Giant computer shows are going the way of the mainframe and the dinosaur, with Sicob in Paris the latest victim of the inexorable trend. But Italy’s SMAU has come up with something different to try to retain the interest of a fickle computer public. Marking the silver anniversary of its annual ritual, a jury of design and information techology experts assembled by SMAU, awarded the SMAU Industrial Design Award to six hardware and two software products last week. Chosen from a field of 43 products from manufacturers worldwide, the products were chosen for general and technological innovation, and improved ease and flexibility of use. The six hardware awards went to Apple Computer Inc and designer Bob Brunner for the Macintosh PowerBook 145, for its high image fidelity and efficient ergonomic solutions; Canon Inc for the CLC 10 colour copier, facsimile and printer. The judges commented that it represents high technology in compact dimensions. Is easily employed and has a wide range of professional uses; Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA and designers Mario Bellini and Agai Shvadron for the Quaderno notebook computer – that’s the one that doubles as a dictation machine – for the optimisation of its size-performance ratio. Easy to read; Murata Machinery Ltd Japan for the Muratec M700 personal facsimile-phone. Integration of several functions in an extremely compact device. Easy and flexible to use; Rank Xerox Ltd for the Xerox 5775 colour digital copier. Easy to use and maintain. An optimum man-machine interface. Best performance quality; Telenorma-Bosch Telecom GmbH and designer the famous Californian shop Frog Design Inc for the TH93D money-changer seat.
QuickTime, NeXTstep
Rapid and easy to use for a highly specialised professional audience. The two software products honoured were the QuickTime Starter Kit from Apple Computer Inc and NeXTstep 3.0 from NeXT Computer Inc. For the first time this year, SMAU, in conjunction with the Italian Ministry of Universities and of Scientific and Technological Research, and with the General Direction for Information, Communication and Culture of the European Community, made awards to students for creating applications with original approaches to the problem of the man-machine interface. The first Dialogos prize of $2,000 went to a group of new electronic engineering graduates of the Polytechnic University of Milan who collaborated with the state television channel, la RAI. Roberta Molinari, Andrea Bernesco-Lovere and Claudio Buffo used an 80486-based personal computer and writable videodisk to create An Interactive Multimedia Encyclopaedia of the Science of Philosophy. Three $1,200 prizes went to Unfamiliar Animals, a prototype zoological atlas based on an 80386 personal computer, CD-ROM and videodisk; Multimedia workstation for AIDS Research, based on the Macintosh with CD-ROM; and Vicenza: A Multimedia Information Point, based on a Macintosh. – Marsha Johnston.
