Sexy Intel Computer Design Worth Big Bucks

An anonymous reader writes From a BBC article, "Intel is offering $1m in prizes to designers and manufacturers who can come up with sexier alternatives to the "big beige box". The competition is open to PC designers and manufacturers worldwide and each company may submit up to five different designs. The grand prize winner will receive $300,000 (£159,000) to enable the mass production of the system and $400,000 (£212,000) to co-market the design with Intel. The runner-up will receive up to $300,000 to help with manufacturing costs."

Comments

Re:Apple?

[)parenthesis(]

The system has to be VIIV compatible, and (sadly) Apple's machines are not part of that branding strategy. The main missing component? Windows Media Center Edition. It's one of the integral components of the VIIV brand. (another thing that is missing is the Matrix Storage Technology from Intel.... but nobody really cares about that)

Re:I like beige boxes

[47Ronin]

Instead of trying to innovate the outside which everyone has tried (and many fail to do), why don't people work on getting the INSIDE fixed?

I've seen many so-called "pretty" ATX cases that look fancy but the moment you open them up its like staring at the devastation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Cables snaking and twisting everywhere, sharp metal edges and plastic tabs, screws... its a geek nightmare.

Some may deride Apple for the design of the Mac Pro case, but if you open it, you will immediately notice that they REALLY spent some time designing the layout of the interior parts. Heck even the the old Sawtooth generation G3/G4 towers (circa 1999) had that nifty side-handle design where the motherboard sat on a hinged door.