Green PC Competition Hots Up April 23, 2008

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Designing and building greener PCs is a noble thing but having reported on a vast number ‘green’ PC concepts and competitions, I’m sad to say that very few make it into production.

This week it’s the 2008 “Regeneration: International Green Computing Design Competition,” sponsored by Dell and it’s down to the last 5. According to the organisers:

“It was conceived as a means for Dell to facilitate a broad public dialogue around design opportunities and trade-offs regarding environmentally-responsible design (including the entire lifecycle of computing technologies & products). The team set rigorous requirements for the competition, and had more than 500 design students and professionals from across the globe participate. The jury of six internationally respected sustainable design experts worked independently to evaluate and cull the initial range of entries and then assembled in Austin to select the top 5 Finalists.”

Above you can see one of the finalists, the LawnPC, a self-sustaining system that creates its own power with the help of solar energy and , thanks to wind blowing through the blades of grass, it needs no fan. Good luck stopping your dog peeing on it though.

Check out the other four here. Again, excuse my cynicism, but does anyone really see Dell building anything like these?-Martin Lynch

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