Finally, the winners at the Next-Gen PC Design Competition were announced!


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The 1st Place Judges Award & Chairman’s Award Winner is Napkin PC, conceived by Avery Holleman, which was very appreciated by Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect, who will offer the $10,000 prize for this concept representing a modular computer featuring multi-user and multi-interface technologies, and being destined for groups of creative professionals that work together.



The 2nd Place Judges is for WITHUS, a complex computer designed for pre-school kids by Taeho Wang and Minjoong Kim, bringing multi human interaction and a fun interface/functionalities to let children develop their creativity skills and. WITHUS was chosen by several IDSA members from the International PC and industrial design community to receive $5,000.



Backpacker's Diary, one of our favorites, won the 3rd Place Judges Award & Public’s Choice Award Winner, meaning a prize of $2,500, thanks to the website visitors’ votes.
Zhongren Zhang and Chun Yang designed a portable computer in the shape of a travel diary, optimized for the needs of people traveling a lot in the nature. If this computer concept would be real, people could benefit from media recording, solar recharging and EL illuminant.

I heard some time ago that in the future, people will embrace nudity and will forget anything about clothes, presumably getting closer to God, exactly as they were in the Garden of Eden. I don’t know about that, but I think clothes, although they will surely get skimpier, they will somehow integrate all sorts of electronic devices to facilitate communications and computer interactions. Music too can be a form of communication and that’s what some guy thought when he designed the Pacer Suite.

<-234x60 Half Banner - left->Covering your entire body (save your head), the Pacer Suite is designed to measure electrical impulses of your muscles and turns them into music or sound effects. The concept is inspired motion capture suits that have lately become commonplace in high-end graphics and animation production. Pacer either makes self-contained music with onboard amplifiers and speakers, or communicates wirelessly via infrared with a control console, which would assign and amplify sounds according to the artistic choices of the wearer.

 

Imagine some breakdancers wearing this outfit. Or some oriental bellydancer (too bad we don’t get to see those fleshy parts). How would a karate master dressed up in this suite sound like? This kind of dancewear could create an entirely new form of hybrid art.

For those of you who like the retro style combined with cutting-edge technology, here’s a cool design from Adam Huffman. As the designer points out, The Cobalt is a response to the discerning public need for the next convergence device to blend elegance with simplicity and portability. Say hello to Cobalt.

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The Cobalt looks like an old time piece, but when you open it, a round OLED touch screen allows easy access to a whole bunch of nifty features. With a simple flick of the thumb, left, right, up or down, you have access to a mini-communicator. The default screen shows time, date, temperature, and updates on voicemail, email and text. Furthermore the default screen is completely customizable on every level, as settings can be changed to suit your style - from minimal analog hands to a full on digital display. It also comes packed with an MP3 player and video player.

Cobalt’s retro design seamlessly integrates Bluetooth technology with earrings and other accessories for all-day wearability. The small communication device is also said to be incorporating the latest in voice recognition technology, plus you can find a hidden spot on the back of the timepiece for house keys. This device will surely go with a monocle and a veneer wood cane.

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The Butterfly Dress is a prototype designed by Alexander Reeder, student at NYU. He created this dress from silk organza on which he applied several golden butterflies that come to life when the one who wears the dress feels intensive emotions. They flap the wings depending on the distance between the wearer and the people around and on the heartbeat of the wearer.



Alexander Reeder put the detachable butterflies on the dress using magnetic snaps. The Lilypad module collects information and controls the motors in butterfly’s wings. For that, she has to wear a heart rate monitor belt powered by Polar board wraps around the body for pulse monitoring. With the power coming from a 740 mAh battery, the butterflies can react to emotions for more than 4 hours.



The Butterfly Dress is interactive, washable and light, and from how Alex describes it, we understand that the magnetic snaps are modular so there can be even sound module embedded.

(Sources: talk2myShirt artandprogram)

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If you liked Pleo I’m sure you’ll be interested in finding out what this guy here is capable to do also. It is WowWee's upcoming robot called Tri-Bot and will be released this summer at a starting price of just $99.
The guys from RobotsRule had the chance to play with the cool robot and sent us pictures with Tri-Bot, a video and a comprehensive review which we wanted to show you.



Tri-Bot is an interactive companion which comes with fun alarm clock, built-in games like Pattern, Minefield, and Maze, and knows how to tell jokes, while you can use the remote control with tilt sensors to change its movements.



It has an animated face, tri-wheel omnidirectional base, 3 motors, 3 infrared sensors, poseable arms, speaker and LED indicator. To power it you need 8 AA batteries while the remote requires 3 AAA batteries.