An inaccurate quote has been floating around the Internet today about the design origins of Windows 7 and whether its look and feel was “borrowed” from Mac OS X.  Unfortunately this came from a Microsoft employee who was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7. I hate to say this about one of our own, but his comments were inaccurate and uninformed. If you’re interested in learning more about the design of Windows 7, I suggest reading this AP story with Julie Larson-Green as well as these WSJ (membership required) and Fast Company articles. And here is one of many blog posts on the E7 blog discussing the design process of Windows 7.

UPDATED 09/01 2:14PM

I’ve moved the content of this blog post to a separate stand-alone page on the site due to it being so long and how it reads more like a whitepaper rather than a blog post. You can find the new page here.

What would our PC casings look like some years from now? Well to date, we have seen various designs on how to store our PC peripherals and chips. However, if you step up and close to look at this crazy but alluring design, you may even mistake it as the PC design of the future.

The case is actually the prototype by BMW, DesignworksUSA, and computer case and fanmaker Thermaltake exists now. “Level 10″ is on display at CeBIT, the world’s largest computer expo going on now in Hanover, Germany. Sporting an open design, ventilation is enhanced enough to be beyond needing such exotica as liquid cooling. The concept is similar to those lofts with all the exposed piping and ventilation ductwork. It’s positively postmodern.

Once available, expect PC owners to check out if they can afford and get a hold of this new BMW Level 10 PC design. If the price is right, surely many people will not pass it up. It is simple a design that will make you PC stand out above the rest.

There’s precious little info about this spectacular case design, so we have no idea when it might be available and at what price. We’ll be visiting the DesignworksUSA studio in Los Angeles later this month, so we’ll find out more details then.

Source

A

When Microsoft shipped the “Microsoft industrial design toolkit” to over 70 original equipment manufacturers last year before the launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft hoped to get rid of the “beige box” ideology and turn PCs into objects of desire. More than a year on, as charming John Hodgeman might be, the sad fact is that most OEM PCs today with a few premium exceptions are still bulky boxes with just as many stickers are wires connected.

It might probably take more than a year for an industry thriving around function over form to do the opposite, but Apple’s iPod and iMac demonstrates most people are even willing to sell body-parts to look good. Apart from the minority who likes to tinker with the hardware, there’s no reason why the PC can’t be more compact and integrated.

Today I stumbled across Carbon Design Group’s portfolio, a Seattle-based industrial design company who’s worked on many Microsoft projects including the X360 controller, racing wheel, LifeCam, Laser Desktop 6000 and Windows Home Server. One other was the “Vista PC“. A set of 9 images provide a pretty good example of what Carbon and Microsoft envisioned for the “Vista-generation” of computers.

With the launch of Windows Vista, Microsoft embarked on a never-been-tried-before initiative that spanned the entire hardware industry and attempted to bring the hardware and software design and development closer together than ever before. The design strategy was communicated in an Industrial Design Toolkit, which contained all the design components and specifications to create tangible visual representations of the colors, materials, fonts, and form language in the Windows Vista operating system.

Microsoft engaged Carbon’s design and engineering team to create a flagship concept PC to inspire as well as validate Microsoft’s Industrial Design Toolkit. The Vista Concept PC emphasizes the dual nature of the PC as both a productivity tool and an entertainment device and became the purest embodiment of the Vista design language. The work is helping industry design the wave of next generation PC’s.

It’s hard not to say it reminds me of the new iMac and Mighty Mouse, but assuming these were done in 2006 it’s interesting to see the two converge. The hybrid remote-mouse is definitely a winner though. But I’m not too sure about the stainless typewriter keyboard.