PHOENIX (AP) — Al Gross, inventor of the walkie-talkie and a father of wireless communication, once said he believed he was born 35 years too soon. He died Dec. 21 in Sun City, Ariz., at age 82.
When Gross, who was born in Toronto and grew up in Cleveland, demonstrated his prototype pager at a medical conference in 1956, it flopped. Doctors told him they didn't want to be bothered during their golf games.
Decades later, it delighted him to see wide use of cellular phones and pagers, a technological offshoot from his first devices.