Microsoft reportedly winds down The Garage program, plans some maker-space closures

The main Garage space on Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, campus served as the hub for around 15 locations across the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, according to Warren. Employees used the spaces to experiment with prototypes and build hardware. Over The Garage's 17-year history, projects to emerge from it included Seeing AI, an app that describes objects and text for people who are blind or have low vision. Warren traces the Xbox Adaptive Controller to a hackathon and says employees across Xbox and Surface developed it.

The annual employee hackathon is facing changes, too. The FAQ, as quoted by The Verge, says its team is “reimagining the program” and will share more later. Warren writes that the event could potentially disappear, but the FAQ does not announce its cancellation.