The Curious Case of the 103-Year-Old Car Phone [telecom]

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You think the mythology swirling around Apple and the iPhone is impressive? The ghost of Steve Jobs ain't got nothin' on Lars Magnus Ericsson.

As the lemmings line up across the country for their golden Apple communicators and the pundits hail the new iOS 7 mobile operating system as a work of otherworldly Ivian genius, let's take a moment to remember the late, great Lars -- the Swedish founder of the Ericsson radio and telephone empire.

The history books will tell you that in 1910, on a farm in Sweden, more than three decades before Steve Jobs was even born, Lars Magnus Ericsson invented the world's first car phone.