Baby steps rather than giant leaps in Vegas

The Life: A newfangled Blu-ray disc player and table-top touchscreen display are among this year's Innovations Design and Engineering Award winners.

The Samsung interactive surface table. Tim Fadek / Bloomberg News

Technology manufacturers gathered in Las Vegas last week for the Consumer Electronics Show, where the latest Innovations Design and Engineering Awards were handed out.

While a panel of judges, including industrial designers and independent engineers, picked out the best gadgets, their choices seemed to offer incremental improvements rather than game-changing new models.

Some companies boosted their odds at winning by releasing a range of gizmos.

Panasonic unveiled no fewer than six Blu-ray disc players at this year's show, and it garnered an award for one of its slim, high-definition models, the less-than-glamorously titled DMP-BDT320.

The player, as yet unpriced, displays 3-D movies and can convert regular 2-D content into 3-D.

It also includes built-in Wi-Fi, as well as Skype, to help couch potatoes make calls through certain models of TVs from the comfort of their sofa.

Meanwhile, the US$199 (Dh730.95) health band from the US company Basis is being touted as the world's first connected health and heart-rate monitor worn on the wrist.

It collects digital data such as calories burned, heart rate and sleep patterns and then links everything to an online database. Similar devices have been released before, although this one took top prize in the health and wellness category this year.

Tablets such as the iPad are increasingly being used in the kitchen, often to pull up electronic recipes.

That is why Belkin created the Kitchen Cabinet Mount, which - you guessed it - keeps a tablet securely in view on a cabinet or shelf. No tools are necessary to attach the $50 mount and it is portable.

Samsung was the only manufacturer to win two awards this year, including one for the SUR40, a table-top LCD display that lets people share photos and digital art through a touchscreen.

But those images had better be amazing - it reportedly retails at between $7,600 and $8,400.