Forty years ago we took a giant leap into digital space and untethered by wires made the first mobile or cell phone call.

Today Australia boasts nearly 30 million mobile SIM cards for a population of almost 23 million and 60% of the entire worlds population has, or has access to, a mobile phone.

In developing nations the mobile has allowed people to skip the wired computer that they were likely never to have gotten and instead turn immediately to the mobile phone for health, banking, communication and so much more.

We have come so far in the last 40 years, changed our belief and understanding of the world and our place in it that it is often difficult to remember life before this magic little mobile box, but this week David Dowsett of Radio ABC Wide Bay and I took a nostalgic look at mobile phones and a futurist glance at where their headed.