NYConvergence ORIGINAL

While NYConvergence was over at SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology's Haft Auditorium in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood for the June NY Tech Meetup last night, Microsoft was hosting its own event at a temporary "gallery" location in Manhattan's Meatpacking District across the street from Apple's retail location.  Project Manager Rob Kelley e-mailed us to let us know how it went.  Below, you'll find his report.

In contrast to the youth and energy of [the] tech meetup, the [M]icrosoft gallery show had the stylishly-dressed 30-somethings sipping wine while looking over [their] shoulders at touchscreens.  The event
also brought in some of the walk-by meatpacking district fashion set.

Biggest fail: Microsoft's tabletop surface copmputer was kaput (a shame because I''d call it the main geek draw, but the two-finger HP touchscreens were a hit.  Users could use Microsoft's Photo Montage program to move and stretch photos by dragging the corners as in Minority Report.

Coolest was the presence of half a dozen toddlers (including my own). They cuted up look of the crowd and made good test users of the touchscreens (in my informal tests, MS Paint wins out over Virtual Earth for the under-five crowd).