At the CES conference in Las Vegas this week, Microsoft chief Bill Gates announced the winner of the Start Something PC competition.
The main prize of $50,000 was won by Prashant Chandra, an Indian born designer. Chandra"s design might best be described as a "clam-shell" tablet PC, designed around the idea of a backpack. In addition to Chandra, Sungho Son won a second award, for a similar amount, for his design. Son developed a book-shelf PC that aimed to deal with copyright problems in the digital age.
The award is in honour of twenty years of Windows, but more in honour of the "change" in Windows Vista. Dell representative Ken Musgrave said that "
Much of the innovation in desktops has been focused on getting the
benefit of greater computing power and value in the hands of more
people." He believes that PC design will be more important in the coming years, and hopes the competition will help spur it on.
Based on the competition"s global interest, Microsoft intends to make the event annual.You can view the winning designs, and more, at the Start Something link below.