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Intel PC Design Contest Opened to the People

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Intel has thrown open its PC Design Challenge to the public, who will be allowed a glimpse of some of the innovative PCs.

In September, Intel inaugurated the Intel Challenge, a $1 million design competition to come up with the most innovative PC design. Ten semifinalists were selected by a panel of all-Intel judges.

Of those, seven of the candidates have been also included in the "People's Choice" version of the competition, where the prize is mere exposure. Ken Kaplan, a spokesman for Intel, said the winner would be asked to accompany Intel promotional tours and attend events like the Intel Developer Forum. Three of the semifinalists declined to join in, keeping what Kaplan said he assumed to be soon-to-be-announced products from public exposure.

Check out ExtremeTech's review of the quad-core Intel QX670.

"I come from a television background, so I said, why don't we shoot some pictures and video, and get the people involved," Kaplan said.

Not surprisingly, each PC must include an Intel Core2 Duo, and boot either Windows XP Media Center Edition or Vista. A list of Intel approved components includes support for the Intel Viiv consumer-electronics driver stack, optional wireless support, and an NCQ-equipped Serial ATA hard drive. Each chassis must be less than 12 liters in volume.

So far, BICOM remains the favorite, with three designs successfully through to the semifinals and into the People's Choice selection: the HMS7, HMS 8 and HMS1 Other entrants included the MagicBox from ECS Elitegroup, the HFSmicro from mCubed, and the Decomatic 12b from SlipperySkip Computers.

The industry finalists will be judged by the editor of GQ, representatives from Ideo Design, and Ziff Ventures' Michael Miller. Voters for the "People's Choice" portion have a chance to win $100 per week.