14 DAY TRIAL // Windows 7 might be a tad early for the next-generation PC designs that have won a Microsoft sponsored competition, but they actually serve a higher purpose than just act as shells for the next iteration of Windows. On June 16, Microsoft announced the three winners of the Next-Gen PC Design Competition: the Napkin PC, WITHUS and the Backpacker's Diary. The Redmond company is of course focused on providing a catalyst for industrial designers to take PC boxes to the next level.
"The Next-Gen PC Design competition was founded on the idea that the next wave of computing is all about experiences. This year's competition taps into people's passions and connects with them on an emotional level because these designs are about enabling users to easily do the things they love," revealed Dave Fester, general manager of Worldwide Product Marketing for the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) division at Microsoft.
Avery Holleman, an industrial design student at California State University, won no less than $20,000 for the Napkin PC. Not only did the Napkin creation take the first place of the Next-Gen PC Design Competition, but Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates confirmed the choice of the panel of judges with the Chairman's Award, which the Redmond company's co-founder selected himself.
"When I started the Next-Gen PC Design project, I laid out every idea I had about current and future technology and how it could influence the design of the PC," Holleman stated. "From there I put together several conceptual models, including one that used wireless connections to separate the interface from the PC." Holleman eventually came up with the Napkin PC concept as a proper package for the next generation PC he had envisioned.
Taeho Wang and Minjoong Kim, from the Illinois Institute of Technology, put together the WITHUS concept, a PC designed especially for preschool children. WITHUS was awarded the 2nd Place Judges Award, meaning no less than $5,000.
The winners of the third place were Zhongren Zhang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Chun Yang, Nanjing University of Science and Technology in China. The Backpacker's Diary also won $5,000, being a blend between a book and a PC, where each page has different functionality.
"One day I saw Chun adding some new pages into her notebook, which has a clip on its spine. An idea suddenly popped into my mind: why not assign each function to a page and make it like a 'book'. We did some research on the technology of flexible materials and developed the concept," Zhang stated.
