Asus EcoBook Bamboo Laptop Prototype Gallery
Gizmodo has a gallery of the most recent prototype of the Asus "EcoBook," an "ultra green" laptop that is supposed to come out next year. The internals don't concern me much—I'm sure it'll use some efficient chipset available elsewhere—but the bamboo covering has now been extended to the inside palm rest. It begs to be stroked, the blonde bamboo slowly soaking up the oil from the hand. You may think that's grody and I guess it is a little, but I love what happens to wood when it shows the evidence of human touch. It would be great to have a laptop that gets more beautiful as it is used, not less.
Asus' Updated EcoBook Bamboo Laptop Hands On (Gallery) [Gizmodo]
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It looks lovely (like a 60's modernist house with glass walls), but I hope it's durable because having to repeatedly replace 'em would probably negate the good it dose.
Every time I see wood on a computer I think of a great description from William Gibson's Idoru of a guy who made a name hand-making beautiful, unique, sturdy computer/laptop cases out of fine woods, inlaid with metal and jewels. Rather than buying whole computers with cheap plastic cases, people would just buy the guts and upgrade, keeping their personalized cases for years.
Nice laptop cases make me happy inside.
I used to work at a small satellite startup. We found out that our (even smaller) competitor was using bamboo as a structural component and we felt pretty good about our design. Where do you buy space-qualfied wood anyway?
Bamboo is incredibly durable and hard wearing so it should make an excellent material for hardware cases. As for using it in space construction, if you've ever seen bamboo scaffolding in Hong Kong or other parts of the far east, you'll know that it can more than do the job, and as it grows incredibly quickly, with the application of hydroponics you could grow your building materials on site. Hmm *adds to writing notes*
I work for a sustainable bamboo design company in Indonesia and am a little sceptical about what makes this 'ultra green' or even 'mildly green'. How was the bamboo laminated? What was used to treat it? How durable can it be using "natural" additives? Is this really better for the environment after all considerations for where the bamboo was grown, shipped to, processed?
JWerner, I don't have the answers, obviously, but I know I want to know more about the company you work for!