Canon Powershot S3

My old camera, a Canon Powershot A10, is now more than 5 years old. Time for an update. This 1.3 megapixel camera served pretty well, so I decided to look for a new Canon camera (never change a winning team). I first thought about getting me the Powershot A710, but after some reviews, I decided I wanted a camera with some more zooming power. Enter the Powershot S3, a 12x zoom camera with 6 megapixels. Some nice features are color enhancements; have a look at this example.
Boy, I though there would be a threshold about the number of pixels cameras would support, but the race isn't finished yet : I see cameras featuring 10 megapixels. How on earth do they keep the noise out of these ?