Later tonight, Microsoft opens up one of its 34 "temporary" Microsoft Store locations for the holidays in New York City"s Times Square. However, this isn"t some tiny mall kiosk manned by one person but a huge store with lots of employees inside.
We still haven"t actually gotten inside the store (it won"t open to the public until 10 pm Eastern time) but we did walk past it and heard a massive roar from inside, presumably from all of the store"s employees getting pumped up for the opening.
Outside, Microsoft has already set up a number of demo stations, letting anyone who passes by a chance to go hands-on with Microsoft"s Surface tablet along with a number of Windows 8 devices from third party hardware makers.
A number of the stations had artists doing portraits of some of the people who dropped by the demos, painting them via Microsoft"s Windows 8 art creation app Fresh Paint.
Meanwhile, a line was forming outside the Microsoft Store in order to be one of the first to get a Surface tablet in their hands. Microsoft was handing out free bags, jackets and blankets to some of the people in line. The people in the photo above were the first in line and have been waiting since 8:30 am this morning.
Stay tuned for a new report as we will go inside the Times Square Microsoft Store and also see Times Square itself get turned into a big Windows 8 Start screen.