Slashdot Mirror
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."
Are its machines not "sexy alternatives to the big, grey box?"
They run Intel processors, too.
This message printed on 100% post-consumer recycled electrons.
Why don't we use what we've got already? If you want a box with curves you buy a box with curves. If you want a box that's going to sit there and look like you're not a gamer by profession then you can buy a normal box.
Or just buy an Intel Mac.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
www.apple.com/store
just deposit the cash in my account, OK?
Is it really this hard? I went to a trade show about five years ago and saw funky PC designs from some division of Hyundai that were orange plastic pyramids and things of that sort... It's Not Hard, just get on with it. Hire a designer, fer cryin' out loud.
I am a leaf on the wind
Apple has some good ideas on the boring concept of cases and they have been done well. I am expecting something that looks like a case, but has some extra features on the outside, both functional and visual. I hope this effort results in some serious advancement in how cases Work, Look, and Feel.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
For a while, I was into case modding. I had my stepfather do the metal cutting and so on, because I'm an accountant; I don't know how to cut metal and if I can get others to do a better job for me for free then cool. I had him cut stylistic holes in the side panels and I installed neons and light cables etc. That was a couple of years ago though.
Now my PC is under my IKEA desk, so nobody sees the sides. I have a missing drive bay cover so you can see the coloured fans but thats it. Stylish PCs may be a big deal to some, but I lost that interest quite quickly.
Sure, your PC looks cool, but who really cares?
Why didn't they just look at what the case modding community is doing? They've come up with some pretty awesome stuff already. And there's literally thousands of design ideas there to use.
I would have said it is Dell's wolf gray and black box that rules.
I don't think we should stop there. I want my TV curvy, my amp, my speakers around the room... in fact, the whole room, the floor, let's do away with flat.
:-)
Or maybe I'll just look at what's on the screen instead, and leave the computer case itself not screaming out for attention. If I ever want everything curvey for a while, I'll just take some of the special mushrooms
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
I would, and so would most married women.
Someone who can design on small, quite, and as few cords as possible would be a winner.
Mac Mini is a great design for 80% of computer users.
The remainder will build there own anyways.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The machine has to be an Intel ViiV-platform PC.
...stupid "get a Mac if you want curves" comments, and many being modded as insightful. Granted, there have been very few Intel based PCs that have been contenders to win design awards but I've seen a few that are easily as good looking as many believe the Mac to be. Dell's M2010 is far better looking than then notebooks being sold by Apple. The Sony RS Series and LS Series are great looking desktops, the LS being the all-in-one like the iMac. The Sony Digital Living System is a great looking media center PC. It's all a matter of taste.
One of my favorite comments was this one, "Hopefully we get some different options from this, but speaking generally, how much can you do different?" Ummm, perhaps you are a) not the target for PCs like this and b) are not creative enough to design an elegant, stylish PC case. I'm always amazed with this attitude from geeks given that they'd be extremely passionate if one we re to say something equally as inane as, "why spend billions of dollars to go to the Moon or Mars? They're just lifeless rocks with no interest to anyone."
The thing about a big beige box is that it's very useful. Big size, lots of space inside to cram all that microelectronics.
So if they get some sexy new design, will it take all my bits without drama?
Sexy boxes seem to be smaller, curvier and you never really know if that new card or motherboard or extra drive is actually going to fit without some metalworking skills. Normal size XT,AT and ATX cases were just one of the standard bits that helped make an IBM compatible machine compatible.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
It is not just about getting things to look sexy - its about getting things to look different. Getting things to look different cosmetically is the first step towards actually making them different.
/.ers do more with their computers than Joe Schmoe.
I think the trend is to get rid of the PC as we know it and slowly replace it with devices that can only do specialized tasks - an Xbox for gaming, a Media Ceter PC that replaces your TV and audio system, a buisness PC for making that ugly slide show. Sell the same basic hardware, throw in a few specialized devices like that fancy new graphics accelerator and physics processor for the Xbox, a nifty tuner card and remote for that Media center thing and and make sure that printer and scanner only work with the BizPC. Make the software dumb "Click this button and everything will just work its so simple." Ofcourse you make the case and software look different so that Joe Schmoe could never even dream that his Xbox could run his little spreadsheet app no problem.
Sell all three to Joe, charge obscene license fees for the software - maybe pull a TiVo to ensure only your own software works with your hardware. While you are at it charge an extra 500 bucks because the Xbox case was designed by Armani and looks sexy.
This is great for buisness but it should scare most of you since
[/tinfoil_hat]
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
The PowerMacs are certainly nice, but there's no shortage of PC cases - in both full-PC and component guise - that are just as good.
Our Dell Optiplexes, for example, are laid out basically the same as the Macs and just as easy to work in - albeit not quite as pretty (the drive sleds don't have covers, stuff like that).
You may not give a shit about what your case looks like, but in the retail market where PC's sit on shelves the shoppers do care more about how their PC looks then really what it does.
Just recently I build a computer for a friends parents with a nice low profile Micro-ATX desktop/tower case and a 19" LCD monitor. It replaced a huge white box & 17" CRT on their desk and after some cabling cleanup it made their study look bigger and much nicer.
They were so impressed they showed it off to their friends, and within a week I had requests for 4 more.
People do care about the asthetics of what they buy when they want it for more then just basic functionality, the computer speed & jargon goes right over their head and they just want something that works well and looks good.
SGI also had a few mighty fine designs for their desktops, but looking at their product range now it seems like the gave up on the desktop. Some links: http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=SGI&ie=utf-8&o e=utf-8&sa=N&tab=wi
Another old design which still looks good comes from what was NeXT: http://www.channelu.com/Turbo/NeXT/i/cube1a.jpg
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
in my personal experience, almost all cases now come in black, grey, blue or a similar dark shade. I haven't seen a beige box in a long, long time.
shooting is not too good for my enemies
Because screws: are small, come in many different size, can get lost easily, and generally suck?