Ben Rudolph a.k.a. "Ben the PC Guy" tweeted an olive branch to blogger Sahas Katta posted an item on the blog Skatter Tech detailing his experiences taking the challenge.
Katta wrote that he visited the Santa Clara, Calif., Microsoft store over the weekend and signed a waiver to participate in the event. Using his Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Katta wrote that he was able to pull up the weather in two different cities within three seconds, which was faster than the Windows Phone. Despite winning, Katta wrote that he was told he lost “just because.”
Then, another Microsoft employee told him that he needed to pull up the weather in two different cities in two different states to win. “I calmly and politely tried pointing out that I was absolutely never told about having to show off two different states, but at this point I realized there was no point in even attempting to argue since the Microsoft Store employees clearly had no intention of even potentially discussing the possibility of considering me the winner,” Katta wrote.
The item made the front page of Reddit Monday morning. While Microsoft reps couldn't be reached for comment, Rudolph tweeted a conciliatory message Monday morning promising Katta a laptop and an apology:
As of press time, Katta has not responded on his blog or his Twitter account.
Microsoft launched the challenge at CES in January. Since then, it's been featured in an ad campaign.