Alright so I may not be the most computer savvy person but I consider myself pretty knowledgeable. I went to the new Microsoft Store at the Mall of America. I won a ticket to a VIP event with Mom's Like Me (MLM). MLM is a website all for mom and run by moms. Basically a social network just for moms. It's pretty cool. So back to the store...this is the 6th Microsoft store in the nation. It opened last weekend. We received a goodie bag with a stress ball, mints, pencils, t-shirt and something that I have no idea what it is. Pretty nice. They gave us a couple of workshop demonstrations about their newest products, Windows 7 & the Windows Phone. Both I must say were pretty sweet. The best thing we learned about was the "cloud" thing. If you've seen the commercial with the lady trying to take the family picture. They showed up a demonstration of it...amazing. Seriously anyone can use it by going to explore.live.com and going to the photo gallery area. Plus it's totally free. They also showed us how with that same site, you can link up all your different email accounts so you only have to check 1 site a day to get all of your email.
Now let me describe the store a little. Everything in the store is hooked up to Wi-Fi so you can play with everything. On the perimeter of the store, the lower half of the wall are shelves for the products. The top half of the wall is one big monitor/screen. Just like a TV, the wall changes and displays various products. On the right side, they have all of the different gaming systems set up so people can play those. A guy next to us was playing the rock band game for about 20 minutes. The store is one big game room.
We were in the back of the store behind a half wall. They have a bunch of benches with varying heights and high top tables to sit at during the workshop, but then everything can be pushed back and stored under the taller benches to make room for the newest game. We were able to demo the new Xbox Kinect. It was pretty cool. I think the system was a little touchy because you need to wait for the game to recognize you as a character. Also you need to ensure that there is plenty of space away from the TV due to the computer recognizing you. You have to stand in a certain space by looking at the TV, I would say at least 10-12 feet from the TV. Maybe it's adjustable for smalled spaces but I didn't ask, so I don't think we'd be able to play it in our small living room. Oh well I still love my Wii.
As the afternoon was wrapping up, the people from Microsoft surprised all of us by saying that there would be a drawing for 6 prizes. Five of the prizes were $25 gift card and a free PC tune up. The grand prize was a Samsung Netbook with Windows 7. It was exciting...I won a gift card! So not only did I learn some cool stuff about Windows, but I got a gift card to boot! Now I have to go back with Trav so we can pick out a new Xbox game or something like that.
Till next time, Love Tiff & Trav
No comments:
Post a Comment