ZTE has initiated Project CSX, a community driven program to crowd source ideas for its next device. The idea seems to be taking listening to ZTE’s customers to the extreme; mainly by allowing them have their say in what would make a good smartphone.
The action is taking place on ZTE’s Z Community forum, where just about anyone is able to register an account and post a suggestion. There also appears to be a voting system for the CSX ideas; one that looks similar to Reddit’s upvotes.
It isn’t entirely the wild west of ideas with Project CSX. ZTE has said that it will only select ideas that are technologically possible by 2017; which may limit the kinds of ideas that people may come up with. Moreso by the second requirement that the suggestions must also result in an affordable device.
Those participating also stand to win some sort of prize if their ideas are selected; this is in addition to the bragging rights of having proposed a marketable idea for ZTE. Engadget is also suggesting that there may be early access to the devices for winning ideas – as well as a potential trip to CES.
The Z Community has already been hard at work proposing some interesting ideas, like dual USB Type-C ports, kinetic energy charging, and a graphene based shell. Some of the ideas appearing actually sound reasonable, and it wouldn’t be too difficult to imagine ZTE picking up a few of these for future projects.
[Source: Z Community, Engadget]
