The 'father of SMS,' dies at 63

London

Matti Makkonen, widely considered the "father of SMS," for bringing in the concept of text messaging over cellular networks died from illness at the age of 63.

The Finnish creator introduced the concept of Short Messaging Service in 1984. He was quick to downplay his involvement and saw SMS as a "joint effort" between many people (Friedham Hillebrand developed the 160-character format in 1985, for example), but much of the initial credit belongs to him.

Suffice it to say that Makkonen's work has spread far and wide. SMS is starting to decline as instant messaging apps take over.

Twitter's roots are in SMS (hence that 140-character limit), and the tech is still considered vital for communication in areas where mobile internet access is too expensive, heavily censored or both.