Lenovo To Introduce Ashton Kutcher-Designed Smartphones This Year
Asthon Kutcher certainly knows how to keep his name in the headlines. He spent some time pulling pranks on fellow celebrities, married and divorced Demi Moore, replaced Charlie Sheen as one of the main characters on Two and a Half Men, recently popped the question to former That '70' Show co-star Mila Kunis, and still is finding time to design smartphones -- what else? -- for Lenovo, the world's top PC maker.
Come again? It's not so surprising that Lenovo is focusing a little more on smartphones this year, as it falls within the company's PC Plus strategy, which has been ultra-successful so far. What's interesting is that Lenovo is tapping Kutcher to design and promote special edition handsets that will reportedly land in stores later this year.
Of course, Kutcher is no stranger to the tech community. The dude who once lost his car also starred as Steve Jobs in the biographic film Jobs. His extensive resume also includes several advertisements for Nikon, where his presence was particularly influential in promoting the company's early touchscreen cameras. On top of it all, Kutcher was the first person to amass over a 1 million followers on Twitter.
As for Kutcher's role with Lenovo, he'll be more than just a face behind a brand. He was hired as a product engineer in October of last year and according to Lenovo executive David Roman, his role in designing special edition smartphones is very real.
Come again? It's not so surprising that Lenovo is focusing a little more on smartphones this year, as it falls within the company's PC Plus strategy, which has been ultra-successful so far. What's interesting is that Lenovo is tapping Kutcher to design and promote special edition handsets that will reportedly land in stores later this year.
Of course, Kutcher is no stranger to the tech community. The dude who once lost his car also starred as Steve Jobs in the biographic film Jobs. His extensive resume also includes several advertisements for Nikon, where his presence was particularly influential in promoting the company's early touchscreen cameras. On top of it all, Kutcher was the first person to amass over a 1 million followers on Twitter.
As for Kutcher's role with Lenovo, he'll be more than just a face behind a brand. He was hired as a product engineer in October of last year and according to Lenovo executive David Roman, his role in designing special edition smartphones is very real.
"He not only sees himself as an engineer, but he is an engineer. If he sees a problem, he wants to solve it," Roman said in an interview with Recode.
In case you're wondering, Kutcher studied biochemical engineering at the University of Iowa before he left school to pursue modeling.
In case you're wondering, Kutcher studied biochemical engineering at the University of Iowa before he left school to pursue modeling.
UPDATE 3/4/14
After running this story, Lenovo reached out to us to clarify that its development agreement with Ashton Kutcher is only for tablets, and not for smartphones.
