[nogridbag]

I stepped into the Microsoft store yesterday - they had the Microsoft band front and center and it lured me in. Every time I go into the store I keep saying "this is cool!" at every station. But I still find myself struggling with the usability of Windows 8.

The final station I stopped at in the store was the HP Sprout PC which uses a digital projector mounted on top of the monitor to project a virtual touch screen input device where the keyboard would normally be. So it can appear as a piano, a drawing surface, etc. Once again I said "this is cool!". I've never even heard of this thing.

I used it for 5 minutes before I somehow put it into a buggy state where it stopped responding to input on the virtual touch screen.

[mikeash]

I'm always amazed at how crappy Microsoft stores are. Oh, they're pretty and welcoming and there are always happy people playing games in there (often the employees, because they have nothing to do), but nothing works. I go to actually try out a device and the games won't run because they need me to log in to some MS service, the machines aren't connected to WiFi, or stuff is just locked up....

And how much do you want to bet that they just can't figure out why the Apple Store across the corridor is packed from open to close and theirs is a relative ghost town.