I had the chance to wander the floors of CES last week and attended a number of sessions. For the most part, I felt the show was a bit disappointing. Really not much new from last year, including many of the same discussions with regards to digital images. I attended the panel "Beyond Point and Shoot" moderated by someone from the Wall Street Journal. Here's a quick summary...

• No one truly believes smart phone cameras will replace the point and shoot; however, market growth has stalled as people are upgrading to DSLRs
• Camera manufacturers are finally starting to "get it" and now tout features and capabilities beyond megapixels. Whew! Apparently, the new trend is to increase the size of the pixels to improve photo quality
• More and more, we are moving to the cloud, but will you trust your precious photos to storage on the Internet? The panel thinks we will – all except the one professional photographer in the mix
• One big problem as we all know, is what happens when standard formats change? When we can no longer access our digital images on the devices we use today, then what? Another case for printing those you treasure most. The consensus was to use multiple places and formats to store your pics. (Like I said, not a lot new...)
• A lively discussion about the new endless memory cards. Again, mixed feelings about a camera that automatically erases your photos once they are shared and archived. I guess you really have to learn to trust technology
• A number of WiFi cameras have been announced, but they don’t seem to be taking off yet
• Nikon and others showcased their new little projector cameras. Pretty cool idea
• Video sharing continues to grow in popularity. and when exposed to a broad audience gets far more hits and attention than still photography
• And, the big question raised yet again, is how do you sort, store and locate your images once you’ve downloaded them? Apparently, the average person takes 2,000 digital photos each year.  That means a reader of this blog probably take 10 times that amount. How do you keep your files straight? Face tagging wasn’t getting rave reviews and there were mixed feelings about geo-tagging’s ability to help solve the problem. (Hmmm… this may be a good use of digital watermarking?)

I think the most interesting part of the panel was Sally Grotta’s description of the cameras of the future.  Apparently, there is a strong developer community that believes the image sensor should no longer be flat. This will completely change the shape and function of cameras going forward. Sally believes they will become a fashion statement that can be worn – taking on all sorts of shapes and sizes. With the boom of 3D, we'll likely see cameras with two "eyes" instead of one.

Walking through the digital imaging area of the show floor was pretty much the same old stuff. Can you say photo memory book?