paragraph_text: In 1977 Samsung Electronics launched the Telecommunication Network, and in 1983 it initiated its mobile telecommunications business with the hope that this would become the company's future growth engine. In 1986, Samsung was able to release its first built - in car phone, the SC - 100, but it was a failure due to the poor quality. In spite of unsuccessful result Ki Tae Lee, the then - head of the Wireless Development Team, decided to stay in the mobile business. He asked the company to buy ten Motorola mobile phones for benchmarking. After 2 years of R&D Samsung developed its first mobile phone (or ``hand phone ''in Korea), the SH - 100 in 1988. It was the first mobile phone to be designed and manufactured in Korea. But the perception of mobile devices was very low and although Samsung introduced new models every year, each model sold only one or two thousand units.

paragraph_text: In 1965, Bulgarian company ``Radioelektronika ''presented on the Inforga - 65 international exhibition in Moscow the mobile automatic phone combined with a base station. Solutions of this phone were based on a system developed by Leonid Kupriyanovich. One base station, connected to one telephone wire line, could serve up to 15 customers.

paragraph_text: The cellular phone carrier group Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP) in 2007 endorsed micro-USB as the standard connector for data and power on mobile devices In addition, on 22 October 2009 the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has also announced that it had embraced micro-USB as the Universal Charging Solution its "energy-efficient one-charger-fits-all new mobile phone solution," and added: "Based on the Micro-USB interface, UCS chargers also include a 4-star or higher efficiency rating—​​up to three times more energy-efficient than an unrated charger."

paragraph_text: The Motorola StarTAC is a clamshell mobile phone manufactured by Motorola. It was released on January 3, 1996, being the first ever clamshell / flip mobile phone. The StarTAC is the successor of the MicroTAC, a semi-clamshell design that had been launched in 1989. Whereas the MicroTAC's shell folded down from below the keypad, the StarTAC folded up from above the display. In 2005, PC World put StarTAC at # 6 in The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years.

paragraph_text: In the 1990s, the 'second generation' mobile phone systems emerged. Two systems competed for supremacy in the global market: the European developed GSM standard and the U.S. developed CDMA standard. These differed from the previous generation by using digital instead of analog transmission, and also fast out - of - band phone - to - network signaling. The rise in mobile phone usage as a result of 2G was explosive and this era also saw the advent of prepaid mobile phones.

paragraph_text: Golan Telecom () is a mobile network operator in Israel. In July 2011 the company won a tender to operate a 3G wireless network in Israel beginning in 2012, The company was one of the first low-cost mobile phone companies that led to increased competition in the cellular communications market in Israel, due to the price policy adopted by the company at the beginning of its activity.

paragraph_text: Prior to 1973, mobile telephony was limited to phones installed in cars and other vehicles. Motorola was the first company to produce a handheld mobile phone. On April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher and executive, made the first mobile telephone call from handheld subscriber equipment, placing a call to Dr. Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs, his rival. The prototype handheld phone used by Dr. Cooper weighed 1.1 kilograms (2.4 lb) and measured 23 by 13 by 4.5 centimetres (9.1 by 5.1 by 1.8 in). The prototype offered a talk time of just 30 minutes and took 10 hours to re-charge.

paragraph_text: Congstar GmbH is a mobile network operator headquartered in Cologne, Germany. The company is a subsidiary of Telekom Deutschland, and specializes in discount mobile phone service marketed to younger people. In August 2014, Congstar's services had approximately 3.4 million users.

paragraph_text: The Ericsson R380 (2000) by Ericsson Mobile Communications. The first device marketed as a ``smartphone '', it was the first Symbian - based phone, with PDA functionality and limited Web browsing on a resistive touchscreen utilizing a stylus. Users could not install their own software on the device, however. The Kyocera 6035 (early 2001), a dual - nature device with a separate Palm OS PDA operating system and CDMA mobile phone firmware. It supported limited Web browsing with the PDA software treating the phone hardware as an attached modem. Handspring's Treo 180 (2002), the first smartphone that fully integrated the Palm OS on a GSM mobile phone having telephony, SMS messaging and Internet access built in to the OS. The 180 model had a thumb - type keyboard and the 180g version had a Graffiti handwriting recognition area, instead.

paragraph_text: Orcs & Elves is a adventure role-playing video game for the mobile phone and Nintendo DS. It was developed by id Software and Fountainhead Entertainment and published by EA Mobile and licensed by Nintendo for the DS version. It was released for mobile phone on May 1, 2006 before being ported to the Nintendo DS on November 15, 2007. The game is based on "Doom RPG"s engine and is id's first original intellectual property since "Quake". The later DS port of the game included graphical enhancements, such as 3D environments and camera cutscenes, along with improved character sprites, two new levels and the use of the touchscreen feature.

paragraph_text: In 1979, the merger of Nokia and Salora resulted in the establishment of ``Mobira Oy ''. Mobira developed mobile phones for the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) network, called the`` 1G'' and was the first fully automatic cellular phone system. It became commercially available in 1981. In 1982, Mobira introduced its first car phone, the ``Mobira Senator ''for NMT -- 450 networks.

paragraph_text: Internet Explorer Mobile (formerly named Pocket Internet Explorer; later called IE Mobile) is a discontinued mobile browser developed by Microsoft, based on versions of the Trident layout engine. IE Mobile comes loaded by default with Windows Phone and Windows CE. Later versions of Internet Explorer Mobile (since Windows Phone 8) are based on the desktop version of Internet Explorer. Older versions however, called Pocket Internet Explorer (found on Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile), are not based on the same layout engine.

paragraph_text: A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture photographs and often record video using one or more built - in digital cameras. The first camera phone was sold in 2000 in Japan, a Sharp J - SH04 J - Phone model, although some argue that the SCH - V200 and Kyocera VP - 210 Visual Phone, both introduced months earlier in South Korea and Japan respectively, are the first camera phones.

paragraph_text: Google Traffic works by analyzing the GPS - determined locations transmitted to Google by a large number of mobile phone users. By calculating the speed of users along a length of road, Google is able to generate a live traffic map. Google processes the incoming raw data about mobile phone device locations, and then excludes anomalies such as a postal vehicle that makes frequent stops. When a threshold of users in a particular area is noted, the overlay along roads and highways on the Google map changes color.

paragraph_text: The Motorola MPx200 Smartphone was launched in December 2003 as a joint venture between Motorola and Microsoft. The mobile phone's Windows Mobile for Smartphone OS allows users to access email and the Internet, use MSN Messenger, and view documents in Microsoft Office formats (with third-party software) much like other Windows smartphones such as the Samsung SGH-i600 or HTC Tanager. The MPx200, along with the Samsung SGH-i600, were the first Windows Mobile smartphone devices to have wide distribution in the United States. Previously, smartphone platform devices could only be purchased in the United States as part of development kits sold by Microsoft. The only U.S. carrier of the phone was AT&T Wireless; however, reports also suggest a somewhat limited number of devices with Cingular branding have appeared following the purchase of AT&T Wireless by Cingular.

paragraph_text: Ericsson had decided to obtain chips for its phones from a single source—a Philips facility in New Mexico. On March 17, 2000, a fire at the Philips factory contaminated the sterile facility. Philips assured Ericsson and Nokia (their other major customer) that production would be delayed for no more than a week. When it became clear that production would actually be compromised for months, Ericsson was faced with a serious shortage. Nokia had already begun to obtain parts from alternative sources, but Ericsson's position was much worse as production of current models and the launch of new ones was held up.Ericsson, which had been in the mobile phone market for decades, and was the world's third largest cellular telephone handset maker at the time behind Nokia and Motorola, was struggling with huge losses and decreasing market share. This was partly due to this fire as well as its inability to produce cheaper phones or fashionably-designed phones like Nokia managed to do. Speculation began about a possible sale by Ericsson of its mobile phone division, but the company's president, Kurt Hellström, said it had no plans to do so. Hellström said, "Mobile phones are really a core business for Ericsson. We wouldn't be as successful (in networks) if we didn't have phones".Sony was a marginal player in the worldwide mobile phone market with a share of less than 1 percent in 2000. By August 2001, the two companies had finalised the terms of the merger announced in April. Ericsson contributed a majority of the Ericsson Mobile Communications company, excluding a minor part spun off as Ericsson Mobile Platforms. Sony contributed its entire handset division. The company was to have an initial workforce of 3,500 employees.

paragraph_text: The Nokia 7500 is a mobile phone produced by Nokia. It is part of Nokia's Prism Collection. It is a triband phone that runs S40 5th Edition. The screen has a resolution of 320x240 pixels showing 16 million colors. Included is a 2-megapixel camera with flash, a 512 MB microSD card, and a 700mAh battery. It launches during 3Q 2007.

paragraph_text: Presently, the Central African Republic has active television services, radio stations, internet service providers, and mobile phone carriers; Socatel is the leading provider for both internet and mobile phone access throughout the country. The primary governmental regulating bodies of telecommunications are the Ministère des Postes and Télécommunications et des Nouvelles Technologies. In addition, the Central African Republic receives international support on telecommunication related operations from ITU Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D) within the International Telecommunication Union to improve infrastructure.

paragraph_text: The first analogue cellular system widely deployed in North America was the Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS). It was commercially introduced in the Americas in 13 October 1983, Israel in 1986, and Australia in 1987. AMPS was a pioneering technology that helped drive mass market usage of cellular technology, but it had several serious issues by modern standards. It was unencrypted and easily vulnerable to eavesdropping via a scanner; it was susceptible to cell phone ``cloning ''and it used a Frequency - division multiple access (FDMA) scheme and required significant amounts of wireless spectrum to support.

paragraph_text: Motorola introduced the Bag Phone line in 1990. These phones offered more durability and higher power output (up to 3 watts) than more conventional cell phones of the time, such as Motorola's own DynaTAC and MicroTAC handheld phones, making them popular for truckers, boaters, and people in rural areas. Because of their durability, many examples of these phones are still in working order today.

Question: What date did the mobile phone inventor release the flip phone?
Answer: January 3, 1996