What Happened to Bell Labs?
Maybe you have had occasion to wonder what ever happened to AT&T Bell Labs, the famous R&D company whose roots go back 91 years to Alexander himself.
After all, Bell Labs researchers have been awarded eight Nobel prizes and brought us
things like lasers, radio astronomy, the transistor, Unix, and so on. You might also have
wondered what happened to Nokia Corp. — the Finnish communications company that
conned Microsoft into paying $7.7 billion for a dying line of smartphones (which
continues to decline in market share).
As it turns out, when Nokia acquired Alcatel-Lucent last year, Bell was part of the
deal, and it is now known as Nokia Bell Labs ( www.bell-labs.com). In a recent
interview, Bell president, Marcus Weldon expressed satisfaction with the merger and
confidence that the lab’s traditional approach of looking at projects “from the future,
back” will continue. This refers to the concept of looking a decade ahead and
imagining how to get there from here rather than just moving forward from wherever
you are.
According to Weldon, if Bell receives enough funding to maintain its traditions of
innovation and integrity, the future will remain very bright. He also noted that if that
doesn’t happen, the clearest sign will be that “I will leave.” Time will tell. NV
INDUSTRY and the PROFESSION
September 2016 11
CIRCUITS and DEVICES Continued
Never Lose Anything Again
You may as well admit it. You had this idea years ago, but just never came up with a way to implement it. Well, it’s
time to kick yourself, because the Chipolo wireless object
locator is here and available at chipolo.net. You just attach a
Chipolo disc to practically anything (keys, dog, wallet, crazy
Uncle Chester, etc.) and download the app to your
smartphone. As long as the item is within Chipolo’s Bluetooth
range (200 ft, or 61 m), you can make it play a loud tune.
If you can’t find
your phone, just
shake one of your
Chipolos, and the
phone will ring. If the phone is too far away, you can log onto the company’s
website app to see its last known location, make it ring, or send a lock-screen
message to anyone who has found or stolen it. The discs come in your choice
of nine colors, which can be coded to the attached item. You may as well stop
kicking yourself and buy a few. The price is $29.95 for a solo unit, $49.95 for a
pair, or $89.95 for a family four-pack. Each comes with an extra battery, which
is said to last six months. ▲
■ Bell Labs founder, none
other than Alexander Graham
Bell himself.
■ Chipolo keeps track of keys or
anything else.
