Telephony has come a long way—from Alexander Graham Bell to switchboards to auto-attendants to interactive voice response systems, from mechanical tools to computer-aided, Internet-based technologies.
And now this—the Magic W3: the world’s first handheld computer. Also a phone, by the way.
Most people identify the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), which came out in 1946, as the first true electronic computer. It might be more accurate to say it was the first publicly acknowledged computer, however, because there were other computers at the time (one at Harvard, one in England, one in Germany), but those were shrouded in secrecy because of World War II.
According to Time Magazine, the ENIAC was 30 tons—a behemoth the size of two 18-wheelers and filled with 19,000 vacuum tubes and 6,000 switches. By comparison, the Magic W3 is just slightly bigger than the average smartphone.
Yet the Magic W3 runs Windows 7, a full PC operating system. It also has an Intel 1.6 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, wireless connectivity, a 4.8-inch touchscreen and Bluetooth, among other things. It’s the real deal. Alexander Graham Bell wouldn’t know what to say.
