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.

Read more »

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.

Read more »

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.

Read more »

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

Read more »

Personal localized emergency alerts coming to smart phones

As part of an update of the national emergency alert system, federal officials announced this week that many smart phone users in New York City and Washington, D.C., would soon be able to receive alerts by 90-character text message in the event of a national or regional emergency. The new system has the support of all the major mobile phone carriers.

Called the Personal Localized Alerting Network, or PLAN, the new system will be a free service that will start later this year (November) for people in New York City and Washington who have compatible phones and are customers of Verizon, AT&T, Sprint or T-Mobile. It will be a prelude to nationwide service that will start as early as next April.

The alerts are another broadband intrusion into the turf of traditional broadcasters. They even mimic the familiar radio and TV broadcast alerts that for decades have advised Americans where to tune in for an emergency message. Now that television ownership has fallen for the first time in 20 years and an estimated 85 percent of Americans over 18 own a mobile phone, many in government are arguing that a national emergency alert system to text cell phones in case of an emergency is essential.

To receive the emergency alerts, users must have mobile phones with a special chip, which is currently included in Apple's iPhone and some higher-end smart phones. The service will also require a software upgrade. The messages, which will come with a special ring and vibration, will appear on the phone's main screen and will not get lost in mailboxes.

The emergency text messages will include alerts issued by the president, information about public safety threats and Amber Alerts for missing children. Text messages will be sent to customers of participating cellphone companies who are in an area affected by the emergency. Users can opt out of any of the alerts except the presidential messages. The messages will be prioritized, meaning they should get through even during times of congested voice calling.

Congress in 2006 ordered the FCC to develop requirements for wireless companies to comply with the new alert system, but provided no funding to state and local agencies to use the system.

"This new technology could become a lifeline for millions of Americans and is another tool that will strengthen our nation's resilience against all hazards," said W. Craig Fugate, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Julius Genachowski, chairman of the FCC, told the Washington Post that "the goal is to make sure that in times of real crisis, real emergency, life-saving information can get to people where they are quickly."

While the FCC still plans to continue distributing messages across the Emergency Alert System on radio and television, Genachowski told the newspaper that PLAN "is a major step in recognizing that more and more people are using their mobile devices to communicate, and that it's often the fastest way to get information to someone."

Authorized government officials will be able to send emergency text messages to participating wireless companies, which will then use their cell towers to forward the messages to subscribers in the affected area.

A New York City resident who is traveling in Chicago at the time of an emergency in New York would not receive a message; a Chicago resident who is a customer of the same phone company would see the text alert while in New York City, officials said.

Read more »

Google’s new and improved Developer Tools: Android SDK and Google TV

Of the complaints that are verbally issued to Google by developers through their computer screens are some of the issues being experienced with the Android Software Development kit. With the announcement that Google TV would support the Market and run Android 3.1, concerns were raised at Google I/O with the increasingly slow emulator, and a lack of clarity when it came to developing for Google TV. Fortunately, Google noticed this hesitation and offered up a few seminar classes on developing for Google TV as well as showing off many new visualization tools in the Android SDK.

Google TV

Although the next version of Google TV is to be based on Honeycomb, there’s very little that is similar when it comes to how you would interact with an app on a TV versus how you would interact with an app on the phone/tablet. Google’s seminar on this topic addressed ensuring that navigation functionality included what almost feels like a blast from our past now – the D Pad.

Since the remote control was invented to make it so we didn’t have to get up off the couch to change the channel, it doesn’t make much sense that we return to that model by making users go touch their screens. The next sentiment Google shared with the users is making sure it was understood that the more things you tell Android your app MUST have, the less likely it is to function on Google TV. If your Twitter app tells Android that there MUST be a camera present, then at this current point Google TV won’t show that app in the market as cameras are not currently supported.

Finally, Google helped developers understand what they considered the appropriate screen markers should be, in order to have the app display properly. Treating the screens as “screen size Large” and going above the 800×480 resolution is the best way to reach the most HDTV’s. This way, developers can start building their apps for those screen sizes now, since they are already part of the Android SDK.

New UI Visualization Tools

It seems like most other “modern” SDKs for mobile platforms have a sort of What You See Is What You Get editor for building user interfaces and testing them out before ever needing to compile the kernel. This has been something that, until now, Google has not really provided their developers with in the same capacity as competitors do.

With the preview that was shown at Google I/O, the app visualizer tools will make it extremely easy to take the elements you’ve already placed into your code and help you optimize its visual properties. In application, the app seemed to closely resemble an advanced version of Google App Inventor, and offered a handful of features built to make any developers like easier. For example, at any point in the visualizer if you would like to see Google’s reference material on the subject, you can go to developer.google.com in the section you’re looking for just by clicking the link. The final thing Google did here was recognize their own shortcomings with the Android emulator in the SDK, and did reassure us that in a short time, those improvements would be made available.

Read more »

Microsoft Antitrust Decree Ends, Google Eyed

WASHINGTON –  Microsoft was a giant fending off tiny rivals in 1998 when the U.S. Justice Department accused it of breaking antitrust law.

In the 13 years since, Apple has gone from having a sliver of the personal computer market to dominating the world of mobile media with its iPhone and iPad.

Back then, Google barely existed. It now rules the search advertising market.

Microsoft is still a technology titan with its Windows operating system and Office productivity software, but is no longer a feared monopoly or leading edge innovator.

And now that it is schooled in antitrust law, Microsoft wants Google Inc to be regulators' next focus.

Microsoft's legal battle, once a distraction to its top executives when they could have been at their most creative, ended on Thursday as court oversight of Microsoft expired with little or no fanfare.

The decision to allow the judgment to expire was made last month by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

BAD BOYS TO TAME BOYS

Microsoft was already competing with upstart rivals in the early 1990s when the Justice Department accused it of insisting that all personal computers shipped with its Windows operating system be loaded with its web browser Internet Explorer rather than Netscape's Navigator.

A federal judge originally ordered Microsoft to be broken up in June 2000, but an appellate court reversed the decision a year later. The Justice Department ultimately settled with Microsoft.

Under a consent decree it was required to end retaliation against computer makers who use non-Microsoft software and comply with other antitrust law. The consent decree was originally slated to run five years but was extended repeatedly.

Windows and its Outlook email system remain popular but its Bing search engine and other efforts to move into new markets failed to catch fire.

"It (the legal battle) had an inhibiting affect on it (Microsoft)," said Evan Stewart, an antitrust expert at Zuckerman Spaeder LLP. "They're not competing effectively with Facebook. They're not competing effectively with (Apple). They're not competing effectively with Google."

But Andrew Gavil, a Microsoft watcher who teaches antitrust at Howard University School of Law, argues that Microsoft was spurred to try to illegally crush rivals precisely because it had slipped behind the innovation curve after underestimating the importance of the Internet.

"Its strategy for catching up was to use its leverage on desktop to hinder its rivals," said Gavil.

Further, Gavil and other antitrust experts argue that a weak consent decree did little to curtail Microsoft.

"The most obvious bad behavior was stopped. It didn't restore lost competition. It didn't do anything to revive the competitors that had been hobbled," he said.

Despite Microsoft's efforts to paint Google as the next logical target for regulators, Bert Foer, head of the American Antitrust Institute think tank, and others argue that no one company today stands out today like Microsoft stood out as an antitrust violator.

Microsoft has publicly called into question the fairness of Google's website ranking system and has urged website owners to complain to regulators. It has itself made a formal complaint to antitrust regulators in Europe, where Google is already under investigation by the European Commission. Sources say U.S. regulators are considering an investigation of Google.

"As far as who the successor will be, that will largely be determined by how they behave. I'm talking about Google and Apple and maybe Facebook in the high-tech area. You still have market power by IBM in its field and you still have Microsoft," he said.

Perhaps antitrust regulators made out better than anyone in the Microsoft suit.

"It was extremely welcome to see the Justice Department go after Microsoft and frame an ambitious case against it," said Jeff Schinder of law firm Constantine Cannon. "It resurrected its finest tradition of going after dominant firms that were squelching competition."

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2011/05/12/microsoft-antitrust-decree-ends-google-eyed/#ixzz1MA0x58MP

Read more »

BANGLADESH: Indigenous farmers face seed crisis

BANGKOK, 12 May 2011 (IRIN) - Farmers in parts of Bangladesh's southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) face a seed crisis that is undermining the food security of thousands, the World Food Programme (WFP) says. 

"The challenge that the villagers are now facing is the lack of available seeds due to non-cultivation for two years," Christa Rader, country director of WFP in Bangladesh, told IRIN from Dhaka. 

Seed prices in Sajek Union - about US$11 per kilo - have increased more than five times since 2006, while interest rates are up to 100 percent. 

These two factors are contributing to CHT's food insecurity - estimated at more than 30 percent - according to the UN food agency. 

"Over the last four years, the frequency of crises in Sajek has been intense" - starting with crop damage by the rodent attack during 2007-2008, restrictions on Jhum cultivation since 2009 and communal conflict in 2010, which continues in 2011, reports a WFP assessment conducted at the end of April. 

No Jhum for Jummas 
The seed crisis started when the region was infested by a rat population that bred four times faster than normal during the bamboo flowering season from 2007 to 2008. 

The rodents consumed all the grains and cash crops from the fields and in storage, forcing people to eat seeds they would normally save for cultivation. 

The following year, in 2009, the indigenous Jumma people, comprising 11 different ethnic groups, were forbidden from farming in forest areas of Sajek Union using their traditional shifting cultivation methods, also known as Jhum cultivation. 

The United People's Democratic Front (UPDF), a political party based in the CHT, enforced the ban to protect the land from over-cropping resulting from an influx of Bengali settlers over the past three decades. 

"What [the UPDF] did is to discourage Jhum cultivation in certain specified areas to protect the environment and animal habitats," Sachib Chakma, a member of the UPDF's central committee, explained. 

But Jhum farming is also central to the way of life of the one million indigenous people living in the CHT. 

"The very name of these people, Jumma, comes from their cultural tradition of shifting agriculture, locally known as Jhum. They were able to sustainably live for years using Jhum cultivation," Sophie Grig, senior campaigner at Survival International, a London-based indigenous rights NGO. 

According to Survival, it was not possible to keep the land fallow for the five to eight years as required for soil to regenerate in shifting cultivation, but was instead cropped every two to three years. Moreover, the most fertile land was taken by Bengali settlers, further affecting the Jummas' ability to farm. 

"The Bengali settlers took the most arable land away from the Jumma, internally displacing them further north into Sajek Union," Grig said. 

Nearly 600,000 Bengali settlers have arrived in the CHT since the 1980s leading to land theft and forced relocation of more than 90,000 Jumma families as of 2000, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

"The illegal taking over of indigenous peoples' land by Bengali settlers and the inclusion of their land in forest reserves [has led] to a decrease in the land available for doing shifting cultivation," said Christina Nilsson from the CHT Commission International Secretariat based in Copenhagen. 

Land tensions 
In a further shock to local livelihoods, recent clashes at the end of April over land led to nearly 100 Jumma houses being burned down. 

"All their movable assets, including rice and seeds, perished in the fire, leaving them without food," said Chakma. 

And with the price of seeds increasing, many farming families could well find themselves in greater debt if they borrow at today's interest rates, resulting in what WFP warns could become a "famine-like situation" unless livelihood options improve. 

"The situation is critical," Rader said. "People may have to sell all their livestock and other assets in order to eat." 

dm/nb/ds/mw 

Theme (s): Food Security, Human Rights,

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

Read more »

Bangladesh rejects ‘death squad’ allegations

DHAKA: Bangladesh rejected Wednesday an international rights group’s claims that its Rapid Action Battalion police force was a “death squad” that had carried out 200 extrajudicial killings in the last two years.

“These allegations are unacceptable,” Home Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder told AFP Wednesday. In a report released Tuesday, New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the government to disband the elite paramilitary force unless it was held accountable for the hundreds of so-called “crossfire” killings.

The force is engaging in “death squad-like activities,” HRW’s Asia director Brad Adams told AFP, adding that more than 200 people had been killed by the RAB since the current Awami League government came to power in January 2009.

According to Sikder, only 91 people have been killed by the RAB since 2009 and in each case an investigation by magistrates had cited legitimate self-defence. “Everyone has the right to defend himself,” he said, adding that RAB personnel were subject to Bangladeshi law. afp

Read more »