So, what's new in tech aside from snake-up-your-nose 3D TV sets. What digital bling turned the heads of the 150 thousand gearheads who descended upon Las Vegas last week for the Consumer Electronics Show? What might be of interest to the traveler? We plunged into the chaos so you didn't have to.

Not much new, the pundits said. And they were correct, but not totally. True, I didn't see any breakthrough technologies, except for perhaps a breadbox-sized machine called the ION Proton that can sequence the entire human DNA in a day. At $149 thousand, the perfect gift for that hard to please mad scientist.

3D TV, last-year's great bright hype, didn't blow anyone's skirt up, let alone produce a stereo version of that famous Marilyn Monroe scene. I did, however, see a $500 device that will convert any old film to 3D (it works, but not brilliantly) and a screen you could stand in front of and swat away flying objects. Yes, the 3D interactive virtual tour has finally arrived, complete with whackable mosquitoes? JVC showed what is known as a 4K travel-sized camcorder, which produces a video picture four times sharper than today's high definition. You can count the folds on a walrus at a hundred yards, but really, does anyone care? The Soviets developed HDTV in the 1950s but it took half a century for it to be widely adopted. No matter how exciting a technology, it takes time and huge investments to get consumers to buy in. These days, even large companies are not willing to make that plunge.

It is not enough to just make things anymore. The battle today is not so much over technology, of which there is little new, it is about sucking consumers up into a "cloud" to some sort of "ecosystem" (the jargon of the week). Apple, its iPhone/Pad/Pod, and Google are ecosystems as sure as your beloved mobile phone carrier and cable company. Now, add to that, TV manufacturers and other players who want you to buy into their systems, download their apps, purchase their products and media and sell your personal information within their own ecosystems. Unless you are an Apple and demand premium prices, there is not much profit margin in making electronic gizmos. Like movie theaters, electronics companies are looking for profits in the salty snacks that will keep you up to your gills in Diet Coke.

This was the year of the smartphone's coup d'etat (I got a note from a PR firm today flogging an ointment to alleviate neck pain caused by mobile use). Except for serious writing and demanding video and graphics, I, have given up my laptop and workstation for my mobile phone, which has a large enough screen to function as an e-reader. I am now reading an 800 page book on my Android. Samsung showed a nifty phone/tablet hybrid (a Phablet?) called the Galaxy Note with a 5.3 inch screen. It fits in my coat pocket, where it would have remained had it not been tethered down. But the iPhone was the heartthrob at CES. Like flukes on a whale, companies, many from the Shenzhen region of China, where iStuff is made, are riding the back of Apple and producing accessories including waterproof cases and fashion accessories.

There is a new cult of iPhone photographers and a raft of products such as accessory lenses and even a miniscule knockoff of the legendary, Oscar-winning Steadicam, a camera support which cinematographers use to glide through a scene.

So, over the next few days, we will offer you our trip log as we forge our way through the throngs and beat off the backpacks at the massive Las Vegas Convention Center to examine cameras, battery operated projectors with which you can project Marilyn on the wall of a tent, mobile phones and apps, travel planning tools, a computer on a stick, even a new take on the old Polaroid Land Camera.

One booth we passed up, but not by choice, was that of Tumi, the luxury luggage maker, which was blocked by a rope and a security guard with a list of people with permission to enter. I know they are branding a new travel power adapter, and I longed for the privilege to caress it ( power adapters really get my juices flowing), and I know their line of luxury luggage, but I decided not to pursue it any further with Tumi's bouncer (whom I could probably whip with one hand behind my back) who demanded that I get permission from a higher power. Could it that they didn't want any of the hoi polloi to manhandle or even steal their goods. That's the reason I travel with cheap, unassuming bags.