Microsoft's Next-Gen PC Design Competition winners create innovative designs that take traditional PCs outside the box. [Source : Microsoft ]
LOS ANGELES, May 15, 2007 -- The inspiration for Allen Wong’s Next-Gen PC Design Competition entry came from a visit to a remote village in Kenya. “A hand-painted sign on the local elementary school promised ‘Computer Training,’ but the local villagers told me that it was false advertising,” recalls Wong. “The school didn’t even have windows, much less Windows!”
Wong, who with design partner Matt Conway went on to create the BulbPC, one of the competition winners, was inspired by his experience in Kenya to develop a new and revolutionary PC design that can meet the needs for computing and computer education in the developing world as well as address the IT requirements of first-world workplaces.
Wong, who with design partner Matt Conway went on to create the BulbPC, one of the competition winners, was inspired by his experience in Kenya to develop a new and revolutionary PC design that can meet the needs for computing and computer education in the developing world as well as address the IT requirements of first-world workplaces.
Wong’s Kenyan inspiration mirrors that of other winners in this year’s Next-Gen PC Competition, a Microsoft-sponsored event that challenges young design professionals and industrial design students to think beyond the constraints of traditional computing form factors.
MADE in China, a PC with a distinctly Asian interface, designed by John Leung.
Click for high-res version.
Focusin on ... John Leung, whose design MADE in China won the Chairman’s Award, was inspired to create a ground-breaking computing and infrastructure model specifically designed to bring computing closer to the world’s 1.3 billion Chinese. “I saw so many PCs in the market that were made IN China, but none of which were actually made FOR China,” says Leung, 21, an undergraduate architecture student at the University of Melbourne, Australia
MADE in China involves a MADE (Massively Administered Digital Entities) hardware and infrastructure that consists of a touch screen interface and remote servers that store applications and data. The infrastructure is linked to the interface via 4G mobile phone networks. “Together, they result in a PC which is affordable, profitable, and environmental, all without compromising performance, aesthetics, and convenience,” says Leung.
MADE in China involves a MADE (Massively Administered Digital Entities) hardware and infrastructure that consists of a touch screen interface and remote servers that store applications and data. The infrastructure is linked to the interface via 4G mobile phone networks. “Together, they result in a PC which is affordable, profitable, and environmental, all without compromising performance, aesthetics, and convenience,” says Leung.
