do a lot of jobs for us, from communication to calendaring to navigation to entertainment. But suddenly, it's as if taking and viewing social pictures is the only thing that matters.

The gadget makers that facilitate this behavior will find the most customers.

A lot of new phones, such as , are designed for great picture-taking and viewing. The Lumia 920 has two features that every phone will need from now on: A killer camera, and a killer screen for viewing high-resolution pictures even in sunlight.

Tellingly, the most buzzworthy aspect of its launch was that Nokia made a big for faking the quality of its camera in an advertisement. The phone's camera is very good, but Nokia faked the commercial because it recognizes how important camera quality is to the sales pitch.

Another recent development is the announcement of Nikon's new camera. The 16-megapixel camera actually runs a smartphone operating system -- Google's Android. You can download and use Android apps on it, and you can upload your pictures via Wi-Fi directly from the camera. They can even be geotagged with the camera's built-in GPS, or optimized with either built-in or downloaded photo editing apps.