We're a month away from close of the
Microsoft Next-Gen PC Design Showcase. If you're a sucker for new concepts and crazy (read impossible) designs, do check it out and give your vote. All you need to be eligible to vote is a Microsoft .NET login, which means if you use MSN/Windows Messenger or Hotmail, you're good to vote.
The entry that got my vote is
Submission 381: MADE in China, a thin-client tablet design with chopsticks as styluses (pictured above). I know it doesn't seem like much and tablets are not a new concept, but it won my vote because I felt it was thought through very carefully, everything from its design robustness and interface, to the business model and target audience.
Here are a few of my favourite points:
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Target Audience: The 1.3 billion people in China. This also inspired the use of chopsticks as styluses which makes it easy for Chinese character input, dragging and dropping icons, and even manipulating icons in a way a mouse can't.
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Robust Design: The simple addition of a jagged lid over the screen gives it added protection from objects the computer might come into contact with.
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Business Model: This is my favourite point. Just like the successful mobile phone market in Asia, this computer is merely a thin client with everything from software to connectivity coming from a service provider. This creates low-barrier to entry for PC adoption, a new market in utility PC computing, affordable back-end infrastructure where single servers/CPUs can host more than one user. Even the price of $1/day was proposed.
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Environmentally Aware: Building on the centralised business model, all the PCs can be owned by the service provider who can manage the safe recycling and disposal of old units as opposed to the mess we make out of discarding our old computers nowadays.
I don't actually think we'll see this product materialise, but I'm rather amazed at the thought processes that have gone into this proposal. Technology's not just for us who have much and want more, but also for those who have never seen it and giving them an easy way to leap frog the generation they've missed.
Don't forget to vote! Public voting ends 23 MArch 2007.
