New Gadgets and Gizmos

Evento’s Buzzball is is a giant ball with a seat in it that’s being hailed as a one-person roller coaster.

At the heart of the Buzzball is a dual motor configuration, enabling the pilot to control the motion and direction of travel via left and right control triggers, which provides power to the driving wheels.

The amount of power applied to each wheel will determine the direction the Buzzball moves.

Once the Buzzball is in motion the pod maintains an upright position until the pilot turns, causing the pod to rotate inside the ball against the direction of travel, which applies a braking force and the pod to lock with the ball. This causes the pod to rotate with the ball until the weight of the pilot and pod overcomes the inertia forces and causes the Buzzball to change direction.

This is when the fun starts, as the speed will affect the degree of rotation of the pilot and pod from a partial barrel roll to complete and multiple rotations!

Okay, so let me give it to you in layman’s terms: You get in this giant fucking ball, pull some levers and shit, and the next thing you know you’re puking, and, oh God, drowning in a creek. Now that’s what I call a good time.

Hit the jump for a video of the ball in action.

An era ended Monday. The first day of Steve Ballmer’s occupation of the corner office at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, WA., also marked the last day for Windows XP.

June 30 was the “end of sales” deadline for the venerable version of the Windows operating system, which Microsoft is trying to replace with Windows Vista. But in a letter to customers, Bill Veghte, a senior vice president at Microsoft, emphasized three options for customers who “need” Windows XP on new boxes.

First and foremost are the so-called “downgrade rights” available to Vista Business and Vista Ultimate customers. In addition, business customers that license Windows through Microsoft’s volume licensing programs can get downgrade rights.

Downgrade Rights

Computer sellers like Dell, Hewlett Packard and Lenovo are offering downgrade rights on their PCs. “This is a great value because it lets you use Windows XP on new PCs today if you need it, and then make the move to take advantage of the additional capabilities of Windows Vista when you are ready, without having to pay for an upgrade,” Veghte wrote.

The problem for Microsoft is that many enterprises will never be ready, given the concerns businesses have with the stability and reliability of Vista, plus the fact that much of the hardware that businesses own need upgrades to run Vista.

The opposition to Vista fueled a campaign to get Microsoft to extend XP sales. At InfoWorld, Executive Editor Galen Gruman created an online petition drive to “Save XP” and the tech newsweekly last week sent Microsoft the petition with more than 200,000 signatures.

Waiting for Windows 7?

“The typical interval from the introduction of a new version of Windows to the end-sale date for the previous version is two years. Given the disruptive nature of many Vista upgrades, we feel that Microsoft should continue to make Windows XP available…

Yahoo Inc. began pressing a case to major shareholders Monday that its board and management deserve a chance to prove they made the right move when they rejected a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.

The missed opportunity to sell to Microsoft infuriated many Yahoo shareholders, prompting activist investor Carl Icahn to agitate for replacing Yahoo’s nine directors and reviving negotiations with Microsoft. If he gains control of the board, Icahn intends to fire Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang as chief executive.

In response, Yahoo has assembled a 32-page shareholder presentation to elaborate on the points it has been emphasizing since Microsoft withdrew its bid May 3.

Investors will decide the dustup in a vote scheduled Aug. 1 at Yahoo’s annual meeting. That leaves another month for the Sunnyvale, California-based company and Icahn to disparage each other.

And with Yahoo shares sliding back toward $19.18 — their value before Microsoft’s bid — Yahoo’s management is facing even more pressure to end the financial malaise that triggered the takeover bid in the first place. Yahoo shares fell 44 cents to $20.89 in Monday’s afternoon trading.

Icahn didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday, but he wrote on his blog last week that he would share his latest opinions on Yahoo “shortly.”

Yahoo argues that entrusting the company’s fate to Icahn would be foolhardy because his strategy centers on resurrecting a dead deal.

Its breaking point came after Yang and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer couldn’t agree on a price. Ballmer had orally offered $33 per share, but Yang wanted $37 per share — a price that Yahoo’s stock hasn’t reached in nearly 2 1/2 years.

Since Microsoft walked away, Yahoo said it tried to reopen sales negotiations in meetings on May 17 and June 8, only to be told “unequivocally” that the software maker no longer is interested in…