Travel clocks have come a long way, haven’t they? First, there was the foldability. What a boon, to be able to buy something that would slip into your bath bag. Next up: the ability to read the numbers in the dark. Then came the doze button, just like the pricey model you rely on at home.

Now comes the ability to stash photos, which works like digital photo frames. With a  digital photo frame alarm clock, you feed the images in from your computer or other device and they scroll through, a slideshow in miniature for your eyes only.

No longer will you feel so far away from home on those dreary business trips. You can come back from the hotel bar and sulk over dozens of images of the family dog, wishing you were there.

Of course, the next step is to put those images into an even smaller format. I saw a few samples of this at the Consumer Electronics show.

Forget Timex. Forget Fossil. Forget Diesel. The next digital watch you buy is going to let you show 140 digital images of the kids to that ex-boyfriend you just happen to run into at the mall.(Trust me, he’ll never bother you again!)