I was proud to find out today about a Purdue University success story as two Purdue industrial designers won Microsoft's Next Generation Design PC Competition for the creation of a new concept Bookshelf PC. Thanks to The Technocrat Soapbox for bringing the Purdue victory to my attention here. It is wins like this that makes me proud to be a Purdue alum, not to mention the Boilermakers have not been giving much to be happy about athletically lately.
According to the Purdue website the Bookshelf was built by a graduate student Sungho "Oho" Son and Scott Shim, a professor of visual and performing arts. Together they won the $50,000 Judge's Award at Microsoft's Next Generation Windows PC Design Competition which was announced at CES in Vegas. The personal computer physically resembles a bookshelf and functions
like a bookshelf as cases that the actual hardware
are placed on the shelf. The computer has a CPU that is a cube shaped case. As cases are add the Bookshelf adds functionality and multimedia capabilities. Scott Shim said:
"We didn't just want to focus on the aesthetics, because we wanted to create a solid business model. The basis of this concept is to provide a model that users can personalize and configure as part of their own system in this digital era."
The design is very different then any other PC I have ever seen and the concept of handling copyrights like the ownership of books on a bookshelf sets this PC apart from others. I wish Scott and Oho continued success in being remarkable with the creation of the Bookshelf PC. Congratulations.
