Hasta La Gadget!

When Miiverse first hit the web, Nintendo called it a beta experience. It was an apt description — the web app lacked the ability to manage friends, tweak user details or create new posts. Today, things are looking a bit better: Nintendo quietly pushed an update for the service this week, adding in all those features and the ability to view most posts without logging in. Users itching to send private messages or share drawings still need to boot up their Wii U. Nintendo hasn’t said if this means if Miiverse’s web presence is out of beta, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. Now, where’s that 3DS support we were promised?

Filed under: Gaming, Nintendo

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Via: GoNintendo

Source: NeoGaf, Miiverse

Hydrogel that moves when it is aimed with light? Now here’s a novel new material that could have potentially interesting uses.

Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It Original content from Ubergizmo.

With a gasoline-powered car, refueling is as simple as pulling into a gas station and waiting a few minutes for the gas take to be refilled. Things are a bit trickier with electric vehicles, however, which require charging stations rather than gas stations. Tesla has been rolling out it SuperCharger network over many months, having added six in California back in October, for example. At tonight’s D11 conference, Musk made an announcement early: Tesla‘s SuperCharger network will be tripled.

The announcement was slated to be made tomorrow, but Musk decided to let it out early following encouragement from those around him. When asked about concerns of range and charging station availability, Musk originally responded: “We’re planning to announce something about that tomorrow.” Such an answer simply prodded curiosity ten-fold, however, and he soon elaborated on Tesla’s planned announcement.

“We have something cool called the Supercharger. Ok, I might as well let the cat out of the bag. So the Supercharger technology we developed because regular charging is slow and not effective for long-distance travel. But when people buy a car they’re buying a sense of freedom that they can go wherever they want and not feel fettered.” Following this, he made the big announcement: “There’s going to be a dramatic acceleration of the SuperCharging network. It’ll be tripled. We’ll put the map live tomorrow.”

According to Musk, the increase in SuperCharging stations will allow Tesla car owners to “drive from LA to New York” using only that SuperCharger network, no doubt good news to both current owners and those who have hesitated in purchasing the vehicle over concerns about charging station availability. “We’ll be both increasing the density and the scope of the network.” Those who drive the Tesla cars won’t have trouble finding a SuperCharger station, either, because the company’s software gets auto updates, which will bring with them the new maps. When a charge is needed, the driver will be directed to the SuperCharger station closest to wherever they happen to be located.

Talk about range and charging brought up banter about the New York Times review of the Model S earlier this year, which drew a great deal of criticism from Musk, who claimed that it had been intentionally done in such a way to make the vehicle look bad. “If we didn’t speak out against it, that article would have lived forever, and people would have gotten the wrong impression of the car. Ultimately the NYT public editor agreed the article was wrong but didn’t think it was intentional, but I don’t think there’s any way it was not intentional.”

The topic was then quickly switched away from Tesla to SpaceX.

SOURCE: AllThingsD

Tesla’s Elon Musk says SuperCharging network will be tripled is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) – U.S. Senator John McCain said on Wednesday, two days after meeting with rebels in Syria, that he is confident the United States can send weapons to fighters in Syria without the risk they will fall into the wrong hands.

“We can identify who these people are. We can help the right people,” McCain said on CNN’s program “Anderson Cooper 360.”

McCain, a Republican, is an outspoken advocate for U.S. military aid to the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has angrily denounced Democratic President Barack Obama – McCain’s opponent in his failed 2008 presidential race – for shying away from deeper U.S. involvement in the conflict, which has claimed 80,000 lives.

Critics of some lawmakers’ push to arm the rebels have expressed concerns that weapons could end up in the hands of militants who might eventually end up using them against the United States or its allies.

But McCain said such radical fighters make up only a small part of the rebels forces.

For example, he said, Syria’s Islamist al-Nusra Front, identified as an alias of al Qaeda in Iraq, accounts for only about 7,000 of the 100,000 fighters battling the government of Assad.

“Every single day, more and more extremists flow in… “They’re flowing in all the time, these extremists. But they still do not make up a sizeable portion,” the Arizona senator said.

The Obama administration, saying it is keeping all options on the table, has sent food and medical supplies to Assad’s opponents. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also have been trying to organize an international peace conference on Syria.

McCain said he was escorted during his visit on Monday by General Salem Idris, leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army, and that he had a long meeting with Idris and a group of his battalion commanders.

“They’re very disturbed about the dramatic influx of Hezbollah fighters, more Iranians and of course stepped up activities of Bashar Assad,” McCain said.

U.S. public opinion is strongly against direct military involvement in Syria, but McCain said no one, including Idris and his commanders, wants American “boots on the ground.”

However, he said the rebel forces made clear they want U.S. weapons. “Their message was … They do not understand. They do not understand why we won’t help them,” McCain said.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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By Roberta Rampton

CHICAGO, May 29 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, whose agenda has been frustrated by Republicans in Washington, said on Wednesday he believed his party could reclaim control of the House of Representatives in the 2014 midterm elections but conceded it was an uphill struggle.

The party in power in the White House typically loses seats in the first midterm election after a presidential campaign, and many political analysts believe Democrats could lose seats in Congress in 2014.

But Obama, appearing at fundraisers for Democratic House candidates in his hometown of Chicago, said he believed 2014 could prove different.

“We’ve got a great chance to take back the House,” he told more than 100 people gathered at a cocktail reception in an ornate ballroom at the Chicago Hilton, where ticket prices ranged from $1,000 per person to $5,000 per couple.

Obama, who was reelected in 2012, told donors that he is willing to work with Republicans on issues like creating jobs through national infrastructure programs, but said he has a hard time finding Republican lawmakers willing to compromise.

“We’ve got a politics that is stuck right now. And the reason it’s stuck is because people spend more time thinking about the next election than they do thinking about the next generation,” Obama said.

Obama said he is willing to work with Republicans, who currently control the House, but accused them of “obstructionism” and “an interest only in scoring political points or placating a base.”

It was the fifth time since April that Obama has traveled to raise money for Democrats running for Congress in 2014.

In Chicago, about 70 people paid $10,000 per person or $32,400 per couple to attend dinner in the sculpture-filled apartment of Bettylu and Paul Saltzman, longtime Chicago Democratic activists and some of Obama’s earliest political benefactors.

Obama told the group, which he described as “kind of an Obama cabal,” that a Democratic-controlled House is key to achieving goals he views as his legacy, like curbing climate change and gun violence.

“My only interest is making sure that when I look back 20 years from now, I say, ‘I accomplished everything that I could while I had this incredible privilege to advance the interests of the broadest number of Americans,'” he said.

But he admitted winning back the House won’t be easy.

“This will be hard,” he said, blaming “gerrymandering” or the redistricting process which many Democratic groups have said unfairly benefits Republicans.

First Lady Michelle Obama also spoke at two Democratic fundraisers on Wednesday in Manhattan.

“We need all of you to get engaged in every special election and every midterm election all across this country,” she told donors who paid between $5,000 and $25,000 to attend a fundraiser in the Manhattan apartment of fashion designer Tory Burch.

“We need you to keep on writing those checks and, if you haven’t maxed out, max out. Get your friends to max out,” she said, referring to caps on donations set by U.S. election law.

At a Park Avenue gala with about 350 people who paid $1,250 to $32,400 to attend, the first lady was introduced by basketball player Jason Collins, who recently came out as the nation’s first openly gay major professional sports player. (Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington; Editing by Paul Simao)

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