Results: *** The Secret Genius of Modern Life *** Smartphones

2000: The First Camera Phone At the start of the new millennium, Sharp introduced the world to the wonders of the camera phone. Although the J-SH04 was limited to Japan, it represented the start of a love affair between phone users and photography. And weighing just four ounces, the J-SHO4 was one step closer to today's sleek and slim phones. Not surprisingly, the photo quality was nowhere near what modern smartphone users have come to expect: Its camera was only 110,000 pixels. By comparison, the iPhone 14 camera has three rear cameras, with a 48-megapixel main camera. The J-SH04's camera was also back-facing – the era of the selfie was still to come. Do you own a Phone with a Camera?

2001: Cell Phones Access the Internet : Finally, smartphones and the Internet meet. For the first time in 2001, smartphones could connect wirelessly with a 3G network. This capability opened up a whole new world to smartphone users, who could now send email attachments and video conference with their mobile devices. This evolution didn't come cheap, however. Although mobile devices were now around $300-$700, the cost of data proved inaccessible to most users. Did you have a internet connected cell phone in 2001?

Research In Motion: Blackberry Ltd.: Founded in 1984 by Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin in Waterloo, Ontario, the company released its first device — a pager capable of email — in 1999. Following the release of its first smartphone in 2002, BlackBerrys quickly became must-have pieces of technology, first among business people and later the general public. Do you remember the Blackberry?

Apple Takes a Bite of the Smartphone Market in 2007: it was a game-changer for smartphones. Steve Jobs announced the world's first iPhone at January's Macworld convention. The first iteration included a touchscreen, iPod, camera, full internet access capabilities (a first!) and a wide LCD screen designed for video. It was sleek, lightweight and available in 4GB ($499) and 8GB ($599) models. Another groundbreaking aspect of the iPhone was its software capabilities. Soon, users could download millions of third-party applications, limiting the iPhone's capabilities only to the imagination of software developers. Jobs wasn't wrong when he described the iPhone as a "revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone." It was, far and away, the most advanced smartphone the world had seen. In its first year on the market, upwards of 1.4 million iPhones were sold. Do you or have you owned an iPhone?

2008: The First Android Smartphone was the HTC Dream, also known as the T-Mobile G1. A collaboration between HTC and Google, it ran on Android 1.0, the first version of the Android operating system. The HTC Dream featured a 3.2-inch touchscreen display, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and a 3.2-megapixel camera. The HTC Dream was the first device to feature the Android Market, which later became the Google Play Store. It was a groundbreaking device that marked the beginning of the Android era, and it paved the way for the many Android smartphones that followed. Do you or have you owned an Android Phone?