Folding Plug Should Inspire Smarter Power Supply

Min-Kyu Choi just managed to win the Brit Insurance design of the year award thanks to a very ingenious version of the 3-pin plug that, as practical and safe as it is, was too bulky to for most users and literally a pain for some people suffering from physical disabilities.

Armed with a very Apple-esque design (check the cable, the grey connectors and the curved part of the new plug itself), the folding plug design is set to make of Mr Choi a very rich man. But there's an even bigger challenge that awaits the man who could one day become Britain's next James Dyson.

The unwieldy and extremely frustratingly complicated and unreliable power supply. Be it for laptops or other external devices, the redesign of the power supply with its long cord and endless connector is well overdue.

Apple's Magsafe is possibly the closest thing to what one might could consider as the ideal power adaptor. Apple's design merges the actual power supply with the plug itself providing with an extremely compact and handy unit.

Add in the magnetic connector that disconnects when someone trips on the cable and the nice little lip that allows the cable to be wound neatly around itself and the design appears to be almost flawless.

But there's still a lot more to do; we'd like to see the design being adopted by other third party manufacturers and integrate nice ideas like an integrated cable storage unit and an even smaller model.