I’m down in sunny Anaheim, California at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) 2010 Sneak Peek.

PMA is an international photo trade association, encompassing companies from all aspects of the photo industry, from camera manufacturers, printers, photo processors, papers, software and displays.

The PMA trade show officially kicks off tonight at 5pm, and the exhibition doors open tomorrow morning at 10:30 here at the Anaheim Convention Center, but already, there is a ton of awesome new products worth a look.

Just to give a taste of some products and news we’ll feature over the next few days, here are some highlights:

• The trend in this years point-and-shoot cameras: waterproof, durable, touch-screen, and retro styles.
• A vast new line from Fujifilm including a 3D handheld point-and-shoot and a medium format camera.
• A preview of Sigma’s 2010 line of lenses for full frame cameras.
• ThinkTank Photo showcased some exciting new products, including the Hydrophobia 70-200 rain cover (pictured below) and the Retrospective soft-sided camera and lens shoulder bags.

Keep an eye out for those stories and more on our site.

The Shorty Awards now have a prize dedicated to Twitter photography: The Shorty Award for Real-Time Photo of the Year. The winner of the award will be invited to the special awards ceremony on March 3rd, 2010 in New York City.

Candidate photographs are nominated through the website, and must be cameraphone photos shot in 2009 and distributed on Twitter through one of the popular social media channels (i.e. Twitpic, Flickr, etc…). The nomination phase ends on February 5th, 2010.

An obvious favorite to win is the following photograph by Janis Krums of US Airways Flight 1549‘s successful ditch in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009:

Krums was on the ferry sent to pick up the passengers, and sent the tweeted the photo via Twitpic from his cameraphone. Here’s a screenshot:

What made the tweet and story particularly noteworthy was that the real-time nature of Twitter allowed the photograph to circulate widely before any mainstream news sources were able to obtain photographs. We’re guessing this is exactly the type of photo the new Shorty award would like to honor.

The ubiquity of cameraphones combined with real-time distribution offered by Twitter has changed the world of photography. When something happens in one part of the world, people can now see it all over the world almost instantly — if someone with a cameraphone and Twitter account is nearby.

Can you think of any other candidate photograph for the new award?

There hasn’t been much directly photo-related news at CES 2010 today, but the announcements of newly redesigned e-readers might be key to drawing in a wider e-reader audience and — dare we speculate? — might bring some vigor back to traditional print publications.

While promising e-reader sale increases and recovering print publication’s mojo might be an optimistic goal, the recently revealed Skiff reader design is so innovative that it might just catch on.

Skiff reader content will be designed to look much like the designed content on a physical copy of a publication. Thus, newspapers and magazines can retain their carefully designed layouts, which conveys ranked importance, dominant headlines, featured artwork and photographs.

It may be a stretch, but Skiff could potentially bridge the gap between those readers reluctant to quit their physical newspaper and magazine subscriptions and those readers who only read e-versions of publications. However, print media will still technically die (or continue its current trend of rarity) … but the content (and subscriptions and ad revenue) could be more accurately transferred onto a new medium.

In the long run, publishers could potentially stop bleeding money on printing and distribution costs, while upping their circulation — that is, if Skiff finds favor amongst thus far critical e-consumers and outbids the efforts of Amazon and other e-reader distributors.

The Skiff e-reader is extremely flexible and thin, with a display size 9 inches by 11 inches, and a thickness of 0.268 inches, and weighs 17-9/16 ounces (498 grams) — that’s roughly the weight of four iPhones . It is made of silicon thin-film-transitors on a flexible stainless-steel substrate, which Skiff says makes the display is shatter-proof and crack-proof.

The device is 3G and WiFi enabled, has a USB 2.0 port, an internal memory of 4GB, a built in speaker, audio jack, an SDHC card slot, and a battery that lasts about a week before it needs to be recharged. Where does it fit all of that?

The color touchscreen display has resolution of 1200×1600 pixels at 174 ppi.

The Skiff e-reading service is set to launch with the Sprint 3G network this year.

Skiff has also partnered with the Hearst Corporation, the major news corporation that owns several newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle, and has interests in several other major news groups, magazines, and major newspapers. LG Display and Marvell also had a hand in Skiff development, so it appears to be off to a hot start by connections alone.

Read more about Skiff and other e-readers at CNN.