Fantasy Football gets Google Hangouts – live draft parties, meetups, trades

Google announced today a pretty major deal with the NFL which will help it to grow adoption of Google+ Hangouts. With a full rollout coming later this month, NFL.com will soon be offering one-click access to Google+ Hangouts, allowing fantasy football players to video chat with their league in real-time. This is big news not just for …

Female start-up CEO just had a baby – reflects on going back to work after one week

Three weeks ago, I gave birth to a baby. After a long and sometimes challenging pregnancy where I was nervous a lot of the time, I am both relieved to hold a healthy boy in my arms and totally smitten with him. We joke around here — and now I’m on record in the New York Times saying …

A brochure from the Olympics – the map from the London Tube

  I’ve got two maps for you. The first is the slippy map above from London Town: I like the…hand-drawn feel of the map. Venues are shown in indicative locations rather than being geographically correct, as the details of London between the venues are missed out. This makes it a very poor map for navigating …

The best video NASA has ever produced – ‘7 minutes of terror’ – landing a robot on Mars

  On Aug. 5 or Aug. 6, depending on which part of the country you’re in, the Curiosity spacecraft careening toward Mars will hit the Red Planet’s atmosphere, deploy a supersonic parachute and either land safely on the planet’s surface or perish. It’s dramatic stuff, and NASA has produced this Hollywood-style YouTube video, complete with …

FBI finally goes digital, stops using paper

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have finally ditched paper files for a new computer system, an effort that took 12 years and cost more than $600 million. The system, called Sentinel, includes elements resembling Web browsers, with tabs and movable windows, and forms that are filled out in a question-and-answer format similar to consumer tax …

Healthcare reform for women – beginning today no co-pay for preventive care like mammograms, contraception

Under the Affordable Care Act, for the first time ever, women will now have access to life-saving preventive care, such as mammograms and contraception, without paying any more out of their own pockets.     Today, we move yet another step closer to giving women control over their health care. In addition to the benefits …

Salted Magazine – a new all-female surfing magazine from the editors of Surfer

The time has come. We’re finally giving female surfers the love they deserve in a brand-new, all-girls magazine, SALTED. The mag, created by the editors of SURFER Magazine, features the best female surfers on the planet, trips to the most idyllic locales, profiles, interviews, history, fashion features, and more. It’s is a much-overdue homage to …

People are pulling the plug on cable television by the hundreds of thousands

People are pulling the plug on cable television by the hundreds of thousands. Comcast’s Q2 2012 earnings show the cable company is relying heavily on its high-speed Internet service subscribers. Though the cable giant reports a total Q2 increase in customers of 138,000; the cable company also lost a massive 395,000 television subscribers in the last year. …

The recession hits Harvard…with interesting changes – more money to undergrads, less to books

Harvard isn’t belt-tightening everywhere. Since 2007, its investment in financial aid to undergraduates has risen by more than 78%, which Harvard said is “significantly outpacing increases in tuition.” Undergraduate tuition for the 2012-13 year climbed 3.5% to $54,496. *** As it looks to economize, Harvard has turned some of its attention toward the more than …