The once outside of my local mall has a big sign that says "upload a photo to facebook faster on your iPhone or Android and win a $1000 in store credit! Take the challenge!" or something along those lines. I've always wanted to just write a script that does it instantly, but I've always been too lazy (or, more like busy). It's really easy to justify not doing it because I am 99.99% sure that if I beat the employees there will be some dirty catch and I don't get the money, knowing the employees in there. Sometimes I honestly feel they aren't educated and trained for their jobs beyond information on the Xbox and Kinect, I swear.
i mean, writing a script would probably be seen as cheating in most eyes anyways, not just microsoft's.
Is it cheating though? Doesn't the ability for my Android to allow writing scripts show it's more practical for me, with the knowledge to write scripts, then a Windows Phone? Who's stopping Microsoft from allowing that ability? If I had done it, it would've been very similar to Forwardslash's article I bet. I have the Galaxy Nexus, like the guy in the article. No matter how I achieve it, if my phone (completely by itself I might add, you don't even have to go through a PC to write a simple script like this) can post faster in any way (scripts included), isn't my phone the phone that "smokes" the other phone?
i understand what you're saying, but any phone could be modified to run a script like that, including windows phones or iphones. the point of the contest is to highlight the out of the box/official feature it has. if you open up the contest in your way, then really it's just a battle of hardware specs (what device can snap a picture and upload it the fastest). im sure there are any number of ways someone could beat the system using scripts or other prepared methods, but it would be stupid of MS not to think of this before hand and put it in the fine print.
Yeah, I wouldn't waste your time with the challenge. Even those who beat similar challenges in the past only received the prize after Microsoft lost major PR points.