smartphone.

Now, in our pockets,

we are literally carrying around
a supercomputer.

You've got this one single device

that your whole life goes through,
like there's...

PHONE RINGS

Can we have phones on silent,
please?

It's the story of South Korean
sausages in the noughties...

Delicious.

...1940s comic-book hero
Dick Tracy...

...and a massive commercial blunder
in the 1970s.

We did world-class research.

We just never told anybody about it.

Whether you're an iPhone fanatic
or a Google Pixel groupie...

...there is a smartphone
for every taste.

Talk to me.

And I've come to meet
the biggest of the brands, Samsung.

The South Korean electronics giant

shipped 260 million
swanky new smartphones last year.

I mean, our designers are crazy.

They just come up with
the shape that they dream about

and kind of,
"Oh, please build this!"

That is Dr Won-joon Choi,
Samsung's engineering big dog,

AKA head of smartphone
research and development.

Known for transformative tech,

this brand actually began
before the electronic age.

Not a lot of people know
that Samsung,

we actually started as a grocer.

In 1930s.

And selling a pack of noodles
and rice.

Really?

Yeah, and it was not until, like,
the 1960s, we move into electronics.

What? How does that happen,
to go from a grocer to making TVs?

Was quite a change.

Is this the first ever
Samsung phone?

That is our first mobile phone.

This phone was developed in 1988.

If you're of a certain age and
remember the bricks of the 1980s,

you'll realise that this Samsung
relic is missing

one of the most crucial parts.

The antenna.

Unfortunately,
the antenna was broken,

and we kind of tried to glue it
but, uh, because the material itself

is quite old and we kind of failed
to do so, so...

So, if you can notice the
commonality across these devices.

Yeah, of course, all of them...
All of them have...

...have this... ..external antenna.
Yeah.

Yes. Oh, my God.

Don't break the phone, just...

Is that valuable? I'm sorry.

Our smartphones can basically
do everything now.

Cheese.

They are magic multitaskers.

But what are
the technological game-changers

that have made this possible?

I'm going to take apart
the smartphone

and look at everything from
the camera to the touchscreen.

But I'm starting with the bit
that makes your phone a phone.

It's the tiny tech that
transforms your chat

into invisible radio waves
so you can make and receive calls

at the speed of light.

It's the antenna.

Well, we don't have an antenna
sticking out of our smartphone.

So, where is it?

As a matter of fact,
this is the antenna.

The back of the phone?

This, the metal body itself,
that is the antenna.

So, hang on, the whole thing?

Whole thing is antenna.
I mean, that's very clever.

Yeah,
and then there are secrets here.

So, it's not a single antenna
in this body.

We have nine antennas
in this metal body.

Right, get your phone out.

Around the edges, you'll see these
little gaps in the metal frame.

They are breaks
between the different antennae.

This is a break line, right?

So, this segment is one antenna.

So, it's like you are kind
of chunking it out. Yeah.

So, that is entirely separate
and not touching this one?

That's right.

That is so clever.

But why do we need nine?

Well, to give you the best
chance of getting a signal,

some are tuned to
different frequencies

and others work together to make
sure that your call connects.

If you remember, they're like
the TV antennas on your roof.

And if you don't get a kind of good
TV signal, what do you do?

You go up to, climb to the...

I mean, maybe you do!

Climb to the roof and then you kind
of adjust, rotate your TV antennas.

Yeah. So, our multiple antennas
are working together,

digitally rotating your antenna pen.

So, if you are in a situation,
then,

when you don't have any signal,
right,

or you're really struggling
for signal,

and then I think people's normal
reaction is to do this.

But how you are describing it is
that the phone's doing that.

Phone is doing that. Already?

Phone is already doing it.
Without you even noticing?

Yeah, without you even noticing it.

We do all the work.

The wonder of wireless communication
may seem 21st century,

but the story of how we got it
goes back over 100 years

to the discovery of those radio
waves that your phone's antenna uses

to make and receive calls.

To understand the fundamental
principles of the antenna,

it is first necessary to have
a conception of how radio waves

are generated and how they behave.

So, let me introduce you
to our antenna ancestor,

Guglielmo Marconi,
AKA the Father of Radio.

In 1897, at just 23 years of age,

Marconi sent the world's first
long-distance radio message

and kicked off the radio revolution
as we know it.

The familiar voice of radio brings
endless hours of entertainment,

information and cheer.

Radio sets allowed you
to tune in to voices from afar,

and two-way radios,
or walkie-talkies,

gave people the freedom
to chat wirelessly.

Just as long as they didn't mind
carrying around

up to 16 kilos of equipment.

And there's one super special
radio device

that plays a crucial role
in our story...

Oh, my God, it's so beautiful.

...the car phone.

Car phones,
if you remember them at all,

they're really associated
with cars like this, right?

Like, really ostentatious,
over-the-top status symbols of power

and wealth from the '80s and '90s.

But actually, the car phone,
this is the thing that paved

the way for the entire mobile phone
network that we use today.

Buy, buy, buy.

No, sell.

Uh, what else do people do
that's, like...?

Sure, the car phone was
an '80s status symbol,

but they actually rolled onto
the scene in the 1940s.

Lee Construction Company,
Martin speaking.

Hello, George. This is Mark.

And it was that early car phone that
led to today's mobile phone network.

The car phone's antenna transmitted
a call using radio waves

to a base station.

After the call reaches
the receiving station antenna,

it is handled like a regular
telephone call.

So long, George. Goodbye.

And that sounds like
a modern mobile miracle, right?

Well, there was a problem.

Hi. Hello.

Jump in.

Fancy car! Thank you so much.

I mean, really,
you should be in the back, but...

My passenger today is Dr Mona Jaber.

Right, tell me
a bit more about this problem, Mona.

So, it used to be that
they had this massive antenna

in the middle of the city
to cover all of the area.

And everybody who has a car phone
would connect to that tower,

but not all the time.

It was very limited
to only three people

being able to connect at one point.

Three people? Only three people.

So, there was only three channels.

It's like, oh, there's been an
emergency, I just need to call 999.

Allow me to just see

if one of the only three channels
in the entire city is available!

The problem was capacity.

Each call took up a channel
and so the single base station

could only ever handle
a few calls at once.

With so many customers often
competing for a channel,

many calls simply could not be made
because, more often than not,

the line was busy.

How can you pack in more channels?

Well, the answer came
from Bell Labs, the research centre

named after the famed telephone
inventor, Alexander Graham Bell.

In 1947, a bright spark at Bell Labs
had an idea.

Ring, ring. Our hero is calling.

His name is Douglas Ring.

And he...

Sorry, did you say
his name was Mr Ring?

Yes! I know!

Oh, man. It was good enough,
Alexander Bell.

It's like, that's good enough,
but Mr Ring, this is...

Go on, what did Mr Ring do?
Absolutely.

Well, Mr Ring, he could see it
and he thought, well,

why have this massive tower and only
three people can use that signal?

Why don't we lower down that mast

and reduce the coverage to
a small cell and then repeat that?

Rather than just one
in the middle of the city, say,

you have one in the north,
one in the south, one in the east,

one in the west, and then
rather than just three users,

you can suddenly have 12.
Is that...? Exactly.

Mr Ring suggested creating
a network of base stations,

each covering
a much smaller area, or cell.

Cells adjacent to one another
must use different channels.

But the same channels can be reused
simultaneously in different

cell sets when the separation
distance is great enough.

But it turns out that building
a massive antenna infrastructure

wasn't that easy.

It would take 30 years
to make Mr Ring's idea a reality.

The new system - a channel
is always available.

As soon as you get your number
and it's dialled,

bang, it goes right through.

By the 1970s,
thanks to the early car phone,

we now had a network that you could
connect to with a phone's antenna,

just as long as you had a fancy car,
complete with 15kg of kit.

But what we didn't have yet
was a truly mobile phone.

Luckily, one man had a vision.

I took the phone off his desk,
and I cut the wire off the phone

and held it up to him.

I said, "That is
what a cellular telephone is.

"No wire."

Meet 94-year-old Marty Cooper,

the father of the cellphone.

In 1972,
Marty was working as an engineer...

Every tool you might possibly need.

...at a little radio comms company
called Motorola.

Up till that time
when you called a number,

you were calling a location, you
were calling a home or a business.

Marty believed that
a telephone number should relate

to a person - not a place or a car.

What we needed was
a handy, hand-held option.

Real inspiration for the hand-held
phone was Dick Tracy.

Come out.

Because Dick Tracy had
a wrist phone.

So, we went through
exactly the same thing,

the idea that the phone
in the person's hand

is an extension of the person.

Their challenge was packing
the day's massive radio tech

into something you could carry.

As simple a thing as talking
and listening at the same time,

but doing that with a small device
you could hold in your hand.

They needed to miniaturise
a complicated bit of tech

called a duplexer,
which allows you to transmit

and receive on one antenna,
simultaneously.

This is the insides of this phone.

This is the duplexer,
the thing that allows you to talk

and listen at the same time.

You can't see it, but the duplexer
is a small strip of metal

hidden deep inside Marty's handset.

It used one frequency for talking
and another for listening,

which means no more over and out.

Previous to this, this little box
here was bigger than the size of

your fist and would've occupied
half the size of this thing.

This phone weighed two kilos

and you can try it yourself
if you want, but it worked.

And so, on the 3rd of April 1973,

Marty called
a very special press conference

to reveal Motorola's masterpiece.

I wanted to demonstrate

how important this phone
was going to be,

and actually make a phone call.

That first call was
to Marty's rival, Joel Engel,

an engineer at our favourite
telephone company, Bell Labs.

I said, "Joel, I'm calling you
from a cellphone,

"but a real cellphone, a personal,
portable, hand-held cellphone.”

Silence on the other end
of the line.

I think he was gritting his teeth!

Oh, Marty, you cheeky devil!

Maybe Joel wasn't over the moon,

but the general public
saw the potential.

People were excited.

They could not understand
how somebody could be talking

on what looked like a telephone,
but there were no wires on it.

It was the first ever
cellphone call,

but it would take ten more years
of research and development

before Motorola launched
their phone.

I named the phone the DynaTAC -
Dynamic Total Area Coverage.

This unique cellular portable
made by Motorola,

which weighs only 30 ounces...

Yeah, people called it The Brick!

By the 1980s, we finally had
everything we needed -

a mobile phone...

This one will become
my personal phone

which I can take with me
wherever I go.

...and a mobile phone network.

Our desire for smaller,
sleeker devices

put pressure on the designers
to hide that antenna.

First, they went inside the phone -
an in-tenna, if you will.

But then, as space became a premium,
our antennas went into the frame.

Unfortunately, this brought with it
a historic antenna boo-boo

which will forever be known
as Antennagate.

Do you remember this little guy?

This dinky little iPhone 47

It worked brilliantly

unless you were holding the phone
in your left hand.

Apple has placed the antennas
of the device on the outside

of the phone here,
forming the case itself.

And there's a small gap in it
just there.

Hold the phone in your left hand
and your hand bridges over the gap.

This caused your signal to drop.

Now, Steve Jobs had
a solution to this.

He says, "Very simple.

"Just, um,
just don't use your left hand!"

We didn't think it'd be
a big problem.

And so, they had to come up
with a different solution.

OK, great.

Let's give everybody a case.

Looks like it's just a protector.

Actually, what this is doing
is it's creating a buffer.

Your hand is no longer
touching the phone

and it's just enough that
you could actually make a call.

But our antennas are still
on the frames of our phones.

Is this still a problem?

Back to Won-joon.

Depending on how they kind of...
how people hold a phone,

what if people kind of block
one of the antennas,

what's going to happen?

So, we need to put multiple of them

so that at least
one of them can work.

So, our meaty mitts will likely
block one antenna at some point,

but never fear.

With multiple antennas working away,
your call will still go through.

Lucky, really,

as apparently we touch our phones
over 2,000 times a day.

So, let's talk about the bit
that bears the brunt

of all of that tapping.

Our next component is the window
into the world of our smartphone.

It's the fiendishly clever tech
that allows us to pinch,

tap and swipe right.

It's the touchscreen.

Hi. Hi.
Can I have two dogs, please?

Sure. Thank you very much.

OK, I want you to imagine
for a moment it's 2010

and you are in South Korea,

and it is one of the coldest
winters on record.

There's snow everywhere,
and everyone, as they have a habit

of doing in winter, is getting
really annoyed about the fact that

they can't use their smartphones
while they're wearing gloves.

Now the Koreans... Thank you.

...they resort to using
something else.

Sausages.

Lots of people decided
to use sausages

as meat styluses for their phones.

And you know what?

It actually works!

"Please excuse typos.

“I'm writing with a sausage."

I spent eight years at university
studying mathematics

and this is where it's got me!

Now, this became so popular that,
uh, one sausage manufacturer

said that they actually had
a 40% increase in sales.

Anyway, once you've, uh,
wiped all the greasy sausage slime

off your phone, you are left with a
very handy treat for your way home.

Delicious.

What could bangers do
that gloves couldn't?

It's all down to some
hidden physics.

You might imagine that the
screen on your smartphone is just

a simple sheet of toughened glass,
but actually, hiding inside it

is a very fine mesh of
something called indium tin oxide.

Indium tin oxide has
a very special quality,

which is that it is able to store,
charge and conduct electricity.

You can't see it
on your phone screen

because the mesh is transparent.

So, let me explain what it does
using something that we CAN see -

a phone case
and some polystyrene balls.

In the real phone,

you have got a layer of glass
which acts as an insulator.

Using plastic here.

And then underneath it, that
grid of indium tin oxide is charged,

which creates an electric field.

And that is something
we can mimic using this

and a woolly jumper

in order to just impart some
static electricity magic in there.

Rubbing it on my gran's
woolly jumper.

It's actually the director's,
but she's...

...she dresses like an 80-year-old,
um...

SHE CHUCKLES

So, my polystyrene balls are now the
stored electric charges in the grid.

But our bodies actually
have something in common

with indium tin oxide, which is that
we, too, are able

to store, charge and conduct
electricity.

And so, when the charge
from my finger comes close

to the charge stored
in this grid on the phone,

it disturbs the electrostatic field.

This is not me
pushing these balls around here.

It's the interaction between
the stored charges

of these two conductors, your finger
and the grid inside your phone

that makes this touchscreen work.

Your phone's processor can detect
these field changes

and pinpoint the exact location of
your touch, and voila -

a touchscreen.

And that essentially means
that anything that has

that similar property,
anything that also can store, charge

and conduct electricity, will be
able to make your touchscreen work.

So, something like a sausage
will do very nicely,

or just get yourself a handy pickle,
which will work just as well.

My phone is going to stink.

Like the pickle,

we are mostly made from salty water
and that's what allows us

to store, charge
and conduct electricity.

But materials that are insulators -

something like a fork,
for instance -

and don't allow electricity
to pass through,

they won't work.

Not doing anything
and neither does a gloved hand.

But how did we get
to the touchscreen of today?

To find out, we're going to take
a little trip to the 1960s...

...the golden age of air travel.

A wonderful journey
is about to begin.

It's the job of the air traffic
controllers on the ground

to protect the lives in the skies.

Each flight is identified
by their call sign.

American 1017, can you come
west just a little bit?

Call sign sierra kappa 501,
clear for take-off.

The controllers would type
this unique code

and computers would process
the flight information,

but with so much air traffic,

precision was required,
and the stakes were high.

Here, carelessness could bring
instant tragedy.

Every single one of these call signs
is five to seven characters long.

And if you are typing them in, that,
especially if you're doing so

in a pressured environment where
there's lots and lots going on,

it is very easy to make mistakes.

Tango delta eight,
six uniform Yankee.

Woo! Hang on, hang on!

The complexity of the operation
threatens always to overwhelm

the thought processes
of the mere human mind.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER CHATTER

Enter EA Johnson, whose name
itself sounds like a call sign.

He has an absolutely brilliant idea,
an ingenious one,

a way to help air traffic
controllers ditch the keyboard.

Instead,
he suggested a touchable screen.

I've made my own computer
and this one's out of cardboard.

And, believe it or not, this is
going to work as a way to improve

air traffic control,
because EA Johnson,

he knew all about this idea
of charge being stored

within our bodies.

He knew about how,
when two electric fields come close,

they disturb one another.

So, he had this brainwave.

What if you stretch out
a piece of copper wire

and then connect it up
to a computer?

Then, surely you'll be able
to detect the moment

when the stored charge
in your finger comes close.

BEEP

HIGH-PITCHED BEEP

It's not a mechanical button
that I'm pressing here.

This only works because my touch
changes the electrical charge

in the copper wire.

BEEPS CONTINUE

And this was the basis of Johnson's
revolutionary touchscreen.

But you have to imagine that,
in an air traffic control centre,

what you have is something
that's just a touch more elaborate.

You have a screen in front of you

where you lay out a series of
copper wires, like this,

and each one of them...

DIFFERING BEEPS

...can be detected separately.

And then, of course,

if you know where your finger's
going to be on a screen,

you can just label each one
of these patches of the screen

with a different word.

So, you can lay out
all of the various call signs

that are relevant, one to a wire.

Now, the key thing about this is
these are not buttons -

this is just something
that is detecting

when your finger is coming close.

And that means that you can
integrate this into a screen

and then you can project up
behind these wires

whatever it is that you want.

Now, when the pilots radio in,
all the controller had to do

is touch the correct sign,
rather than type it in.

Johnson had created a system
that was flexible,

much, much faster than anything that
had gone before, but crucially,

also much less prone to error.

It was the world's first
finger-friendly touchscreen.

However, in Johnson's device,
you could see the copper wires.

The next big development was making
one completely transparent.

It's 1976, and CERN, the European
Organization for Nuclear Research,

have just opened the control room
for their new particle accelerator.

This is a complex place.

More than 10,000 things to control,
7,000 things to measure

and 30,000 status to survey.

In their control room, running this
whole operation was a touchscreen.

This advanced version
used copper on the glass

in such tiny amounts
that it was invisible -

the first transparent touchscreen.

This is done by touch buttons,

a new device which can present
up to 16 buttons at a time.

After that,
computers got pretty hands-on.

One ordinary finger and one rather
extraordinary TV screen.

The next big breakthrough
was multi-touch systems.

They still contained
an invisible mesh of wires,

but better processing power meant
that they could now recognise

more than a single tap.

But this fast-fingered tech
wasn't yet mainstream...

...until, in 2007,

one device brought touchscreens
to the masses -

the iPhone.

And to unlock the phone, I just
take my finger and slide it across.

GASPS AND APPLAUSE

This revolutionary screen
removed the buttons

and changed our phones' form.

But of course, we don't just
use our smartphones for making calls

and typing texts.

Smile!

It's time for our next component.

It's the super sensitive sensor
that turns your humble phone

into a camera.

Your questionable selfies
are only possible

because of the hardware
hidden deep in your device.

It's the digital camera sensor.

To be honest, these days, I take
more photos than I make phone calls.

Right, Hannah, how many photos
do you have?

36,564.

Um, would you like to know how
many of them are selfies?

SHE GIGGLES

Ooh!

Let's move on.

OK, I'm actually blushing.

Give me that number.
How many selfies?

5,249!

Right, where was 1?

Ah, yes, hunting for
my digital camera sensor.

Oh, hi!

Welcome to my phone shop.

This is where we don't fix phones,
we break them apart.

Fear not, phone fans.

We don't have an actual knife,
do we?

This sickly smartphone...

Oh.

...was already destined
for recycling.

This is so neat and tightly packed.

And here is the camera.

The sensor is behind the lens.

Oh, there we go, there we go,
I'm in, I'm in.

SHE GASPS
And there you go.

This bit that I've got
a massive grubby fingerprint on,

this is the important bit.

To understand how
this tiny sensor takes photos,

we need to know how
traditional film photography works.

You will be familiar
with old-school cameras...

...where you take a picture.

I mean, it's going to be a selfie,
isn't it?

Essentially, what's happening here
is that you have a rectangle

that is covered in a layer
of chemicals that react to light.

Light is just
these packets of energy.

They're called photons.

And as they come in
and bounce onto this chemical,

it changes the chemical structure
of the film...

...and produces an image.

I mean, that's a great selfie.

That's 5,368!

Now, in a camera on your phone,
you need some way

of transferring those photons
that are bouncing around

in the form of light
into something digital.

It's essentially like
a very miniature solar panel.

And what it's doing at its heart
is the same job

as the chemistry was doing
over here.

The sensor, or solar panel,
is made up of

light-sensitive solar cells,
known as pixels.

Ever heard of those?

But let's imagine that this just has
four pixels on it for a moment.

Each one of those is effectively
measuring the amount of light

that's coming in and translating it
into an electrical current.

There'll be a bit of light
that bounces in,

and you get a reading from that bit.

Another bit of light
that bounces in,

you get a reading,
and so on and so on.

But the problem is,
is if you've only got four pixels,

it's not a particularly good photo.

So instead,
these modern phone cameras,

they don't have just four pixels
or even thousands of pixels.

Inside this particular one,

there are 200 million
very, very small cells,

and all around they're creating
this grid

where light is coming in
and hitting.

It's like building a mosaic,
pixel by pixel,

to eventually create a photo.

And the more and more pixels
that you add,

the more and more detail
that you get.

Until, eventually, you get
something that is...

Hang on, hang on a...

Ahhh!

It's the director's doggy!

Until, eventually, if you've got
something like 200 million

of these tiny little light panels,
you end up with something

that can create these
intensely detailed photographs.

Don't really like that picture,
though!

I mean of me - not the dog.

But how did we get
the tiny camera sensor of today?

The answer lies back with Bell Labs.

It's 1969 and
the dawn of the age of computers.

Large computers can remember

and keep tab on
millions of bits of data.

Engineers Willard Boyle
and George Smith were tasked

with creating a memory chip
for these newfangled machines.

The story goes that they sat down
for a quick brainstorm

and ended up designing
a totally new type of tech -

the CCD.

These CCDs were actually invented
in about one hour.

Sadly, it doesn't stand for
a couple of clever designers,

but charge-coupled device.

Although it worked,
the CCD was slow to store data,

and so their design was shelved.

Hold it right there.

Just hold it right there.

But all was not lost,

because the CCD worked by converting
light energy into electronic charge.

And one young engineer figured
out that there might be a way

to use that in cameras.

Now, he must have been
big into photography

to make such a breakthrough, right?

Might surprise people to know
I didn't own a camera.

I was just
interested in electronics.

Ah.

Meet electronic engineer
Steve Sasson.

In 1973, fresh out of university,

Steve started working
with camera giants Kodak.

Whether on film, cameras
or photographic paper,

you can always depend on the name
Kodak.

Barely through the door,

his new boss set him
a rather vague task.

He said, "Well, listen, I'd like
you to look at a new type of device

"called the charge-coupled device.

"Play around with it and see
if there's anything useful

"we can do with it."

That changed my life forever.

Steve knew that the sensor
was made up of an array

of light-sensitive elements on
its surface - pixels, to you and me.

The output of the CCD was
a pulse of voltage that,

the higher it was, the more light
there was at that pixel.

Problem was, those pulses of voltage
disappeared quickly.

After, like, 100 milliseconds,
it would start to fade.

He needed a way
to store that information.

And so, he tried a new process,

basically turning pulses
into numbers...

...or, to translate that tech talk,

he was making a digital image.

And so, I have an electronic version
of an image,

in digital form, stored.

So, I realised I was building
kind of a camera.

Not just any camera.

The world's first digital camera.

The camera itself is not compact.

The camera is about
the size of a toaster.

Weighs about
eight and a half pounds.

But the big question - could
his toaster actually take a picture?

I walked down the hallway
and there was a young lady there,

a lab technician.

I knew her - her name was Joy.

I said, "Can I take a picture
of you?"

I framed her up
and I just took a shot.

I pushed the button.

Steve's camera didn't have a screen.

They had to view the prototype's
picture on a TV.

When it came up,
we were just so delighted.

There it was!

The image was aligned,
the pixels were in the right place!

Oh, yeah, sure, the face is
completely screwed up.

But that's a detail, right?

Well, that's what we thought.

But Joy had followed us into the
room because she was curious,

and she stood by the doorway.

And I'L never forget,
we turned around, looked at her

and she said, "Needs work,"
and walked away!

Absolutely iconic behaviour
from Joy there.

She might not have been impressed,

but it was a critical
proof of concept for Steve.

I wasn't consuming any film.

I wasn't using any paper.

It was all electronic.

I thought that was a cool idea,

not thinking that that was
sort of against the whole business

model for the photographic
industry for the last 100 years.

Take two, take three,

take four flash pictures
without changing bulb.

You see,
film was his company's money-maker.

Photos were taken using Kodak film,

processed by Kodak,

printed on Kodak paper.

Can you guess how Kodak reacted?

They weren't interested
in anything I had to say.

They were interested in why,
why this was important.

Why would anybody want to look at
their pictures on a television set?

What's wrong with prints?
People love prints.

I wasn't prepared for that.

I went from, you know,

a happy-go-lucky guy to...

...you know, kind of thing!

Kodak patented Steve's design,

but in one of the biggest corporate
blunders of all time,

they wouldn't commit to digital.

We did world-class research.
We just never told anybody about it.

And the reason we never told
anybody about it was because, well,

fundamentally,
we didn't like the answer.

Sure, they made some money
from the patent,

but they lost the bigger prize.

While Kodak hesitated,
other companies jumped on board

and digital took off.

Steve's work was only recognised
decades after his invention.

I'm sitting here telling you about
a technical report and a project

that I was not allowed
to publicly talk about at all

until the year 2001.

Kodak didn't embrace digital
photography until it was too late.

And by 2012,
they were almost bankrupt.

Now,
it looks like an ordinary camera

and taking pictures
is the same as before.

Smile, please.

The next generation of digital
sensors got smaller, better

and cheaper.

But how did they end up
in our phones?

Well, that is all thanks to
a crazy trend that swept through

the arcades of Japan.

SHE LAUGHS

Little photo booths,
also known as purikura,

were popping up.

And the aim was to take
the cutest pics possible...

...as my daughter will help me
demonstrate.

Oh, well timed! That was great!

The booths became big business.

Right, which ones do you like?

By 1997, there were over 50,000.

Oh, I like it.

So, a Japanese company, Sharp,
they decided to hop on this trend

and to build a little camera
into a mobile phone.

You've got 0.1 megapixels
in this thing

compared to about 200
that you get now.

But it's also got
a little mirror just there

so you can see yourself as you are
getting ready to take your photo.

To get this phone to market,

Sharp needed the backing of one
of the mobile network operators.

Japan's smallest operator, J-Phone,
risked it.

They ordered 2,000 phones
with the new camera,

but 8,000 without it.

While the standard version
stayed on the shelves,

the camera phone sold out.

When this phone was released,
it made quite the splash.

The BBC asked people
what they thought about it.

This insightful comment
is from Johanna in Finland.

"It could be handy for delicate
investigation or infiltration.

"Who would know to
look for a camera on a phone?"

Who indeed?

There's also this,
from Miles Brown in England.

"I would use the camera phone to
take pictures of my best friend,

"my dog, Benson."

By the early 2000s, mobile phones
got cameras on the front, too.

Now it was much easier
to snap yourself.

And with every new smartphone model
since,

our selfies have got
better and better.

That is because of
the hidden software at its heart.

Back to Samsung.

Do you have any selfies
on your camera?

Uh, let's not talk about that!

Meet Dr Mike Polley,

camera software specialist.

Say cheese.

So, let's just take a selfie.

We'll think about some
of the technology that's involved.

You press the button once,
but in less than a second,

the latest smartphone cameras
actually capture multiple pictures.

Well, in this case,
I believe we captured 12 images.

Why on earth would you take 12, if
you're holding it in the same place?

Are they the same image?

They are very slightly different.
OK.

But, using computer vision
techniques, using algorithms,

using Al to recombine
all that information together,

it will create
one really good picture.

Each of the 12 frames are exposed
and coloured differently.

In the blink of an eye,
their Al systems analyse the scene

and then recognise
the important parts.

Ah, whoa, it's really green!
Look at that.

It selects the best bits...

And here, it's completely washed
out, but you and I look pretty good.

...and then combines them.

This subtle Al enhancement makes you
a better photographer,

without you even realising.

So, whether you are a selfie fiend
or camera-shy,

there is no doubt that the digital
camera sensor has changed our world.

Of course, it was a big innovation

to be able to put a camera
inside a phone.

But then, just that simple jump,
that one extra step,

of switching it round
from the back to the front

has had this profound impact
on society.

It's changed our standards
of beauty.

And I think it's really changed
how we see ourselves.

And I think there's something
kind of interesting about,

every now and then,

technology isn't just
this thing that we create...

...it's actually something
that can end up changing who we are.

Now, if you think the tech
in your phone's camera is clever,

just you wait until I tell you
about the bit

that makes your smartphone smart.

Our final component is
the clever code that allows

the software in your apps to speak
to the hardware in your handset.

It's all embedded into a chip
the size of your little fingernail.

It's the operating system.

Be it Apple iOS or Android,

you are interacting
with your phone's operating system

all the time.

So, it's the operating system that
takes your phone from being a phone

to a smartphone, because it allows
the phone to perform many tasks.

Multitask, essentially.

What would a phone look like
without one?

It would be absolute chaos, I guess!

This is OS oracle
Dr Sandra Siby.

Time for operating system 101.

Binary joke there for you!

The operating system, you can
think of it as a middleman.

So, when you use a phone,
you have your processor,

you have your memory,
your bunch of sensors,

and the operating system
is seamlessly managing

how the apps access these resources.

Every time you unlock your phone,
open an app or snap a selfie,

your clever OS is the bit
processing that request,

giving access to the hardware
and generally making it all happen.

So it's like this little
sort of manager with a clipboard

and sort of running everything.

That is exactly how,
I mean, at least I think about it.

And let me tell you,
it is one bossy manager.

The average OS can process up to
3 billion instructions per second.

That is because your hardworking
operating system

is also your window
to the outside world,

managing everything from
your Bluetooth to your GPS sensor.

To understand what my OS gets up to,

I've given Sandra access
to my precious phone.

Building this profile,
like, it also gives me some insight

into, like, what your daily life
looks like, in a way.

To be honest, this is starting
to feel like an intervention.

Right, Hannah, that's us clear.

OK, all right, here we go.

So, you can see actually that
the operating system is handling

a bunch of network requests.

So, this is every time it's talking
to a tower, essentially? Yes.

There were, like,
thousands of network requests.

Oh, my Lord.

I mean, I'm basically
never off my phone.

Even for the brief moments
when I'm not on my phone,

my OS is still working away,

managing files
or searching for Wi-Fi.

It also logs, like,
all the Wi-Fi access points

that you have connected to before

and occasionally it scans those
to see

if it's there in the vicinity.

And that can actually be used
to give an idea

of where you've been as well.

Do you know the countries
I've been to?

A few, probably. Yes.

Like, I know you probably visited
Iceland at some point.

SANDRA CHUCKLES

Yeah.

And... Wow.

...you've been to a bunch of hotels.

Yeah, and then Premier Inns,
quite a lot of Premier Inns.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My phone is a more accurate
record of the life that I've lived

than my own brain. Yeah.

Our amazing operating system
is intuitive and easy to use.

But where did it come from?

For a lot of computing history,

we've communicated
with these machines using code.

To get the computer
to do your bidding,

you needed to speak its language.

You write a program, a complete,
detailed list of every operation

the computer must perform
to solve the problem.

That meant that these very clever
computers could only be used

by very clever computer scientists
who'd learned the lingo.

Computing is going to be
more and more interwoven

with people's lives
as the years go by.

So, computer technology is
going to have to evolve

to be easier for people to use.

So, how did we go from complicated
computer coding

to apps that we can just tap?

Well, that is thanks to
a famous photocopier company

and a bunch of kids.

So, in the 1970s, everyone is very
excited about this computer-led,

utopic vision of the future.

Everyone, that is, apart from Xerox,

a company who've put
quite a lot of money into paper.

When we say the Xerox 914
makes copies on ordinary paper,

we mean ordinary paper.

Xerox realised that they had
to get on board the tech train

and so, they set up
their own computing hub,

the Palo Alto Research Center,
or PARC.

Their aim was to build
a simple personal computer

that anyone could use.

And how did they check their new
computer was easy to operate?

Well, they recruited some kids
to test it out.

There'd been various computer
programs,

like at my elementary school, and
it'd always been for boys only,

you know,
which kind of BLEEP me off!

That's Marian Goldeen

and I like her already!

In 1973, she was a computer-curious
12-year-old.

They didn't say
anything about boys only.

And I was like, you know, "Me!"

At the Research Center,
Marian and the kid cohort

were introduced to a revolutionary
new computer - the Xerox Alto.

It was the first computer
to use a graphical user interface -

the delightfully nicknamed GUI.

Instead of boring lines of computer
code, there were symbols,

there were images, there were menus.

And ways that you could interact
with it by pointing

with this pointer device.

That was the first time
I saw a mouse.

How did you feel about it,

the idea that
you could do something with a mouse,

and it would appear on a screen?

It was...it was
basically like magic.

The graphical operating system
was revolutionary

because you didn't have to input
complicated code.

Instead, you could just click
a symbol or select from a menu and

the computer would translate that
click into code behind the scenes.

Can you imagine seeing this, though,

when you've never seen
a computer before and being...

It would be crazy...
It would be exciting.

...seeing something like that.

To show you just what
this 1970s system could do,

I recruited my own crack
team of researchers.

You've just got a menu
and four drawing shapes.

And that was really
revolutionary, by the way.

The idea that there's,
like, a drop down menu.

They had to invent this.

You could draw,
you could make shapes.

Star! Yeah. Star. Yes.

Big one. Oh, my gosh!

And they created the feature that
we all know and love - scrolling.

Wow!

And look - today's computer-savvy
kids are still impressed!

Can I watch videos there?

Can you watch videos? No.

Yeah, OK, maybe not that impressed.

But back in 1979,
one person saw its potential.

The story goes that one day

this neighbouring tech entrepreneur
swings by and has a little look

at the things that
they've been developing.

This tech entrepreneur, by the way,
goes by the name of Steve Jobs.

Computer scientist Larry Tester

demonstrated the GUI system
for Jobs.

So, he started saying things like,
"You're sitting on a gold mine.

"This is insanely great.

"It is just amazing.

"Why aren't you doing
anything with this?"

Jobs asked them
to share their secrets

and the oblivious Xerox executives
agreed.

And so, they allow the codes
to go over to Steve Jobs.

And then, I mean,
the rest is kind of history.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

A smartphone that
you put in your pocket,

and you pull out and
you handle directly through touch

is very much a culmination
of these ideas.

What do you do now?

I work at software engineering
at Apple.

In fact, I work on
user interface engineering!

It's thanks to the Xerox Alto system

and the coding kids of the 1970s
that your smartphone

has an interface so simple
that even a toddler can use it.

Since the arrival of
the first-generation iPhone,

designers have stuck pretty closely
to this original form,

a humble rectangular slab which may
or may not fit into your pocket.

So, what's next for our smartphones?

This is the future.

Every kind of progress has
a beginning, a starting point,

and then someone has to move ahead

and take the step
that might make tomorrow better.

Most of us spend around four hours
a day glued to our device.

But one new smartphone manufacturer
is targeting those of us

trying to reduce our screen time.

It's quite a big thing to be like,
you know what,

I'm just going to make
my own smartphone. Yeah.

And a few small brands around.
Yeah.

Just, just a couple of little
competitors.

Just tiny ones, yeah, yeah.

Meet Akis Evangelidis.

He's the co-founder
at tech start-up Nothing.

I'm sure it has happened
multiple times

where you open it to do something,

but eventually you end up going
through a shopping app

or social media.
I wake up and an hour has passed!

Exactly.

To try and stop
the lure of the screen,

Nothing have redesigned
a smartphone,

starting with the back.

Here, 33 LED lights -
they call them glyphs -

flash when you get a notification.

You can basically customise
each of those LED strips

to different contacts
or different notification.

So, by just looking
at the back of your phone,

you will sort of understand
what's going on, on your phone.

That way you can prioritise
only the important stuff.

So, this is, like, inner circle.

So, for me, any kind of family
members are assigned to this.

Sooner or later,
you'll have to flip that phone,

but to stop you
getting into a scroll hole,

they've changed the interface.

Like, all the apps, you know,

they've been engineered
to kind of grab your attention.

They want you to spend
as much time as possible

so that they can generate
as much ad revenue and so on.

So, they've removed the enticing
colours and made everything

black and white, which apparently
makes the apps easier to ignore.

And it sort of forces you a bit more
to ensure you do

what you meant to do

when you kind of unlock your phone.

Right now, you have the choice -

phones that allow you to do more

or phones that encourage you
to do less.

Which makes me wonder,
where is this all heading?

Back at Samsung,
I'm meeting Mr Future,

head of blue-sky thinking
and master of terrifying mottos.

My motto is
"innovation is about killing"!

We have a lot of very, very smart
ideas,

but innovation is really
picking the one

that will make a difference
for people,

which mean kill the 99.

That's Executive Vice President of
Samsung Electronics, Patrick Chomet.

I want to know what type of phones
people will be using

in, like, 2030 or 2040.

I think the way it will evolve
is beyond the smartphone.

So, I think the future is more the
set of devices which are around us

in any environment.

If you've got things for your ears,

if you've got things for your
fingers, things for your wrist,

things for your eyes, do you still
need to have this central device?

You need to be connected
to other human beings.

So, you need a piece of technology
that connects you to the world,

the internet and people.

If the future is using more devices,

I guess there is a big
elephant in the room here.

Somehow or other, as a world,
we've agreed that you should

change your smartphone
every couple of years.

And I do sort of wonder a little bit
about the sustainability of that.

So, that, to me, to us, is a huge
area of investment and innovation.

We have to become smarter.

A couple of things we are doing.

Number one, products should
last longer. It's very basic.

So, we make it more robust.

The second aspect is you want
to increase the life cycle.

So, when we launch a new phone,

we upgrade the software of the
previous devices to the same level.

Manufacturing a smartphone
is a difficult business,

requiring a jigsaw of
rare earth elements

with a big environmental cost.

And is this year's smartphone really
all that different to last year's?

Maybe we could all just be hanging
on to them for a bit longer.

Whatever the future of our phones,

these little devices
are the culmination

of 120 years of
engineering innovation,

and they have revolutionised
our lives.

I think this is quite an interesting
time to be making this program me

because I think
we're sort of reaching peak phone.

I think there's just
the beginnings of a feeling

that people want to step away
from them.

But even the manufacturers
at the very cutting edge

don't quite know
where we're going to go next.

Next time, it's the microwave.

It's the story of World War Il
radar technology...

Look how small it is!

...a 1970s rubber engineer...

Could you get that turntable?

I have a turntable.

...and a 19th-century
physics experiment.

How many volts
are you actually going to do?

118 elements.

How many do I think go
into producing a new mobile phone?

If you want to find out
how I answer

or learn more about how technology
can impact sustainability practices,

you can go to bbc.co.uk/secretgenius

and follow the links
to the Open University.