media

Our longtime readers will understand why we're so excited about Libro.fm's sale of audio books for under $5 each , in honor of Independent Bookstore Day on April 30. After all, in our (gulp) 15+ years online, we've shared hundreds of the…

We recently asked the members of our Out Tech Your Kids Facebook Group to share their choices for best podcasts for parents -- that don't have to be about parenting at all -- and wow, we scored big. And well, so did you. If you're lookin…

Happy Mother's Day, cool techie moms! We celebrated today with fellow mom Becky Quick on CNBC's On The Money, sharing four of our favorite tech gadgets that help make our lives easier and better . We hope you love them as much as we do. …

Just when I thought I was the consummate binge watcher, I stumbled upon this post over at IHeartRadio that pretty much blew my mind. Turns out, Netflix has a bunch of secret codes, that when added to a url will allow you to jump to all s…

It seems like an April Fool's joke (and yes, I double checked the date on the post) but at long last, Google is taking moves to quash fake news with a new Fact Check feature in Google Search and Google News , worldwide. So basically, Goo…

If you've become more of a news junkie over the past year like I have, you've probably realized that your standard browser bookmark bar isn't necessarily your best best for saving articles you want to come back to. Let alone recipes you …

I love family movie nights, especially on those rare occasions when it takes less than 15 minutes for the kids to agree on what we're going to watch. So when I heard about a new wireless projector called CINEMOOD that lets you bring fami…

When I'm driving around running errands, I usually have NPR on the radio, unless I'm listening to Spawned , of course. The stories that almost always end up with me in tears, searching for a Kleenex in the console, are the reports from S…

Notice a little lightning bolt icon at the top of your Twitter feed? No, it's not a Halloween month tribute to Harry Potter. In an attempt to lure some new folks back to Twitter -- evidently 316mm monthly users isn't enough for some inve…

For well over a decade, people have been talking -- or more like yelling -- about being hamstrung by cable companies. Some had-it-up-to-here folks have started cutting the cable cord and looking for more manageable, customized ways of wa…

It's been awhile since we first mentioned Common Sense Media on Cool Mom Picks back in 2009. Since I check it so often, like to remind myself whether there are any pikes through the head in Hunger Games , or whether The Bad News Bear s i…

Trying to manage my three kids' time spent and content viewed on all of the various devices we have in this house is one of the most thankless, naggy job out there. They don't fully understand why I say "no" to the newest app, or why You…

Yes, it's an ABC app. But unlike other ABC apps we've covered here, I don't know that the new ABCiné app (as in cinéma) from Spanish design studio Atipo for Meikme is going to help kids with the alphabet as much as it will help adults --…

This seems like the kind of weekend after which we all need to smile a little. And I've found just the thing. The series of ironically placed iPhone photos over real environments by clever French photographer, professor, and cool dad Fra…

If you're like me and watch Netflix on your computer or use it to browse easily and add titles to your queue, then you will want to add the new God Mode bookmarklet to your browser right now. This makes it so you can actually see all the…

This week, I had the pleasure of joining the Meredith Vieira Show (I love her!) for a quick segment on one of our favorite apps: Waterlogue , which transforms your photos into gorgeous watercolor paintings. If you haven't tried it, check…

Clever always wins, in my book. That's why I snorted pretty loudly when my editor Liz emailed me a link to this most excellent Men In Black phone case from Society6. I will also admit that it took me half a beat to catch the full joke, l…

Not all of us will be able to focus on every moment of the red carpet entrances (kids needing dinner), the Oscars monologue (kid needs to use the bathroom), or even the one award you've been waiting for all night (kids have to go to bed)…

Football fans or not, millions of viewers flock to the Super Bowl for the commercials. Pretty much everyone wants to see the ads that will have everyone buzzing the next day -- or in real time on Twitter. But if you want a pre-game sneak…

The thing about YouTube is, it can go from super fun to totally overwhelming--not to mention disturbing--on a dime. Sometimes when I'm watching my 5-year-old son watch his YouTube videos on my old iPad, all I can do is hope that we don't…

If you're still figuring out how to make your house the coolest on the block--after all, you do not want any leftover Halloween candy on Saturday morning, trust me--then ooh, I have a treat for you. Check out AtmosFEARfx which is doing n…

Have you ever been going somewhere specific, but you take an early turn and end up somewhere completely unknown and completely fantastic? You feel like you've discovered something private and special. How did I not know about this place?…

Usually when I check out a new tech product, it's me in a conference room (or sometimes alone) listening to someone wax poetic about its features. But nope, not LG. They recently announced their phenomenal new LG Ultra HD TV 4K and LG OL…

Next week marks the beginning of one of our favorite ridiculous annual pop culture traditions: Shark Week. And while there's no shortage of gimmicky, silly, weird, and often adorable shark items, I think my fave this year (besides those …

The stats are sobering: Women only account for 26 percent of the STEM jobs in the U.S. So there's been a recent, nationwide nudge to get our girls and young women interested and engaged in science, technology, engineering and math, as we…

I love developments like the Roku apps which turn your Android or iOS devices into remote controls for your TV. We always joke about the old days when we actually had to get up to change a channel. Now that we're too lazy to even find th…

All hail the new Spoiler Shield app , a mobile app whose time has come. It's very rare that I watch TV in real time these days, and for so many of us, it's all about Roku or DVR--which means we have to dodge all those spoilers on our soc…

This week, you may have heard buzz about the launch of the new Facebook Paper app . (It's been a busy week for them, considering the huge success of the Facebook Lookback videos we shared yesterday.) In a nutshell, Paper combines your Fa…

We're longtime fans of both Cookie Monster and Lord of the Rings , so of course we all stood and applauded for the new Sesame Street parody, "Lord of the Crumbs." Cookie Monster, playing the role of Gobble (sound like anyone you know?) h…

If you're wondering how to get started on Twitter or what the heck MT means, just this morning our Editor Liz Gumbinner shared her tips on The Today Show. Take a peek at the video clip to get the skinny on hashtags, retweets, who to foll…

If you hadn't already figure it out, we here at Cool Mom Tech are huge advocates of talking to your kids about technology early and often, and that's exactly what our Editor Kristen told the Christian Science Monitor for their cover stor…

With a second grader in the house who is increasingly reliant on the computer for homework and projects, I'm finding myself becoming much more vigilant about what he's doing when online, and researching ways to be better about monitoring…

If you've been anywhere online in the last 24 hours, you've probably heard that the New York Times is going to begin charging a fee as of March 28. Interesting--thought not necessarily bad--news for those of us who rely on the Paper of R…

I could not have been more delighted to be a part of this week's kickoff for Google's Made With Code , a timely, multi-million dollar initiative to bring more girls into coding and engineering and creating and solving problems via techno…