And here we have the 17 Design & Innovation award winners announced yesterday at Computex Taipei 2008, from which 4 are being selected as top innovations.
These 17 winners are gadgets and new inventions designed by leading companies in the industry from Taiwan, including Acer, A-DATA, AnMo Electronics, AsusTek, Cooler Master, Mitac, Patriot Memory, Sonnenschein, SSI, Starline, VIA, and Thermaltake.

It seems that it was very hard to take decisions while all these new smart products were from the best, especially those from the gaming sector:
“It may be that it’s difficult for me or other jurors to take these products seriously at first,” says Christoph Boninger, Senior Partner of brains4design, d&I award jury. “That is why it took us an hour to decide whether this kind of product is in or out. Finally, we came to the conclusion that there’s a demand for this product for this generation.”

And the winners are:



With a confusing name as all the other PC DDR3 Memory Modules wear, PVS32G1866LLK developed by Patriot Memory were designed to operate at 1866MHz at 8-8-8-24 timings and come in 2GB kit capacity. These modules are included in the Patriot Extreme Performance Low Latency line and feature the Patriot Viper Heat Shields with integrated Aluminum Copper Composite technology, to reach the best performance and stability under extreme overclocking conditions required for the next-gen gaming.



The USB Flash Drive coming from A-DATA Technology, called Nobility Series N702, has also won the iF Product Design Award 2008 for the modern design looking like a diamond cut, the 180-degree rotary USB connector, and the free necklace with key chain accessories, that come along with 2GB~8GB memory capacities and USB 2.0 high speed interface supporting Windows ReadyBoost.



Twist a Cable is a cool idea from Sonnenschein, included in the Unique Memory Cable Technology category, which shows a new design concept: cables that can be bent, turned twisted and squeezed, without being affected. These new type of cables are tangle free, require no management, and you can route them around computer peripherals with no clips attached, confident that they won’t lead to short-circuits.



Another USB Flash Drive that won the award among other gadgets and new inventions is Swing Duo from Starline International Group. It brings 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, 6G, 8G, 9G, 10G, 12G, and 16G storage capacities in a small form factor with both the 2 halves containing independent memory circuits.



Dino-Lite from ANMO Electronics is a digital microscope for industrial inspection, quality control, dermatology, engineering teleconferences, research, science learning and other similar industries. It has 1.3MP resolution, adjustable magnification of up to 200x, built-in 8 white LEDs, MultiTouch snapshot,up to 30 frames per second in VGA mode, 15 fps at the 1.3MP resolution, high-speed USB interface, and measures 10 x 3.2 cm at about 100 grams.
The rotatable polarizer filter from the AM-413ZT model decreases the reflection glare to any extent so you can see through transparent materials like jewelry, glass and plastic.



VIA’s CloudBook Max ultra mobile PC is a winner too and it was chosen for its stylish design looking smooth like a cloud, featuring a 8.9-inch LED TFT LCD display, Bluetooth, GPS receiver, dual built-in 2MP cameras, and a keyboard specially designed to fit eastern and western users.



The other ultra mobile PC from VIA that was awarded at Computex Taipei 2008 is the dbook. What is brings new includes a 4-cell battery in the screen hinge, a design meant to increase battery capacity for longer use.



Among the winners is also a PC accessory, the iXoft notebook cooling pad made by Thermaltake Technology. It looks like a mouse pad in the image because it is very slim and the most important characteristic is the Heat Shift Technology, which involves a phase change material that exhibits cold and solid properties when not in use and then transforms into liquid form when dissipating heat.



When it comes in contact with heat sources like a notebook, it absorbs immediately the heat away from it accelerating thermal dissipation by distributing heat across all available surfaces on iXoft through natural convection. This complex cooling stand for laptops can be carried and folded, weighting 650 grams.




Mio won with 3 products,the Leap K1 dual-sided navigation phone and the Leap G50 navigation PDA phone, which will be launched in quarter 3 this year, and the Mio Explora 330, a PND with GPS functionality and 2.5G GSM support. The panel is touch-sensitive and drivers can get updated directly from an operator's server. It measures just 12.4 mm thickness.



A great S-ATA HDD docking unit compatible with both PCs and Macs is the SI-7908 series SATA HDD Stage Rack from SSI Computer. It comes with USB, eSATA and 1394 different interfaces. In addition there is a 12V/2A adaptor and support for 3.5" and 2.5" SATA hard drives.



I am not surprised to see the Acer’s Aspire Gemstone Blue notebooks receiving this prestigious award at Computex 2008, as we all know this new design with blue lights and superb shape look perfect. They have powerful speakers, a tube-type subwoofer, world’s first 5.1-channel surround sound integrated, outstanding visuals, 3D cover, backlit Acer logo, neon-blue lights, and touch-sensitive media console.



Asus U2E notebook is another winner for its luxury look with hand polished stainless steel frame, copper etched detail, and premium leather cover.



Besides a notebook there has to be a desktop unit too, and here we have Asus’ Ares CG6150 equipped for intensive gaming, and with an eye-catching design. It has a modern composite armor inspired by the Trojan and Japanese masks, providing biometric fingerprint security and cool LED lights arrays.



The UF735 digital photo frame from AsusTek Computer won the award among gadgets and new inventions designs because it can show the pictures in slideshows while playing nice music in the background. The sound comes from a front-placed speaker made of pressed aluminum using the Micro-Webbing technology, which permits designers to create 0.5-mm holes for the sound system.



Cooler Master developed the V8 cooler processor cooler capable of generating great power for cooling any of the existent high-performance CPUs. It comes with 4 separate modular sets of aluminum fins for large heat dissipation and 8 heat pipes to maximize heat transfer, while the PWM fan speed controller with manual knob located in the back allows the fan speed to be adjusted for reaching the best balance between cooling and noise.