In the two years since its launch, publishers large and small have experimented with Google Hangout to host group video chats with well-known guests, readers and staff, hoping to engage readers and attract new followers. Now, Google is helping publishers monetize their efforts.

On Monday, Glamour magazine is launching a month-long series of Hangouts featuring staffers, online personalities — and products. Eight of the nine Hangouts are sponsored by a company, whose products are featured centrally in the content. In a Hangout for Unilever-owned Suave, for example, DIY blogger Erica Domesek will show how to make hair accessories for hair styled by Suave stylists. A L'Oreal-sponsored Hangout with Glamour stylist Annabel Tollman will show viewers how to wear ombré hair, as colored by Loreal's Féria Wild Ombré product Read more...

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WikiLeaks has announced the release of the "Kissinger Cables," a set of 1.7 million U.S. diplomatic records, dating from 1973 to 1976.

The Kissinger Cables are comprised of more than 1.3 million full diplomatic cables and 320,000 originally classified records, WikiLeaks claims. The collection also includes 205,901 records relating to former U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger (hence the name)

All in all, the Kissinger Cables contain around 700 million words, which makes it five times as large as Cablegate — WikiLeaks' release of more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables in November 2010

"The collection covers US involvements in, and diplomatic or intelligence reporting on, every country on Earth. It is the single most significant body of geopolitical material ever published," said WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange. Read more...

More about Wikileaks, Cablegate, Us World, Politics, and Kissinger Cables

Espresso lovers, you'll have to agree, there's nothing quite like a steaming cup of that seriously strong coffee in the morning. But sometimes it's just not available, and that's where the Nomad Go Everywhere portable espresso machine excels.

As long as you have access to hot water, you can press out some bracing brew in no time flat.

As long as you have access to hot water, you can press out some bracing brew in no time flat. It's a simple matter of loading up that finely ground dark brew that you crave so much, then pressing hot water through it. After all, "press" is the root of the word espresso, and it works just as well when you do it by hand as it does when it's accomplished electronically. Read more...

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Back in 2003, the groundbreaking Human Genome Project successfully identified all 20,000 to 25,000 genes in human DNA. It's a sizeable amount of information that filled 130 books — each 300 pages long.

A new Kickstarter project aims to condense 3.2 billion characters of the human genome into five nickel discs that are around the size of CDs. With a life span of 10,000 years, "no other technology can match [their] durability and longevity," according to creators NanoRosetta, a storage system that uses nanotechnology to print microscopic-sized information onto the discs

What's more, the project is looking for 80 "custodians" — with at least one on each continent — to preserve and protect the human genome. To become a custodian, backers must pledge a minimum of $1,250 to the campaign. NanoRosetta's goal on Kickstarter is $100,000. Check out the video, above, for more details. Read more...

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As your weekend winds down, there's nothing better than to kick back, relax and enjoy our Viral Video Recap

This week's selection includes an unorthodox catnap, Gmail's color-themed April Fools' Day prank, a futuristic golf cart, swimming without a pool and annihilating Marshmallow Peeps — but not in the way you'd think

Check out our choices above, then tell us which video is your favorite in the comments.

Screenshot image courtesy of YouTube, BubbasHover Read more...

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We've seen global TV sales decline for a couple of years now. What's causing the lessened interest? Is it the rise of mobile? Services like Netflix?

Or are viewers simply no longer trying to keep up with the Kardashians?

Comic written by Larry Lambert; illustrated by Jerry King. Read more...

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You might love technology and the Interweb, but do you love it so much that you'd name your kid after something techie? Check out our complete list above of some of the most interesting tech-inspired baby names.

Some parents across the globe have taken inspiration from the digital world, naming their little ones after well-known tech companies, symbols and Internet lingo. There's baby "Facebook," "Google," and "Vista," all inspired by tech giants

While some may think this would be flattering to the actual brands, a branding expert told Mashable that unless the company was involved in the naming process, they might perceive it as "a little weird." Read more...

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Chris Crowell is a veteran kindergarten teacher and contributing editor to Children's Technology Review, a web-based archive of articles and reviews on kids apps, technology toys and video games.

Share a virtual bedtime story, manage a supermarket and explore a haunted house — all in this week's top apps for kids. Explore our gallery for more educational apps that will have your children re-reading their favorite stories and whizzing through math problems

Children's Technology Review shared these five top apps for children with us from their comprehensive monthly database of kid-tested reviews. The site covers everything from math and counting to reading and phonics. Download a free issue of CTR here. Read more...

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Playing off the ratings and social-media success of the Real Housewives franchise, Bravo announced this week that it will launch "The Real Housewives Awards" as a 2013 digital initiative.

Fans of the six Real Housewives series will get to vote online in such categories as Best Supporting Agitator, Hottest Hubby, Most Coveted Closet, Best Heels and Most Desirable Destination Vacation. Winners will be revealed on Watch What Happens Live and in ads.

More details about the crowdsourced awards initiative will be unveiled closer to June, Lisa Hsia, executive vice-president of Bravo Digital Media, told Mashable Read more...

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Famed film critic, Pulitzer-Prize winner and Twitter superstar Roger Ebert died Thursday, after a long battle with cancer.

Ebert is most associated with the movie industry, and for helping make film criticism accessible. But he wasn't just a film critic and acclaimed author — he was also a new-media pioneer.

At 70, Ebert was more in touch with media and how to reach his readers than critics or authors 50 years his junior

Nearly every article written about Ebert in the last week has included mentions of his prolific Twitter account and his blog, but very few have acknowledged the fact that Ebert was a digital denizen for nearly 30 years. Read more...

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As you woke up this Sunday morning, you didn't think about your growling stomach or worry about being late to church. You immediately sprang out of bed and shouted "MAD MEN!" at the top of your lungs

Congratulations, superfan. The day has come — Mad Men season six premieres on AMC Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET. Therefore, today is a holiday and should be celebrated as such

Treat yourself to seven booze-soaked, smoke-clouded Mad Men supercuts, created by fans who clearly worship the program. Curious how many drinks the show's characters threw back in seasons 1-5? Looking to review Don Draper's female conquests? You'll get a kick out of these hilarious and shocking recaps Read more...

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Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert, who died Thursday at age 70, was still writing reviews as his health worsened. Jim Emerson, editor of RogerEbert.com, published the late critic's final review Sunday, using Ebert's Twitter account to share the post

JE here:Roger Ebert's final review, of Terence Malick's TO THE WONDER : rogerebert.comj.mp/ZgG1ZX

— Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) April 7, 2013

Emerson previously told followers of ‏@ebertchicago that Ebert had asked him to continuing using the account. The final review is for To the Wonder starring Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams and Javier Bardem. Read more...

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It was an interesting week for apps.

After a long-standing dispute with Apple, Microsoft finally updated SkyDrive for iOS. Disney released a new mobile game featuring a high-flying cat named Mittens, and vintage-favorite Final Fantasy V launched for iOS.

A new app for creating notes using your own handwriting launched for the iPhone, and Box released an update for Android.

Curious what all these new apps look like? Check out the video above for a hands-on look at some of our favorites from the past week.

Have you tried any of this week's picks? Tell us about your own top apps in the comments. Read more...

More about Iphone, Android, App, Tech, and Apps Software

Move over, Apple and Samsung. While two of tech's biggest companies are reportedly developing smart watches, startup LinkMe has already gotten a head start

LinkMe is a Bluetooth-enabled device that lets users view incoming text messages or social-media alerts on their wrist. They send a message with their smartphone via an app, which in turn, will be displayed on LinkMe

"It's that simple — in meetings, in class or when you have your hands full, you'll be able to receive the messages that matter to you most," according to the device's Kickstarter page

Users can also customize notifications, choosing a set of characters that LinkMe will display to denote a particular person or situation, its creators said. Currently, each prototype has 125 LEDs in its display. Read more...

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Country crooner Brad Paisley's performance of "Beat This Summer" with singer John Mayer during the Academy of Country Music Awards on April 7 will feature a light show powered by fans' smartphones, Sony Music Nashville told Mashable

People in the live audience will have the Brad Paisley Light Show app (for either iPhone or Android) installed, which during the performance will sync the phones' screens to create a dazzling, flashing spectacle

This is the first time Paisley will use the app, but he will employ it on his summer tour.

This is the first time Paisley will use the app, but he will employ it on his summer tour. Read more...

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What if the Beatles had lived in an alternative universe, and the group's 1968 megahit "Hey Jude" was not intended to cheer up John Lennon's son Julian, but to sound like a funeral dirge?

That's just what you'll get with this version of "Hey Jude," mashed down into a minor key that feels completely different, especially to those of us who've grown up with the Beatles and their groundbreaking music.

Its creator, apparently dipping into the wonders of Auto-Tune for this version he released in late January, agrees. He says on the video's YouTube page, "I reworked it to minor key, and it became almost entirely new song." Read more...

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Get back in a Mad Men state of mind with these ads from 1968Mad Men season 6 starts Sunday night, and this quick sample of ads should give you some context to the advertising landscape of the era

As you can see, things have changed drastically in 45 years:

Read more...

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The print publishing industry may be in decline, but story time definitely isn't. A child's first few books open doors to new worlds, and considering how enamored children can get with mobile devices, ebooks are a great combination of things literary and digital.

But when your son or daughter first dips his or her toes into reading, it can be uncharted waters, which can get expensive. That's why we've rounded up 12 free ebooks you can find on several platforms right now. On Kindle, Nook or iTunes, there are plenty of free things for kids to read or to have read for them. Read more...

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Depending on how reputable your tattoo artist is, you might be taking a big risk by getting a tattoo in a language that you don't understand

In this Sunday Comic by Maria Scrivan, we can see that Chinese characters and erudite symbols aren't the only things you need to watch out for these days.

Some people actually have gotten QR code tats. Be sure to check out this one from 2011, which is admittedly pretty cool (but not necessarily recommended).

Comic written and illustrated by Maria Scrivan. Published with permission; all rights reserved. Read more...

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NASA will likely get $100 million next year to jump-start an audacious program to drag an asteroid into orbit around the moon for research and exploration purposes, U.S. Senator Bill Nelson says.

The $100 million will probably be part of President Barack Obama's federal budget request for 2014, which is expected to be released next week, Nelson (D-FL) said. The money is intended to get the ball rolling on the asteroid-retrieval project, which also aims to send astronauts out to the captured space rock in 2021.

"This is part of what will be a much broader program," Nelson said Friday (April 5), during a visit to Orlando. "The plan combines the science of mining an asteroid, along with developing ways to deflect one, along with providing a place to develop ways we can go to Mars." Read more...

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It's not every day that you see players and fans from both teams cheer at the top of their lungs when someone scores a touchdown, but that's what happened when Jack Hoffman ran the ball into the end zone during the University of Nebraska's spring football game.

Hoffman, a 7-year old boy fighting brain cancer, was given his own pint-sized jersey (#22) and placed in the game during the fourth quarter. One of his teammates handed him the ball, and Jack started hustling down the field while players from both teams followed — not to tackle him, but just to be part of the moment. He ended up running a 69-yard touchdown. Both team's benches emptied out to rush the field and lift Jack up, and the entire stadium went wild. Read more...

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What do you work on after launching one of the largest social networks in the world? It took some time, but each of the three Twitter founders appear to have come up with their own answers to this question.

Ev Williams stepped down as Twitter's CEO in late 2010 and scaled back his role at the company in the months that followed. He pursued new projects at The Obvious Corporation, a startup incubator that Twitter's co-founders launched in the mid-2000s, and which served as the original home of Twitter. A few months later, Biz Stone announced that he too would be stepping away from day-to-day duties at Twitter and joining Williams at Obvious to focus on new projects. Read more...

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Mad Men season 6 commences on April 7 with a two-hour episode on AMC. Sure to make a whiskey-soaked splash (or an LSD-infused one) during the premiere is Roger Sterling, the World War II Naval veteran turned ad executive who favors solving problems with a flask.

In the video above, NowThisNews rounds up Sterling's memorable lines and scenes, including one where he bares all. Fifty-year-old John Slattery plays Sterling

Videos via NowThisNews; image courtesy of Frank Ockenfels/AMC Read more...

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Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage played Peter Drunklage, the brother-in-law of Saturday Night Live's Drunk Uncle, during the "Weekend Update" skit on April 6.

The duo confusingly poked fun at blog-hosting platform Tumblr, photo-messaging app Snapchat and Samsung's line of Galaxy Note devices

"All they care about is 'Tumblr me, Tumblr me, Tumblr me,'" Peter Drunklage mockingly said about children these days. "You know what's in my Tumblr? Regret."

Melissa McCarthy hosted Saturday's episode, falling during her opening monologue.

Read more...

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Facebook made its big mobile announcement last week: the introduction of Facebook Home on Android devices. CEO Mark Zuckerberg referred to the new home screen and app launcher as "putting people first, instead of apps."

In this Sunday Comic, our friends Nitrozac and Snaggy at The Joy of Tech imagine what it would be like if Facebook made a real home. We find the Instagram table light and the complimentary dying squirrel in the front yard especially clever.

Comic illustration provided by The Joy of Tech. Published with permission; all rights reserved. Read more...

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Every morning when I arrived at my office, I used to find a to-do list printed out and neatly laid on my keyboard, courtesy of my boss. But this wasn't a typical bulleted list — it was a long (upwards of three pages), drawn-out document, where each bullet point was accompanied by paragraphs of elaboration, laying out to the very smallest of details exactly how I should accomplish the task.

And as I stared at this book (er, document), wondering if it would somehow look less menacing after my morning coffee, I couldn't help but think, Wouldn't it have taken her less time to just complete the things on the list? And the micromanaging didn't stop there — she constantly asked for updates on my progress, added to and modified the list, and ultimately refused to let me do my job on my terms. Read more...

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It has barely been six months since Apple released iOS 6, but that doesn't mean we can't start dreaming about what's to come in iOS 7.

A new concept video for iOS 7 will have you dreaming of all the possibilities for Apple's next operating system for iPhone and iPadFederico Bianco, who created the video, demonstrates how Apple could add a dream list of new features into the existing OS without drastically overhauling its look and feel.

Bianco re-imagines the functionality for everything from the lock screen and settings options to the iBooks shelf and Mission Control. In the concept video, users can customize the lock screen so they can tap to make a call without swiping to unlock. You can also swipe across the top of the lock screen to turn on Wi-Fi or Airplane mode Read more...

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When Twitter introduced Vine on Jan. 24, it quickly encouraged musicians to get creative: "Artists, Vine is out now! ... Show us your world ... in video," tweeted @TwitterMusic.

Celebrities, rising artists and music brands responded, giving fans a visual and auditory glimpse into their lives with intimate 6-second, GIF-like videos.

Here is how Vine's music-friendly early adopters have used the app so far:

1. Rolling Stone Honors 5 Decades of The Beatles

"In honor of the 50 year anniversary of #TheBeatles' 'Please Please Me,' here are some of our Beatles covers"
Read more...

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Kes Thygesen is the co-founder and head of product at RolePoint, a complete social recruiting suite that provides unrivaled access and reach to quality job candidates. Connect with him and RolePoint on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Talent communities may be the next big thing in the world of hiring and HR, but too few companies are using them. If businesses want to access the best job candidates for their open positions and glean employee referrals, they’ve got to start using this technique.

Every good company thrives when its ideas are tied together by a great team with common values and a desirable workplace culture. Talent communities are perhaps the best way to pool existing talent and gain access to referrals and job seekers who would be a great company fit. Read more...

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