Frito-Lay sets Guinness World Record on Facebook By Emil Protalinski

    

PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay has set a new world record on Facebook, grabbing the title for “Most Fans on Facebook in 24 Hours.” The page garnered 1,571,161 new Likes on April 11, 2011. As a thank you to its fans, Frito-Lay gave away 24,000 bags of chips valued at $4 each.

The new record was part of a campaign that provided a behind-the-scenes look at how Frito-Lay’s newest product flavors made with all natural ingredients are created in the Frito-Lay Flavor Kitchen, located at its headquarters in Plano, Texas. The primary goal was to get consumers involved in the process, using Facebook as a central hub of activity. The campaign included:

• a replica Flavor Kitchen created in Times Square with live cooking demonstrations streamed to the Frito-Lay Facebook page
• a sweepstakes on the Frito-Lay Facebook page that gave consumers the chance to win some of the same Electrolux appliances that were used by the Frito-Lay chefs in Times Square
• targeted media on Facebook
• integration with Zynga’s FarmVille that gave players the chance to harvest sponsored-in game crops for the chance to earn exclusive virtual goods
• the official launch of a series of online cooking “webisodes” available on the Frito-Lay Facebook page and featuring the Flavor Kitchen team

Earlier this year, Frito-Lay announced that approximately 50 percent of its products will be made with all natural ingredients by the end of 2011. This is the largest product transformation in the company’s history because these products do not have artificial ingredients, artificial flavors, artificial preservatives, and ingredients such as monosodium glutamate (MSG).

“When we set out to share the latest news around our product portfolio and the culinary inspiration behind our newest products made with all natural ingredients, we wanted to do it in a way that truly engaged our fans in the story,” said Ram Krishnan, senior director, marketing, Frito-Lay. “Our fans responded in the biggest way possible – by setting a Guinness World Record for their engagement with us. It’s a remarkable achievement and we’re excited to thank the fans who made it possible.”

Guinness World Records has confirmed the new record. The organization currently recognizes seven records for Facebook use (you can apply atguinnessworldrecords.com/apply):

• Most comments on a wall post (minimum: 5,000)
• Most comments on a status update (minimum: 5,000)
• Most comments on a picture (minimum: 5,000)
• Largest group (minimum: 2,000,000)
• Largest fan page (minimum: 2,000,000)
• Most likes on a status update (minimum: 5,000)
• Most likes on a picture (minimum: 5,000)

“Guinness World Records congratulates Frito-Lay on their new achievement,” a Guinness World Records spokesperson said in a statement. “We are excited to see more and more social media records being attempted and encourage others to apply!”

Frito-Lay’s record follows two records set three months ago by Lil Wayne and Oreo. Oreo grabbed 114,619 Likes on a single post and Lil Wayne broke the record right after when his post received 588,243 Likes.

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Boost Mobile introduces three Motorola phones

Motorola has added three new phones to Boost Mobile's offerings today with the Motorola Clutch + i475, the Motorola Theory, and the Motorola i412.

The Clutch +i475 is an update to the Motorola Clutch from a couple years ago. The new Clutch has a larger display while still maintaining that candy bar design with a full QWERTY keyboard. Features appear to be mostly the same. They include push-to-talk, GPS, Bluetooth, threaded messaging, e-mail and Web, and unfortunately, a VGA camera.

Motorola i412

(Credit: Motorola)

The Theory is another candy bar QWERTY phone, but it lacks push-to-talk. It has a slightly better 1.3-megapixel camera. Other features are about the same as the Clutch +i475.

Last but not least is the i412, which is the simplest phone of the lot. It has a straightforward flip style with features like iTap, a predictive text mode, a VGA camera, Web access, GPS, Bluetooth, and Java app support. The i412 also has push-to-talk over Sprint's iDEN network.

The Motorola Clutch +i475 is available for $99.99 today, while the Theory will be available June 7 for $79.99 and the i412 will be available June 13 for $69.99.

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Cell Phones Caused Mysterious Worldwide Bee Deaths

Cellphone transmissions may be responsible for a mysterious, worldwide die off in bees that has mystified scientists.
Dr. Daniel Favre, a former biologist with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, carefully placed a mobile phone underneath a beehive and then monitored the reaction of the workers.
According to a story in The Daily Mail, the bees were able to tell when the handsets were making and receiving calls. They responded by making the high pitched squeaks that usually signal the start of swarming.
"This study shows that the presence of an active mobile phone disturbs bees -- and has a dramatic effect," Favre told the Daily Mail.
Favre believes this to be evidence of something other scientists have suggested: Signals from mobile phones are contributing to the decline of honeybees. Favre thinks more research could help confirm the link between cell signals and "colony collapse disorder" -- the sudden disappearance of entire colonies over winter -- which has halved the bee population, according to some estimates.

Last June, researchers from Chandigarh's Punjab University in India came to a similar conclusion, recording a decrease in the population of a hive fitted with a mobile phone and a decrease in the egg output of the queen in that hive.
Other bee experts blame the vanishing honeybees on changes in farming, the decline of wild flowers and pesticides, and the final cause of the dramatic die-off remains unclear.
Even the size of the problem is hard to determine.
A recent three-year study analyzed the geographic distribution and genetic diversity of eight species of bumble bees in the U.S., relying on historical records and repeated surveys of about 400 sites, to ascertain precisely how many bees have vanished. The researchers compiled a database of more than 73,000 museum records and compared them with current sampling based on intensive national surveys of more than 16,000 specimens.
The national analysis found that the relative abundances of four of the eight species analyzed have declined by as much as 96 percent and that their surveyed geographic ranges have shrunk by 23 to 87 percent. Some of these contractions have occurred in the last two decades.
"We have 50 species of bumble bees in North America. We've studied eight of them and four of these are significantly in trouble," said University of Illinois entomology professor Sydney Cameron, who led the study. "They could potentially recover; some of them might. But we only studied eight. This could be the tip of the iceberg," she said.

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Bangladesh court declares fatwa legal

The Daily Star/Asia News Network
Fri, May 13, 2011
By Ashutosh Sarkar

BANGLADESH - The Supreme Court yesterday declared fatwa or Islamic religious edict legal in "religious matters", but it categorically said fatwa cannot be used to punish anyone.

Fatwa also cannot be issued to violate or affect the rights or reputation or dignity of any person which are covered by the law of the land.

"No punishment including physical violence and/or mental torture in any form, can be imposed or inflicted on any body in pursuance of fatwa," the Appellate Division of Supreme Court (SC) said in its verdict.

The SC ruled that only "properly educated persons" may issue fatwa, but may not force anyone to accept it. Any coercion or undue influence in any form to force it on anyone is forbidden, the SC ruled categorically.

The High Court (HC) in January 2001 declared fatwa illegal, after bigots forced a woman to engage in a Hilla marriage in Naogaon. Hilla marriage is a system in which if a man divorces his wife and then wants to remarry her, she has to marry a third person before her ex-husband can marry her again.

In another verdict in 2010, the HC banned punishment of any person using fatwa.

Fatwa came to limelight after it was used to punish mainly women in village arbitrations.

All six judges who formed the Supreme Court bench yesterday could not agree on the verdict, so it was passed by a majority decision.

Chief Justice ABM Khairul Haque announced the verdict of the majority, endorsing in part two separate appeals filed against the HC verdict that had declared all kinds of fatwa illegal.

A Bangla newspaper reported in 2000 that Sahida, wife of Saiful of village Atitha in Kirtipur union parishad under Sadar upazilla of Naogaon, was forced to Hilla marry her husband's paternal cousin Samshul on a so-called fatwa by Hazi Azizul Huq, who said her marriage to her husband had been annulled consequent to an incident about one year ago when the husband out of anger had uttered the word "talak" meaning "divorce".

But as they continued to live together, there union was illegitimate, Azizul claimed, and he issued the fatwa that Sahida must Hilla marry a third person before remarrying her real husband.

When the incident came to the HC's notice, it issued a ruling on the government asking to know why fatwa should not be declared illegal.

Two human rights organisations -- Bangladesh Mahila Parishad and Ain O Salish Kendra -- became parties to the case and argued against fatwa before the HC.

After the 2001 HC verdict, two persons Mufti Mohammad Toyeeb and Abul Kalam Azad filed two appeals with the SC against the verdict.

The SC had heard ten senior lawyers and Islamic scholars before it passed yesterday's verdict.

REACTIONS Counsels for both the state and the petitioners yesterday expressed satisfaction with the SC verdict.

Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told reporters that the Appellate Division modified the 2001 HC verdict, but prohibited all kinds of physical and mental punishments, and violation of law and the rights of people in the name of fatwa.

He said Hazi Azizul Huq'a fatwa in Sahida's case remains illegal.

Barrister Abdur Razzaq, one of the counsels for the petitioners, said only competent persons may issue fatwa, but nobody can take the law in his or her own hands in the name of fatwa.

"I feel that only persons with Kamil degree should be able to issue fatwa, as they have proper knowledge about it," he told The Daily Star.

He said it will be clear what will be the qualification for being able to issue fatwa after the full text of the SC verdict is published.

Advocate Nazrul Islam, another counsel for the petitioners, said the SC's declaration that fatwa is legal is right, as fatwa is a Quranic provision.

But the legal rights of any person cannot be damaged in the name of fatwa, he added.

He also said vigilance will be required so that anti-Islam people may not take any stand against the SC observations.

Meanwhile, the lawyers who were involved in litigating last year's fatwa case in the HC, said HC's last year's verdict that all kinds of extrajudicial punishment in the name of fatwa are illegal, was indirectly upheld by the SC yesterday.

Last year's HC verdict came following separate writ petitions filed by rights organisations -- Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, BRAC Human Rights and Legal Services, and Nijera Kori -- and four Supreme Court lawyers Advocate Salahuddin Dolon, Barrister Mahbub Shafique, Advocate AKM Hafizul Alam, and Barrister Imaran-ul Hye.

Barrister Mahbub Shafique told The Daily Star that there is no scope for issuing any fatwa beyond the Islamic arena following the SC verdict. -The Daily Star/Asia News Network

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