AuthorStephen Fry
NarratorStephen Fry
SeriesStephen Fry on the Phone Series, Book 4
Duration13m
CategoriesAdult Non-Fiction, Science and Nature
PublisherAudio Go Ltd
VersionUnabridged
Stephen Fry meets the brains behind the mobile phone. In this third episode, he looks at the discovery of text messaging. The engineers who designed the early texting facilities didn't imagine that anyone might want to reply. (Just in case, they added a short list of possible pre-set answers: yes, no and maybe). In the eighties, when network coverage really was patchy, voicemail was a way of charging people even more for a service that was already hugely expensive and basically rather poor. Before the invention of GSM, calling Estonia was the only way to pick up messages from another network. Texting triumphed when paging was all the rage, partly because paging services never seemed to work on Friday afternoon. Produced by Anna Buckley.
Stephen Fry On the Phone, Episode 1 Creating A Network
Author: Stephen Fry
Author Stephen Fry
Narrator Stephen Fry
SeriesStephen Fry on the Phone Series, Book 1
Duration 13m
Stephen Fry meets the brains behind the mobile phone. There are more mobile phones in the world than there are people on the planet: In this first episode, Stephen Fry explores the creation of the mobile phone network. Richard Frenkiel, a Bell Labs engineer, who created the cellular networks on which all mobile phones depend, was himself never part...
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Stephen Fry On the Phone, From Carphones To Executive Bricks
Author: Stephen Fry
Author Stephen Fry
Narrator Stephen Fry
SeriesStephen Fry on the Phone Series, Book 2
Duration 13m
Stephen Fry meets the brains behind the mobile phone. There are more mobile phones in the world than there are people on the planet: Stephen Fry talks to the backroom boys who made it all possible and hears how the technology succeeded, in ways that the geeks had not necessarily intended. In this second episode, he traces the evolution of the mobil...
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Stephen Fry On the Phone, the Chips That Smartphones Smart
Author: Stephen Fry
Author Stephen Fry
Narrator Stephen Fry
SeriesStephen Fry on the Phone Series, Book 5
Duration 13m
Stephen Fry meets the brains behind the mobile phone. Today, 85% of the silicon chips inside all mobile phones are designed by one Cambridge-based company, ARM. Two computer engineers needed some micro-processors but didn't like what they saw and decided to make their own. Strapped for cash, they designed chips that were small, cheap and exceptiona...
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Stephen Fry On the Phone, the Accidentaldiscoveroftext
Author: Stephen Fry
Author Stephen Fry
Narrator Stephen Fry
SeriesStephen Fry on the Phone Series, Book 3
Duration 13m
Stephen Fry meets the brains behind the mobile phone. In this third episode, he looks at the discovery of text messaging. The engineers who designed the early texting facilities didn't imagine that anyone might want to reply. (Just in case, they added a short list of possible pre-set answers: yes, no and maybe). In the eighties, when network covera...
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Author: Stephen Fry
Author Stephen Fry
Narrator Stephen Fry
Duration 8h 28m
Stephen Fry's breathtakingly outrageous debut novel, by turns eccentric, shocking, brilliantly comic and achingly romantic. Adrian Healey is magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life; unprepared too for the afternoon in Salzburg when he will witness the savage murder of a Hungarian violinist; unprepared to learn about the Mendax devi...
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Author: Stephen Fry
Author Stephen Fry
Narrator Stephen Fry
Duration 1h 6m
Stephen Fry traces the evolution of the mobile phone, from hefty executive bricks that required a separate briefcase to carry the battery, to the smartphones available today. There are more mobile phones in the world than there are people on the planet: Stephen Fry talks to the backroom boys who made it all possible and hears how the technology suc...
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Author: Stephen Fry
Author Stephen Fry
Narrator Stephen Fry
Duration 9h 1m
Ted Wallace is an old, sour, womanising, cantankerous, whisky-sodden beast of a failed poet and drama critic, but he has his faults too. Fired from his newspaper, months behind on his alimony payments and disgusted with a world that undervalues him, Ted seeks a few months repose and free drink at Swafford Hall, the country mansion of his old friend...
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Author: Stephen Fry
Author Stephen Fry
Narrator Stephen Fry
Duration 9h 52m
For Ned, 1980 seems a blissful year. Handsome, charming, popular and talented, his life is progressing smoothly, effortlessly, happily. And when he meets the lovely Portia Fendeman his personal jigsaw appears complete. But timing is everything in life, and his life is about to change for ever. Things are going to get very bad indeed for innocent yo...
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Author: Stephen Fry
Author Stephen Fry
Narrator Stephen Fry
Duration 15h 33m
No one loves and quarrels, desires and deceives as boldly and brilliantly as Greek gods and goddesses. They are like us, only more so - their actions and adventures scrawled across the heavens above. From the birth of the universe to the creation of humankind, Stephen Fry - who fell in love with these stories as a child - retells these myths for ou...
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Author: Stephen Fry
Author Stephen Fry
Narrator Stephen Fry
Duration 9h 49m
Stephen Fry invites readers to take a glimpse at his life story in the unputdownable More Fool Me. 'Oh dear I am an arse. I expect there'll be what I believe is called an "intervention" soon. I keep picturing it. All my friends bearing down on me and me denying everything until my pockets are emptied. Oh the shame' In his early thirties, Stephen Fr...
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