Fremont (CA) - After years of sporting an almost plain, ’90s Web look with basic borders, quickly Photoshop-ed icons (including the classic "Bill Gates as Borg") and Times Roman text, Slashdot - one of the Web’s most frequented gathering places for discussions and cross-postings, has without the <TABLE> elements, and with a CSS style sheet.

The new look was the product of a design contest which Slashdot’s publisher, Open Source Technology Group, announced just last 1 May. A Spanish Web designer named Alex Bendiken had the winning entry from three finalists that the OSTG editors chose from among hundreds reportedly submitted to Slashdot editor and founder Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. Contestants were advised to stay within the boundaries of HTML 4.0, and to utilize exactly Slashdot’s existing color scheme, which alone is something its publishers could copyright...if they were into that kind of thing. Bendiken won a laptop computer and the , as posted on the family business’ blog.