Big news coming out this month on VIA’s OpenBook mini-notebook computer project which incorporates an “open design” approach that makes the CAD design plans for the device available to the public under the permissive terms of a Creative Commons BY SA license. The project invites customers to innovate and solicits suggestions from users on future iterations of the laptop. To spur involvement, they’ve even recently released a video that opens the laptop up and showcases the electronic guts that enable OpenBook’s users the flexibility to add modules and choose openly between wireless options.

Happy to announce that since we first reported on the laptop’s debut in May, the project has taken off. Engadget recently reviewed the product, writing simply that the OpenBook made “that Macbook Air look positively last century.” And, this month, before an international jury of design experts at this years Taipei Computex, the VIA OpenBook has taken home the Gold Award for Design and Innovation for 2008. Congratulations guys!