Microsoft Open House 2009

Microsoft's first annual "Open House" was held at the New York Armory on Park Avenue on October 6, 2009.

Microsoft spent a lot of money giving the place a futuristic feel.

Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, delivered the opening remarks in a a dome-like tent.

Bach highlighted Windows Phone and the new features in Windows Mobile 6.5.

The evolution of a Microsoft product.

The new Zune HD also got some PowerPoint love.

Microsoft built a futuristic tree-house to show off Windows Phone.

The Retweet bird was a human who sang Twitter messages you sent her. We wish we had one of these around the office.

A naturalistic phone stand in the tree-house.

This is the highly anticipated Toshiba TGO1, which features a 4.1-inch, 800x480-pixel resolution touch-screen display. Its battery power was low.

The slim Toshiba in profile.

This bird was showing how you could print directly from the new HTC Touch Pro 2.

The view from the tree-house.

In the Xbox section, a representative was demonstrating Microsoft's upcoming HD video streaming feature (the movie is "Coraline").

XBox Live will soon offer integrated social networking apps from Facebook and Twitter, as well as music streaming from last.fm (which is owned by CNET's parent company, CBS).

Delving into the Facebook app.

Playing Madden with CNET's Natali Del Conte. She took it to the house.

The Windows area with Windows 7 getting the full promotional treatment.

Nothing like some good computer peripherals.

The Retweet parakeet finally gets my message. She sang it with conviction.

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