Hasta La Gadget!

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Tuesday that trying to defund Obamacare at the expense of a government shutdown may not have been sensible.

“It probably wasn’t the best strategy to employ,” Johnson, a tea party supporter, said in a CNN interview.

Johnson said defunding Obamacare — an effort led by his conservative colleague, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — was never “achievable,” requiring the support of too many Senate Democrats. But he hesitated to explicitly call the showdown, and resulting government shutdown, a mistake.

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Disney has a knack for making the mundane magical, whether it’s transforming a pumpkin into a carriage or a few sheets of paper into a generator. The team from Disney Research accomplished the latter by constructing a simple mechanism with a few low-cost items, like Teflon, conductive adhesives, …

Malibu Middle School classes will be relocated while the school district tests the building and surrounding soil for contaminants that teachers suspect has been making them sick, Santa Monica-Malibu Superintendent Sandra Lyon told hundreds of concerned parents and students Tuesday.

Starting Wednesday, all classes in Building E will be moved to nearby Juan Cabrillo Elementary School and to Malibu High School, which shares a campus with the middle school, while consulting firm Executive Environmental performs tests, Lyon said. Mold test results and a timeline outlining further investigation will be announced this week, she said. Middle school students should report to their usual classrooms Wednesday and then will be escorted to their temporary locations.

Lyon called the meeting with parents Tuesday after receiving a letter signed by 21 educators that listed illnesses among faculty members in the last five years, including thyroid cancer, bladder cancer, migraine headaches, rashes and hair loss. The letter, reported by City News Service on Sunday, called for tests of buildings and campus surroundings for mold, asbestos, radioactive chemicals and other contaminants.

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Telus is a Canadian mobile provider, and this time around, they have finally played catch up with Rogers when it comes to delivering a NFC-based SIM card to the masses. Folks over at MobileSyrup have picked up an internal document that indicates a future move that Telus will be rolling out a new $15 NFC-enabled SIM card this coming October 10th. This particular NFC-enabled SIM card is also said to play nice with the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and the Samsung Galaxy S3 when it launches, and it has been tipped to deliver LTE and HSPA+ speeds. Similar to the CIBC and Rogers deal, customers will need to own a credit card first, in addition to a downloaded app from an eligible bank before one is able to perform over-the-air transactions.

Other than that, additional details remain rather scant at this point in time, but it would be nice to see how one is able to take advantage of the online payment without having to carry any kind of physical cash in hand in the first place. Of course, losing your phone then would be more of a headache as well as hassle, but that is the way life works these days, is it not?

Telus NFC-Enabled SIM Coming This October 10th original content from Ubergizmo.

Microsoft is all set to launch their Remote Desktop app with the roll out of Windows Server 2012 R2, where it will be available not only on just Windows, Windows RT and OS X, but also in addition, iOS and Android sometime later in October. This would be the first time that such a popular remote desktop software has been made available to its rival mobile platforms.

Apart from that, a certain Michel Roth, who happens to be one of Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professionals, did claim that the OS X app has also undergone a major overhaul. Apart from that, we also know that the iOS version will offer support for both iOS 6 and 7 versions, while those who are running on the Android mobile operating system from Google will be able to play nice with the Remote Desktop app as long as they have Android Gingerbread running underneath the hood. It remains to be seen just when will Microsoft’s Remote Desktop roll out to the respective app stores, but why not making the same thing available to their very own Windows Phone 8 platform?

Controlling your desktop from your smartphone makes plenty of sense, and it would come in handy especially when you are working overseas, and would love to check out something on your local machine whenever you are out of the country. [Press Release]

Microsoft Remote Desktop Coming To iOS And Android Soon original content from Ubergizmo.