College

Twitter going deeper with ESPN

If you like sports highlights but spend more time on social networks than watching TV, Twitter and ESPN are going to do their best to meet your needs.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Twitter and ESPN plan to announce tomorrow a deepening of their existing relationship, agreeing on a pact under which the leading sports channel will unveil a wide variety of highlight clips in its tweets. The videos would be available on Twitter "shortly after" they take place live.

Naturally, the new arrangement -- which expands on a pact signed in December under which ESPN began … Read more

Upstart.com aims to be a Kickstarter for college grads

When Dave Girouard worked at Google, he noticed a pattern. He met a lot of young people early in their careers taking the conservative route -- choosing a stable job in a big company instead of following their dreams, taking risks, and striking out on their own.

So Girouard, Anna Mongayt (also a former Googler), and Thiel fellow Paul Gu launched Upstart.com in 2012. Girouard describes it as a kind of Kickstarter for people. Instead of investing in a company or product, financial backers invest in a person and their potential over time. In return, investors receive a small … Read more

California bill would expand clout of online college courses

A California state senator plans to introduce a bill tomorrow that would make California the first state in the nation to require its public universities and colleges to award academic credit for faculty-approved online courses.

The bill, to be submitted by California Senate President Darrell Steinberg, comes as state budgets for higher education are being slashed across the U.S., resulting in fewer spots for students in courses required for graduation. Credit for online courses would help students who are unable to register for impacted classes, possibly preventing expensive extended stays in school.

"We want to be the first … Read more

Sensor promises disease detection with naked eye

British scientists have come up with a super-sensitive prototype sensor that lets doctors detect early stage diseases with the naked eye, an innovation that could prove valuable in countries that lack the resources for expensive diagnostic equipment.

The sensor, created at Imperial College London, relies on nanotechnology to analyze serum derived from blood samples.

A positive reaction to p24, a protein that indicates early HIV infection, or PSA, a protein that at certain levels can indicate prostate cancer, generates irregular clumps of nanoparticles that emit a blue color in a solution kept in a disposable container.

A negative reaction, however, … Read more

TorrentFreak pegs top pirating universities in U.S.

Restricting access to Web sites such as The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents has been a long-standing practice for universities in both the U.S. and United Kingdom.

Suffering under the strain of heavy traffic due to students streaming films and downloading gigabytes of data via torrents, academic institutions have attempted -- often in vain -- to curb the trend.

But when the next episode of "Game of Thrones" isn't out for another week and has been broadcast already in another country, the temptation is no doubt difficult to resist.

Universities are not unaware of this and have … Read more

Ohio State marching band plays game tribute at halftime

I've always said that if there is ever a time to talk about video games, it's at a college football game. Of course, I'm almost always wrong about these kinds of things. But not this time! I've finally been validated in the form of a halftime show marching band. Check it out.

If you missed it, make sure to watch the running horse at 6:01 -- simply incredible! The sweet tribute to gaming was posted by YouTube user handmrow gobucks, who writes: … Read more

Facebook and Gates Foundation host education hackathon

Facebook partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today to host an education-centered hackathon called "HackEd."

The goal of "HackEd" is to kick-off the Gates Foundation's new $2.5 million investment fund called the College Knowledge Challenge. The fund is dedicated to getting developers to build apps for students that would assist them in navigating the college process -- this means helping young folks get into school and stay there.

"At Facebook, we believe that a more open and connected world can have a big impact in addressing some of society's biggest … Read more

Laundry additive turns shirts, pants into pollution eaters

Last year, we heard about the first article of Catalytic Clothing, an experimental dress that pulls pollutants out of the atmosphere. Now the technology is moving along to the point where it could be used as a liquid laundry additive and become part of our regular clothes washing chores.

According to a release from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in the U.K., "Within just two years, we could all be wearing clothes that purify the air as we simply move around in them."… Read more

Hug Me Coat wraps its sad, warm arms around you

We've seen some unusual fashion statements around here before. There's a Wampa-skin dress and a jacket that collects rain, for example, but neither is quite as unusual or strangely unsettling as the Hug Me Coat.

The Hug Me Coat comes from Si Leong Chan, a London College of Fashion student. It's a bright green puffer coat with a row of hands with intertwined fingers running down the front. It gives the illusion of many martian arms grasping the model's torso.… Read more