Few days ago Microsoft announced the 2nd edition of the Student Rockstar contest. Calling out all young technology enthusiasts to learn more about Microsoft technologies, share knowledge, participate in competitions, projects, events, quizzes, and much more. For these activities, you earn points and get a rank in the contest, which eventually determines your rewards and opportunities. This is the perfect chance to try your luck at becoming a Microsoft Student Partner or win XBoxes, Windows mobile phones and flash drives.

Register before 25th Sept 2007 to win 50 bonus points!
Also an exciting competition is being held by Microsoft- “Light Up Your College” – that gets your creative juices flowing and gives you the chance to design an innovative website for your college, using Microsoft Next Web technologies.
So, if you’re interested in web development, you can make this your first step to real life assignments and in the run, win prizes worth Rs.50,000 !
Find out more… http://www.studentrockstar.com/LightUpYourCollege.aspx

This contest is only for the students studying in engineering colleges in India.

So hurry up friends and join the student rockstar contest here- http://studentrockstar.com

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.

Well the wait is over for Halo 3, the ad that is. Named “Diorama”, it features a theoretical but ‘real’ monument created in the year 2607, on exhibit in the (imaginary) Museum of Humanity. Crafted by historians (artists) to pay tribute (make an ad) to the greatest of heroes, Master Chief Petty Officer John-117. I’ll just leave the figurines to do the talking. Check out the Flash version below or the original HD version.

Oh yes, how freaking cool is that. And yes, that is a real miniature model crafted by real people. I’m not sure how they can achieve the flame or smoke effects, but it’s pretty much one of the most detailed models I’ve seen. You can explore it in much more detail on the site, as well as see the following (fake) “making-of“.

The creative strategy is very unique, but is the result better than Gears of War’s award-winning “Mad World“? I don’t speak for everybody, but definitely a contender.