Turkey Berry Health Benefits

Not many people like the lonely turkey berry plant (known as Solanum torvuml and in Tamil Sundakkai)  which is grown in our garden because we are not aware of its medicinal value which cures many diseases. You all will be amazed to know the uses of this small plant that we commonly find in our house garden if you come to know about its characteristics.

Turkey Berry belongs to the plant species and its flowers are white in colour and are found in clusters. The Turkey Berry fruit is green in colour and it appears like a very small brinjal. Turkey Berry plant grows in our house garden and also in hilly areas. The Turkey Berry that grows in hilly areas has a more bitter taste than that of the berries that are grown in our house garden.

 

Turkey Berry

COMPOSITION OF TURKEY BERRY:

Turkey berry is composed of the following essential nutrients and minerals which are very helpful in preventing and curing the diseases.

• Vitamin A
• Iron (24.5 mg)
• Calcium (0.28 mg)
• Fat (1.7 mg)
• Fiber (56.9 mg)

USES OF TURKEY BERRY:    

We can use consume the fresh Turkey Berries plucked from the plant and also we can consume it in the dried form. It is better to have the fresh Turkey Berry than the dried one. It has the potential to kill the germs and also acts as a medicine for cold, and also helps in problems related to the chest and stomach. And people who have diarrhea, stomach ache, piles, tuberculosis should use Turkey berry as a part of their food. And taking Turkey Berry regularly will help in strengthening the nerves.

Fried Turkey Berry

ADVANTAGES OF TURKEY BERRY

 TO KILL GERMS:

We used to eat lot of sweets because they taste good and as a result they produce a lot of germs in our body. Once the bacteria and other germs formed in our body, it creates a lot of problems to us. These problems are prevented by eating Turkey Berry in the form of gravy. (In Tamil it is called as Sundakkai Vathal Kuzhambu).

TO CONTROL DIABETES:

If we eat the Turkey Berries for 4 days in a week in any form (dried or gravy), diabetes will come in to control.Frying the dried fruit using oil and then adding them to kuzhambu and eating them will help us avoid digestion problems

TO STRENGTHEN THE BONES:

Consuming the Turkey Berries on the daily basis will strengthen the bones and nerves and also helps in the physical development of our body.

TO PREVENT GAS TROUBLE:

Gas problems are totally controlled if we take the Turkey Berries which is deep fried in the oil.

TO CURE PARALYSIS:

If the people who are affected with paralysis problem consume Turkey Berries, the disease will be cured.

TO PREVENT TEETH RELATED DISEASES:

All the teeth related problems are cured if we take the powdered Turkey Berry added with salt.

Because of all these medicinal values we should not neglect this plant. We should start growing them in our garden and eat them regularly to stay healthy in our life.

Ways To Prevent Prickly Heat

Who gets Sweat Rash / Prickly Heat??

How do we prevent it?

Prickly Heat / Sweat Rash is a major complaint for people living in the regions where heat and humidity are high.

Though prickly heat can affect anybody, those people who sweat more are increasingly prone to it.

People, who are obese, get more prickly heat too.

In some families, it affects all members severely.

Those who wear nylon clothes during summer season, instead of cotton clothes, may also get affected.

The chances of prickly heat are high for people who work in hot and less ventilated environment.

                                         

Where does it appear?

It appears anywhere in the body, except palms and feet, without any constraints.

Sweat rashes may be present on the skin for a period ranging anywhere between 1 week to a month.

These rashes start troubling the affected people and continue to do so till they are cured, the first trouble being itching. Then succeeds, burning sensation and irritation. As a continual effect, it causes skin infection, thereby leading to wounding and allergy. To restrict these effects, we need to prevent prickly heat.

How can prickly heat be prevented?

To prevent prickly heat, we have to first control sweat, thereby restraining prickly heat.

To attain this, we:

Should avoid going out in the sun.

We may work in air-conditioned rooms or well ventilated environment.

Select and eat easily digestible food.

Avoid intake of alcohol / coffee and tea in large quantities.

Further, high-fat food items like meat, egg etc. should be avoided. Similarly, spicy food items prepared with food with strong masala should also be avoided.

The affected people should also shift to light, cotton clothes instead of wearing artificial clothes like nylon, terlin, polyester etc. Also, the clothes worn should not be holding the body very tight, but must be loose-fitting. Coconut oil should be applied less on the skin. It is said that these practices prevent occurrence of prickly heat.

It is also advised that supplementing such people with a 50,000 IU of Vitamin A, twice a day yields good results.

Treatment:

The medicine prepared by mixing the ingredients including Salicylic acid, camphor, menthol, glycerin and spirit helps to cure prickly heat. This formula has to be applied on the affected area twice a day for a week for aid. Bathing twice a day in pure water also gives relief in 7 days.

Effects of Stress

Are you aware of the effects of stress on your body??. It causes worse effects and affects the entire health. In this competitive world we have to run fast to achieve things. But it creates stress in our mind. It is said that poor food habit has also impact on this.

Stress creates unusual feelings. It creates unnecessary negative thought sand hypothetical fear. And if one is having stress he/she is not sure about the things they are doing. They have low confidence and would underestimate their efficiency.

Stress differs from person to person depends upon the factors like age, their living atmosphere etc. So it can be generally of three types.

* Short term stress

* Mid Term Stress

* Long Term Stress

Short Term Stress

This type of stress lasts for short period only. For example when we rush to catch the bus or train, late to office or some other places depends upon the situation. This creates stress which lasts some minutes to one or two hours.

Mid Term Stress

This type of stress lasts up to few months. For example during exam times, expecting exam results, promotion in office etc. Even we are not aware about this type of stress. Because we are accustomed to that frequently.

Long Term Stress

This type of stress lasts even through our lifetime. When we loss some close relatives, if we have some chronic disease may cause this type of stress.

Effects of Stress

Stress causes worse effects on our health. Primarily it affects the blood vessels. Blood vessels are very important to our body since it transports blood throughout the body. These blood vessels are helpful for supplying energy throughout the body and also removal of wastes from the body. So once it gets affected, overall body functioning will be collapsed.

So, if there is stress, it makes the blood vessels to get shrunk. Because of this one cannot able to have sufficient amount of blood flow throughout the whole body. Automatically functioning of heart increases to get more blood flow for the whole body. Thus it leads to high blood pressure. Since there is more functioning of the heart and insufficient blood flow, there may be body tremor also.

It also affects the digestive system. This is due to insufficient blood flow to the stomach and intestines. Glands are not able to produce acids that helps for digestion. Since there is no complete digestion, the body cannot able to observe the energy from the food taken. This makes the body weak and also unnecessarily stimulates appetite. This causes food cravings particularly on sweet and carbohydrate rich foods.

Because of incomplete digestion, the remaining food stayed in the stomach becomes sour and cause gastric problem, bloating of stomach, constipation and also burning sensation in stomach and chest. These all effects are caused when a person is in stress. We should overcome this condition by regulating the blood vessels and makes it to work properly. Blood vessels should be relaxed to make the blood flow uniformly all over the body. This can be done even through proper food practice also.

Another essential thing one should follow to overcome the effects caused by stress is walking. Because when we walk briskly, blood vessels gets relaxed.This helps for proper blood flow all over the body. Brisk walking also helps for easy digestion. Toxins present in the body are removed through sweat, urination and stool.

So, proper food habit along with regular brisk walking results in good improvement for persons with stress

AUM Chanting and its Benefits

Can you pronounce some word without using your tongue? A U M is the three different word can be pronounced without using our tongue.  This AUM is called as Pranava Mantra. Now-a-days in most of the vedic chants AUM is pronounced as OM. But it is not correct pronunciation. A U M is the correct pronunciation. In some places this OM chanting is called as OMKAR chanting. OM or AUM is the most important and significant word of Mantra tradition. It is considered as the root mantra in all vedas. All other words we are speaking are mixture of this basic three words AUM.  AUM is a typical combination of words which affects the surrounding and human beings through the vibrations. AUM should to be chanted for enormous number of times to get the results. We can get many health benefits by chanting this AUM. AUM chanting is prescribed as a corner stone in any yoga therapy program due to its outstanding healing benefits.

How to do AUM chanting

Aum is a universal mantra for all people and one not need the initiation of a master or guru to reap it’s endless benefits. Sit comfortably either in Padmasana or Artha Siddhasana or Sukhasana. Place your hands upon your thighs, and palm’s facing upwards. Hold Yoga Mudra in both hands and eyes should be closed. Inhale slowly through your nose, once your lungs is full exhale from your mouth by pronouncing AUM until your full breath come out from the lungs. All three word chanting should be approximately equal in time. While chanting Aaaaaa focus vibration one inch below your navel. It is the Manipura Chakra, one of the seven chakra in human body. When you chant Uuuuuu focus vibration in chest area. It is the Anahata Chakra. After that close you mouth and chant Mmmmmm. When chanting focus vibration in your throat and nose.  Similarly continue deep inhalation by nose and exhalation through mouth with chanting AUM. For better health benefit this chanting to be done 15 minutes in morning and 15 minutes  in evening.

Yoga Mudra

Benefits of AUM Chanting

• AUM chanting is a potent tonic which increases the efficiency of the human organism in a profound manner.
• By chanting this word OM or AUM one can achieve ultimate self-realization.
• The repetiton of Aum leads to excellent mental and physical health.
• This chant helps to improves the production of endorphin so making you fell relaxed and refreshed every time.
• It has positive effect for cardiac vascular health lowering blood pressure and increasing efficiency of all the cells and organs in the body.
• In essence AUM relaxes and rejuvenates the mind increasing concentration and memory therefore the ability to learn.
• It helps in Cleansing the mind.Controlling the emotions.
• It relives the stress levels by supplying more oxygen to the body. So you get relive from stress related headaches

Vegetarianism or Non-vegetarianism: which is better?

In the civilised world, at the heart of many heated debates is this question of which is better: vegetarianism or non-vegetarianism? A statistic says that, more or less, 1000 people switch from a non-vegetarian diet to vegetarianism. There are several reasons for this increase; prime among which are to prevent animals from being killed, to lose weight, and in order to prevent certain associated conditions.

Those who like their may be tempted ask: what’s so great about vegetarianism? Or may even entertain suspicion on that regard. An explanation for them is that our body is built to adapt to a vegetarian diet. The human intestine is six times longer than that of the human body which is similar to that of herbivores. Our teeth, intestine, hands, and genitals are systemised to support a vegetarian diet.

Likewise, fruits and vegetables decay gradually, whereas meats tend to decay in a very short period of time.  Consequentially, within minutes of entering our system, non-vegetarian foods start to generate a lot of waste products. We are unable to efficiently digest non-vegetarian foods, especially during constipation, non-vegetarian foods tend not to get digested easily and stay within our system. Acids which are produced in the intestines of animals help digest non-vegetarian foods easily. In human intestines, however, produce alkaline saliva which does not work well with meats increasing the time it takes to digest them.

Also, the foods we eat determine our characteristics. Vegetarians tend to be quiet and able, but as we keep consuming meet, our characteristics may shift to folly – as we may acquire the characteristics of carnivores. When we consume meat, we eat also the chemicals that the animal may have ingested, the pollutants in its body, and the pesticides that the butcher may have sprayed on it.

Miscarriages, diseases that affect the eyesight of new-borns, diseases associated with jaundice may be spread from the parasites in meats from Asian countries.  The now prevalent Chikungunya disease is spread from chickens. Likewise, Mad Cow disease is spread from cattle.

The pesticides that are sprayed on fruits and vegetables are easily washed away when preparing them.  This is why we are always advised to wash them before we eat them. But boric acid, which is used to prepare prawns and fish, stays within the flesh synthesizing antibodies and hormones. This does not happen in fruits and vegetables. There is a chance of contracting Trichinosis Infestation in parts of our stomach when consuming under-cooked pork meats. Likewise, the acids that form in pork and beef can be poisonous to our blood vessels. Vegetables tend not to have fats, even groundnuts, coconuts, etc. which have fats do not have cholesterol. Generally, vegetarian diet does not have too much fat.

Doctors often advice to eat vegetarian diet during pyrexia and stomach upsets.

Vegetarian diets can also be beneficial for the heart. Several studies have shown that switching to a vegetarian diet, reduces the chances of obesity. It can also reduce the chances of diabetes, blood pressure and certain types of cancers. Vegetarians should especially consume foods that contain protein which contain acids. Examples include milk, yogurt  soya milk, lentils, ground nuts, butter, and legumes.

Meats have high iron content; there can be no doubt about that. But they also tend to be high in fat also. But dried beans, dried fruits, spinach also contain iron. Alongside, oranges, tomatoes and broccoli contain vitamin C as well as iron. Young ladies need iron especially during menstruation. This is because they need an increased circulation during this period which is facilitated by the intake of iron.  This is also helped by tonics and medicines prescribed by physicians.

Cow’s milk can provide vitamin D; soya milk can also be consumed for the same. Vitamin D can be synthesized by the exposure to the morning sun – not the afternoon sun! Vegetarian diet contains more calcium than its non-vegetarian counterpart. Milk, yoghurt, soya, leaf vegetables, orange, tofu and legumes contain sizable amounts of calcium.

Legumes and nuts contain about 15-18 mg of zinc, which reduces the prevalence of fats in our body.  Consuming milk products, tofu and nut varieties help reach the levels of zinc that your body requires. One should not consume sweets which contain high levels of fat after converting to a vegetarian diet. Steamed lentils are advisable. Fruits and vegetables should be consumed copiously along with reduced-fat milk products.

Even Americans and Europeans are continuing to switch to vegetarian diets. It is an added bonus for vegetarians to know that Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, George Bernard Shaw, Leo Tolstoy are some world renowned vegetarians!

Benefits of Water Therapy

For them that wonder what is needed for a healthy body, those who favor Western Medicine, or those that simply want to try new developments should be aware that Water Therapy is a novel medical practice. When water therapy is practiced, the unwanted waste products in our body get excreted and our body gets cleaned easily. We must strive to clean our body. Those who follow the PanjakarmaChikitchai to expel bodily toxins could try water therapy as an alternative therapy as well as a natural therapy.

Only clean water is required for water therapy. Clean water should be protected well. Potable water should be filtered after being boiled, and should be left to cool. The water should not be neither hot nor cold, but tepid.

Many people have the habit of drinking hot water, but this is not advisable because our optimum body temperature is at 98.4 degree F. This is our stable temperature. But when we drink hot water, it raises our temperature further requiring our body to reduce its temperature to counter the increase. This is unnecessary. Also, hot water can facilitate our body movement, in particular our digestion which increases our gastric juices and acids. This expedites digestion. If the stomach is empty, this can cause flatulence.  Hence, drinking hot water is not advisable.

However, drinking hot coffee or tea does not affect it. Because its level is lower, that is, it is generally consumes only 2-3 times a day. These kinds of drinks contain dissolved foods to be digested, but water tends not to contain such dissolved foods. Likewise, drinking cold water is also not advisable. When drinking very cold water, it causes the same problem as hot water, in that, it reduces the body temperature. This requires the body to increase its temperature, and stabilise it at 98.4 degree F. Sometimes the body may not stabilize at this level and may continue to keep increasing its temperature. Apart from this, the digestive and acid-secreting organs may secrete excessively causing problems with digestion. Sometimes microbes spread through cold water, which is also unnecessary. It is advisable to avoid all these problems. In order to stabilise digestion, drinking tepid water is recommended. If you still want to drink cold or hot water, heating or cooling it by 5 degrees centigrade is recommended.

During water therapy, five glasses of water or 1 ¼ litres should be consumed upon waking up. 1250 ml of water should be consumed before engaging in any work in the morning. If you are unable to drink it all at once, you may drink it at intervals. This level of water should be consumed within 45 – 60 minutes. For those that are unable to drink it all at once, moving limbs according to walking gestures may help.

Those that are just starting out may follow the above water therapy three times a week. Then gradually after one or two weeks, may do it daily. You may feel the urge to urinate about three or four times within the hour of starting out. This will stabilize within one or two weeks.

Those that want to follow this by drinking water every morning should avoid drinking hot beverages like milk, coffee or tea before going to bed. Only then will water therapy be efficient. Drinking water like this cleans our blood, stabilizes our digestion, and will ensure efficient expulsion of waste products through effective maintenance of the pancreas, liver and kidneys. It will reduce appetite and stabilise body temperature. It will allow effective functioning of the body by expelling body wastes.

For those who exercise or walk in the morning, should do so after drinking water and attending calls of nature. This helps to stabilise body temperature. Doing so allows temperature to reduce after urinating, cooling the body. Those who suffer from gastric discomfort should follow this daily to heal everything from mouth ulcers to the cause.

Worldwide studies prove the effectiveness of water therapy. A recent study in Japan has found that water therapy helps the following illnesses - Headaches, High blood pressure, Overweight, Leg ache, Diabetes, Sinusitis, Runny nose, Asthma, Acid reflux, Flatulence, Constipation, Stomach upset, Irregular menstruation, Kidney problems, Male or female potency. For anyone who wants to help improve their health can truly benefit from following water therapy today.

Google Maps Returns to iPhones

You've seen them since September, when iOS 6 was released, parked by the side of the road, scratching their heads in abject silence, lost as a male over 30 at a Justin Bieber concert. Apple iPhone users, dealing with the loss of Google Maps.
Ever since the last major update to Apple iOS, which drives iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads, things just haven't seemed right in the world for us iPhone users. We've simply lost our direction. Despite a number of enhancements that provided new features Apple fans like myself are enjoying often, there was as hole in our geographic hearts.
Android fanboys, this is where you fight that uncontrollable eye-roll. Because you never lost that loving feeling — Google's Maps offering has always been the heart and soul of how you get around. That and your Google Music playlists.
When Apple Maps took over from Google Maps in September, the responses ranged from shrugs to downright mouth foamage. Yes, that's a word. Don't look it up. Entire cities were missing. Even an Apple executive was fired over the morass (debacle? melee? furor?) following Google Maps getting the axe for Apple's own product. I'm sure he hit the ground running, although if he had an iPhone, he didn't know where he landed.
It's understandable - that's the American way, right? A company enjoys the fruits of someone's labor for years, watches their stock double and triple and quintuple (that's a word, too), then pushes 'em down a perp walk for one lousy error. 

Let's face it, Google's mapping system is more accurate, because it's been around longer, and has had years of feedback from trusted users. Kind of like the Twinkie, whose pending absence has caused its own chaos as of late. Google Maps are more accurate, and simpler to use. You could tie into all of your saved places. You could use street view and see that damned couch still sitting in your neighbor's front lawn.
Well, Google Maps is back, at least for iPhones. Yes, I know, it will work on iPads, too, if you expand it to fit the screen. But that's so gauche. Let the festivities begin! Snap the new Google Maps for iPhones app up up while it's still hot - in fact, it's already been snapped up, so many times it's the #1 app in the iTunes Store.
Google has upgraded the clarity of their maps, and thrown in Business Photos to boot, so you can figure out whether a particular restaurant has the ambience you desire to pop the question. Because dude, 2012 is about to end, and she's been waiting foreve

Facebook Makes A Huge Data Grab By Aggressively Promoting Photo Sync

Facebook was already taking in 300 million photos a day, and that rate is about to dramatically increase. It’s now ushering users onto its background uploads feature Photo Sync with a big banner at the top of its mobile apps’ news feed. Just two taps and your last 20 photos plus every one you take in the future are auto-uploaded to a private album from which you can share and Facebook can mine metadata.

The rollout of Photo Sync that started yesterday is perhaps the biggest thing to happen to Facebook photos beyond friend tagging and manual mobile uploads. Friend tagging jumpstarted Facebook’s growth with a jolt of narcissism over a half decade ago. If someone tagged you in a photo, you likely checked it out the second you got the notification, along with all the other photos in the album. Later it began offering photo sharing from mobile, but its biggest problem remained the arduous upload process.

 
Photo Sync sands that friction down to a smooth marble surface and it’s about to get a ton of users. Each of Facebook’s iPhone and Android apps have well over 115 million monthly users who will end up seeing this banner that casually requests you “Get Started” when it’s actually a serious decision.

Once enabled, every photo you take gets uploaded with no work on your part. That means all six tries to get that perfect portrait, the 30 photos you took of that gorgeous sunset, the pic of those cute pants you want to buy, and everything in between. All you do is select which to share, and a moment later they’re visible to your friends on Facebook.
When you might have shared one photo you could share four. Instead of squinting to type in descriptions on your phone, you might share more of those landscapes and other abstract shots because you’ll be able to add descriptions when you share them from the desktop. This will generate more photos of friends to draw them back to the site, and content for them to consume in the news feed.

You’ll see the full force of Photo Sync if Facebook combines it with its facial recognition feature. Rather than tagging friends manually, Facebook will analyze your Photo Synced album for the mugs of friends, apply tags automatically, and all you’ll have to do is approve them.

In the meantime, Facebook is probably going to suck in some terms of service violations and other very private photos. Even if people know that no one else can see them, some might panic when they see photos of them drunk, sloppy, nude, or in otherwise compromising positions within the Facebook Chrome. Right now Facebook doesn’t do a great job of explaining how the feature works so it could cause some to be caught by surprise, freak out, and turn it off.

But that’s probably worth it to Facebook because of the immense amount of photo metadata Photo Sync will give it. As I wrote yesterday, the feature is essentially Facebook’s entrance into cloud storage. While you might not share all the photos you upload, Facebook can still pull out geolocation to help it figure out where you are now and what local business ads to show you.. Eventually, brand recognition like the ability to identify Nike shoes in your photos could aid ad targeting too.

There no big launch event yesterday because Facebook didn’t need one. In fact, it probably didn’t want one, considering it didn’t even notify bloggers like me as it usually does. The banner atop the the news feed of its iOS and Android apps could easily get tens of millions of users to enable photo sync. If its competitors in social networking and now cloud storage don’t realize what’s happened, they won’t be able to react. But Facebook just found a way to to get its next 219 billion photos a lot faster than the first.

Google, Twitter activate voice tweets for Syrians

Google and Twitter announced they have reactivated a voice-tweet programme to allow Syrians affected by the shutdown of the internet to get messages out.

The service allows people with a telephone connection to compose and send a tweet by speaking on their phones.

Google and Twitter said they were reactivating the system which was used in 2011 when the internet was shut down in Egypt by authorities for several days.

Google's David Torres acknowledged that many Syrians may not be able to use the service because telecom networks in the war-ravaged country are also functioning poorly.

"But those who might be lucky enough to have a voice connection can still use Speak2Tweet by simply leaving a voicemail," he said.

Those able to dial out can leave messages on several phone numbers: +90 212 339 1447 or +30 21 1 198 2716 or +39 06 62207294 or +1 650 419 4196, "and the service will tweet the message," Torres said.

"No Internet connection is required, and people can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet."

AFP correspondents noted that Internet and telephone communications, including mobile phones, were cut in the capital.

On Thursday, activists accused the regime of preparing a "massacre" when the telephone lines and internet first went down, while the authorities explained the cut was due to "maintenance" work.

Washington branded it as a desperate move on part of the regime.

7 features Apple killed off in iTunes 11

Apple's latest iTunes brings plenty of new features, but also puts some golden oldies out to pasture.
The software, which went out yesterday as a free update, comes with a redesigned player and a more extensive album view for browsing music. Apple's also more deeply integrated iCloud and its stores within the software.
But some of that march towards simplicity has come at the expense of some old features. Few of the deep-sixed features seem like logical deletions, and others are already bringing ire from longtime users who expected to see them on the other side of the update.
Read on to find out what's gone.

 

1. Cover Flow
Cover Flow was the headlining feature of iTunes 7 in 2006. The feature put album covers in a "flow" together, that let you flip between them as if they were floating in front of you.
Short of the built-in visualizer, it was really one of iTunes' biggest eye candy features, but it was also a way to show off the fluidity and smarts of the software when browsing through music with a multitouch trackpad. Apple's even been sued over using it, and initially lost a $625 million patent lawsuit until the judge reversed the jury verdict.
Apple completely nixed Cover Flow in iTunes 11 in favor of its new album view, which will expand out an album to show you the songs within when you click on it. The Cover Flow feature remains on iPhones and iPods.

 

2. The de-duper
In the world of collecting and organizing digital music, you might get a duplicate or a thousand in your library. By default, iTunes won't let you re-add another music file if you've already added it, but accidents happen and large libraries can overlap.
In iTunes 10.7 and earlier, Apple offered a built-in tool that would sniff out duplicates and put them on a single page. It wasn't great, but it was something, and free. In iTunes 11, the feature is missing in action.
Third-party tools like $40 TuneUp can bridge the gap with a feature that finds and deletes duplicates, grabs album art, and fixes metadata. Mac users can also use the $15 Dupin.

 

3. iTunes DJ
iTunes DJ was a neat feature that would let you put together a never-ending playlist in a pinch. You could even tweak it to make sure it wouldn't play the embarrassing chunks of your music collection by limiting selections to a certain playlist or genre (see above).
What made it really stand out, however, was a feature Apple added in iTunes 8.1 that let other people at your party put in a request for a song from their mobile device, and even vote on upcoming tracks. If a party host agreed, that song would go on, making the whole thing feel a little more social. Google's defunct Nexus Q device (which is currently being reworked) wanted to take that same idea and turn it into a standalone product. In iTunes 11, though, it's MIA.

4. Gapless playback editor
As the name suggests, the gapless playback feature plays songs back to back, without any break -- something that's useful for tracks meant to be in immediate succession. One of the best examples: Pink Floyd's "The Wall."
Curiously enough, gapless playback in iTunes 11 still works just fine. You just can't tweak any of your existing music to make use of the feature from the options editor. That's a bummer for any live-show or big 1970s concept CDs you might have planned on ripping.

What devil magic is this?

5. Multiple windows
In an effort to simplify iTunes' user interface, Apple also stripped out one of the features power users loved: the option to break out functions into their own windows.
This was particularly useful if you wanted to do a little multitasking, like listening to Internet radio while going through and producing a playlist, all the while keeping those two actions separate. Another example: shopping in Apple's online store while managing an iOS device.
With iTunes 11 you're limited to just that one window and whatever task is in front of you -- just like on the iPhone or iPad.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing this is gone.

6. The other sidebar
Apple merely hid the source list sidebar, but you can still get that one back. What we're talking about is the feature that would give you genius recommendations based on any song you were currently on, often polling the iTunes Store for music you might not even have.
On the plus side, this means Apple is not jamming its store down your throat nearly as much, but it's moved some of those recommendations so far out of the way that you really have to hunt to find them.
Apple's effectively replaced this sidebar with a special genius recommendations menu that pops out right next to a song when you click on a context menu. This shows you songs you already have in your library, but doesn't introduce you to new stuff that might be a better match. For that you need to look at the "related" or "listeners also bought" links from within a song's page on iTunes -- assuming it's there. 

7. Quick volume control, song progress in mini player
Apple's mini player now does quite a bit more than it used to, such as providing search and displaying album art. Even so, it's missing a few handy things such as the volume knob and progress indicator that would show you how far along in a song you were.

The mini player in iTunes 10.7 (top) and in iTunes 11

You can still access the volume settings without leaving the mini player, though it takes an extra step -- you can either click on the AirPlay icon and adjust the master volume, or click on the album art and adjust it from the pop-up window. But the progress bar? That's long gone.

GM Cars to Use Apple Voice Assistant Siri

General Motors (IW 500/4) said Tuesday it will integrate Apple's (IW 500/9) voice-activated software Siri in some of its cars next year to allow iPhone users to perform hands-free tasks.
 
GM announced at the Los Angeles International Auto Show it will use the Siri intelligent assistant in the Chevrolet Spark and Sonic LTZ and RS.

"Through the cars' standard Chevrolet MyLink infotainment system, customers with a compatible iPhone running iOS 6 can direct Siri to perform a number of tasks while they safely keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel," GM said in a statement.
"To further minimize distraction, Siri takes hands-free functionality even further with an eyes-free mode that enables users to interact with their iPhone using nothing more than their voice while keeping the device's screen from lighting up."

Drivers will be able to use the system to make hands-free calls, play songs in the iTunes library, or switch music sources from radio to iPod mode. They may also listen to, compose and send messages to people in their contact list.

Cristi Landy, Chevrolet marketing director for small cars, said, "Safe, easy, reliable and portable connectivity is a top priority for our customers, and Siri complements MyLink's existing capabilities to help deliver an incredible driving experience."

Apple announced earlier this year it was working with car makers to build Siri artificial intelligence technology into voice control systems in automobiles.

Services of Facebook

Chat

On April 5, 2008, Facebook pre-released Facebook Chat.^[1][2] As of April 23, 2008, Facebook Chat was released to the entire Facebook user base. Users may chat with their Facebook friends on a one-to-one basis, or a user may chat with multiple friends simultaneously through the groups feature. Instant messaging clients that currently support Facebook Chat include Yahoo! Messenger version 11.0 and later, Skype version 5 or later, AOL Instant Messenger, eBuddy, Flock, Miranda IM, Trillian, Empathy, Pidgin, Adium, Nimbuzz, FIM (Windows Mobile / Windows Phone 7), Palringo (Windows Mobile), Meebo, Tokbox as well as QIP Infium with a Firefox plugin. Windows Live Messenger 2011 (Wave 4) can connect to Facebook as well. Facebook Chat can also be run on the desktop using Gabtastik, a dedicated web chat browser. Facebook Chat can also be run on the iPhone using Facebook Chat for iPhone app. Facebook also released the official app for iPad.^[3] Facebook chat is also available to use for Blackberry users via the Blackberry Facebook app. On May 13, 2008, a Facebook developer announced that they are working on XMPP support, allowing hundreds of instant messaging clients to interoperate with the service;^[4] this functionality became operational on February 10, 2010.^[5]

As of August 2011, Facebook Chat supports video chat. Upon using the feature for the first time users must download a plug-in for their web browser.

[edit]Credits

Main article: Facebook Credits

Facebook Credits are a virtual currency you can use to buy gifts, and virtual goods in many games and applications on the Facebook platform. As of July 2010, users of Facebook can purchase Facebook credits in Australian Dollars, British Pound, Canadian Dollars, Chilean Peso, Colombian Peso, Danish Krone, Euro, Hong Kong Dollar, Japanese Yen, Norwegian Krone, Swedish Krona, Swiss Franc, Turkish Lira, US Dollars, and Venezuelan Bolivar. Facebook credits can be used sufaesr as on many popular games such as Happy Aquarium, Happy Island, Zoo Paradise, Happy Pets, Hello City, It Girl^[6] FarmVille, and Mafia Wars.

[edit]Friend

Main article: Friending

"Friending" someone is the act of sending them a friend request on Facebook. Once the friend request is set, the two people are both Facebook friends until and unless the receiving party accepts the friend request. In addition to accepting the request, the user has the option of declining the friend request or hiding it using the "Not Now" feature. Deleting a friend request removes the request, but does allow the sender to resend it in the future. The "Not Now" feature hides the request but does not delete it, allowing the receiver to revisit the request at a later date.

It is also possible to remove a user from one's friends, which is referred to as "unfriending" by Facebook.^[7] Many Facebook users also refer to the process as "de-friending".^[8] "Unfriend" was New Oxford American Dictionary's word of the year in 2009.^[9][10]

Facebook profiles may be set by a user to greatly restrict access to those users who are not "friends", for example, blocking access to photos of that person and contact information. After a person accepts a friend request, the new "friend" then has much greater access to that person's profile information.

[edit]Feature list

[edit]Listen with Friends

Listen with Friends allows Facebook users to listen to music at the same time as their friends and discuss the tunes using Facebook Chat. Users can also listen in as a group while one friend acts as a deejay. Up to 50 friends can listen to the same song at the same time, and chat about it. Every-time a user begins listening to music with a friend, a ‘story will be posted to her/his friends’ ticker and/or news feeds. Users will have control over who will be able to see when they are listening with a friend through their App Settings page after installing the compatible music app. ^[11]

[edit]Deals

On April 25, 2011, Facebook announced a pilot program called Deals, which offers online coupons and discounts from local businesses. Facebook initially released Deals as a “test” in five cities:Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco with the hope of expanding. This new offering is a direct competitor to other social commerce sites such as LivingSocial and Groupon for online coupons and deals-of-the-day. Facebook users will be able to use Facebook Credits to purchase vouchers that can be redeemed for real goods and services.^[12][13] Facebook has since closed its deal program.

[edit]Easter eggs

The following are easter eggs that Facebook had at one time or another.

• At one time, entering the Konami Code followed by Enter at the home page caused a lensflare-style series of circles to display when clicking, typing, or scrolling.^[14]
• Facebook chat supports some unusual emoticons.^{[citation needed]}
• Asking "how is babby formed?" with the Questions feature released September 23, 2010 will Rickroll the user.
• A user can change his/her language to Leet Speak, Pirate language, and upside down English.
• Entering @[x:y] resolves a user's name, where x is a positive integer and y is 0 or 1. For example @[4:0] resolves to "Mark Zuckerberg".

[edit]Facebook Live

On August 13, 2010, Facebook launched a new service called "Facebook Live", a live streaming video channel that is intended to keep Facebook users updated to what is happening on the social networking site.^[15] The service, powered by Livestream, will feature videos from Facebook staff members and celebrity interviews, but is not designed for Facebook users to showcase their own videos. All the content shown on Facebook Live will have some tie-in with Facebook products, features, or how people are using the site.^[16] Facebook said this is not an opening to get them into the video distribution space. The first official guest was America Ferrera, the leading actress in the television series Ugly Betty. She discussed her new independent film The Dry Land, that was being promoted almost exclusively through social media channels..^[16]

[edit]IPv6

According to a June 2010 report by Network World, Facebook said that it was offering "experimental, non-production" support for IPv6, the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's maincommunications protocol. The news about Facebook's IPv6 support was expected; Facebook told Network World in February 2010, that it planned to support native IPv6 user requests "by the midpoint of this year."^[17]

In a presentation at the Google IPv6 Implementors Conference, Facebook's network engineers said it was "easy to make [the] site available on v6." Facebook said it deployed dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6 support on its routers, and that it made no changes to its hosts in order to support IPv6. Facebook also said it was supporting an emerging encapsulation mechanism known as Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol (LISP), which separates Internet addresses from endpoint identifiers to improve the scalability of IPv6 deployments. "Facebook was the first major Web site on LISP (v4 and v6)," Facebook engineers said during their presentation. Facebook said that using LISP allowed them to deploy IPv6 services quickly with no extra cost. Facebook's IPv6 services are available at www.v6.facebook.com, m.v6.facebook.com, www.lisp6.facebook.com and m.lisp6.facebook.com.^[17]

[edit]Like

 Like

Main article: Like button

Described by Facebook as a way to "give positive feedback and connect with things you care about,"^[18] users can "like" status updates, comments, photos, and links posted by their friends, as well as adverts, by clicking the "Like" button at the bottom of the content. This makes the content appear in their friends' News feeds.^[19]

The "Like Button" is also available for use on websites outside Facebook: "When the user clicks the Like button on [a] site, a story appears in the user's friends' News Feed with a link back to [the] website."^[20] At the same time when any visitor, including non Facebook members and logged out users, visit a site with the Like Button, their presence on the site is recorded by Facebook.^[21]Introduced in April 2010, by September 2010 over 350,000 sites had installed it.^[22] A "Like Box" also allows Facebook page owners to see how many users and which of their friends like the page.^[23]From the end of 2010 and in the US, Microsoft's Bing search engine identifies which links in the results have been "Liked" by the searcher's Facebook friends.^[24][25]

A lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles in 2010 claiming the Facebook should not allow minors to "like" advertising; Facebook said the suit was "completely without merit."^[26] Because websites with a "Like Button" send IP address information of all visitors to Facebook, the German state of Schleswig-Holstein said in August 2011 that the button breaches German data protection laws and that federal agencies should remove the buttons and similar social plugins from their websites.^[27] Canada's Privacy Commissioner raised similar concerns in 2010.^[28] "Like" links are vulnerable to likejacking, a form of clickjacking that makes users "Like" content they did not intend to.^[29] An Israeli couple named their child "Like" after the Facebook feature in 2011.^[30]

In August 2011, Google linked their +1 button to Google Plus to rival the Facebook Like Button.^[31]

[edit]Messages and inbox

Since the website's founding, it has allowed users to send messages to each other.^[32] A Facebook user can send a message to any number of his/her friends at a time. Deleting a message from one's inbox does not delete it from the inbox of other users, thus disabling a sender to redo a message sent by him or her.

On November 15, 2010, Facebook announced a new "Facebook Messages" service. In a media event that day, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "It's true that people will be able to have a @facebook.com email addresses, but it's not email." The launch of such a feature had been anticipated for some time before the announcement, with some calling it a "Gmail killer." The system, to be available to all of the website's users, combines text messaging, instant messaging, emails, and regular messages, and will include privacy settings similar to those of other Facebook services.

[edit]Networks, groups, and "like" pages

Facebook allows different networks and groups which many users can join. It also allows privacy settings on basis of networks. Groups are used for discussions, events, etc. and are a way of enabling a number of people to come together online to share information and discuss specific subjects. They are increasingly used by clubs, companies and public sector organizations to engage with stakeholders – be they members of the public, employees, members, service users, shareholders or customers. A group includes but is not limited to the following: the members who have joined, recent news contents, wall contents, photos, posted items, videos and all associated comments of such items. In this respect, groups are similar to "Like pages" (below) but contain a different set of features. Groups are limited to 300 groups per Facebook customer.

Since October 2010, there are version 0 (legacy) and version 1 (current) groups.^[33] Version 1 or "new" groups can contain the name of the group in their URL if the email-address of the group is set. Groups do not have a RSS feed to export the wall or the member list, such as Pages or Events have, but third parties provide such service^[34]

A flag which indicates if the group was created prior to launch of the current groups product in October 2010.

Facebook customers can create "Like Pages" which allow fans of an individual, organization, product, service, or concept to join a Facebook fan club. The Like Pages were introduced in November 2007. Like Pages look and behave much like a user's personal private profile, with some significant differences. Public Profiles are integrated with Facebook's advertising system, allowing Public Profile owners to easily advertise to Facebook's users. Owners can send updates to their fans, which shows up on their home page. They also have access to insights and analytics of their fan base.^[35] Early on, users had the option to "become a fan" of the page until 19 April 2010^[36] when the option was later changed to "like" the page. While an individual with a personal profile can acquire up to 5,000 friends, a "Like Page" can have an unlimited number of "Likers". "Like Pages" can also be customized by adding new Tabs using the Static FBML application. This powerful feature can bring additional functionality to a page such as e-mail collection, specialized content, or a landing page for sales activity. The URLs of "Like Pages" start with http://www.facebook.com/pages... and include the name of the page.

In April 2010 it was announced that "community pages" would integrate content from Wikipedia, under a Creative Commons license.^[37]

[edit]News feed

On 6 September 2006, Ruchi Sangvhi announced a new home page feature called News Feed.^[38] Originally, when users logged into Facebook, they were presented with a customizable version of their own profile. The new layout, by contrast, created an alternative home page in which users saw a constantly updated list of their friends' Facebook activity. News Feed highlights information that includes profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays, among other updates. This has enabled spammers and other users to manipulate these features by creating illegitimate events or posting fake birthdays to attract attention to their profile or cause.^[39] News Feed also shows conversations taking place between the walls of a user's friends. An integral part of the News Feed interface is the Mini-Feed, a news stream on the user's profile page that shows updates about that user. Unlike in the News Feed, the user can delete events from the Mini-Feed after they appear so that they are no longer visible to profile visitors. In 2011, Facebook updated the News Feed to show top stories and most recent stories in one feed, and the option to highlight stories to make them top stories, as well as to un-highlight stories. In response to users' criticism, Facebook later updated the News feed to allow users to view recent stories first.^[40]

Initially, the addition of the News Feed caused some discontent among Facebook users. Many users complained that the News Feed was too cluttered and full of undesired information. Others were concerned that the News Feed made it too easy for other people to track activities like changes in relationship status, events, and conversations with other users. This tracking is often casually referred to as "Facebook-Stalking."^[41] In response to this dissatisfaction, creator Mark Zuckerberg issued an apology for the site's failure to include appropriate customizable privacy features. Thereafter, users were able to control what types of information were shared automatically with friends.^[42] Currently, users may prevent friends from seeing updates about several types of especially private activities, although other events are not customizable in this way.^[43]

With the introduction of the "New Facebook" – in early February 2010 – came a total redesign of the pages, several new features and changes to News Feeds.^[44] On their personal Feeds (now integrated with Walls), users were given the option of removing updates from any application as well as choosing the size they show up on the page. Furthermore, the community feed (containing recent actions by the user's friends) contained options to instantly select whether to hear more or less about certain friends or applications.^[45]

[edit]Notifications

Notifications of the more important events, for example, someone sharing a link on the user's wall or commenting on a post the user previously commented on, briefly appear for a few seconds in the bottom left as a popup message (if the user is online), and a red counter is updated on the toolbar at the top, thus allowing the user to keep track of all the most recent notifications.

[edit]Phone

On September 2010, rumors of a "Facebook Phone" similar to Google's Android, circulated in business and tech industry news. In an interview with well-known technology blog Techcrunch, CEO Mark Zuckerberg was noted to have said, "Our strategy is very horizontal. We're trying to build a social layer for everything," while denying that they were attempting to compete with the Apple iPhone or Android.^[46]

[edit]Photos

On April 11, 2011, Facebook launched a new feature for photo tagging – people can tag photos with a brand, product, company or person’s Facebook page, similar to the way they tag their friends in photos.^[47] In August 2011, Facebook announced that it would be adding a series of photo filters to its mobile application.^[48] Facebook plans to unveil nearly a dozen photo filters, which will be similar to Instragram's grainy images.^[48] Per last known numbers, today in the world, highest number of photos are hosted at Facebook.

On Feb 9, 2012, a silicon valley startup company WeaverMobile announced its iPhone app "PhotoBox". It's a facebook photo app. One of the most useful features is "untag photos". Users can see all their being tagged photos as an album, and choose an untag button to remove those unfavored photos for privacy concerns.

[edit]Poke

The poke feature is intended to be a poke gesture (similar to "nudge" in instant messaging) to attract the attention of another user. Many Facebook users use this feature to attract attention or say "hello" to their friends.^[49] A previous version of Facebook's FAQ gave additional insight into the origin of the feature, stating: "When we created the poke, we thought it would be cool to have a feature without any specific purpose. People interpret the poke in many different ways, and we encourage you to come up with your own meanings." Mark Zuckerberg during a live Facebook webinar.

There are several applications on Facebook which extend the idea of the poke feature by allowing users to perform other actions to their friends—such as "kick" or "wave to". People often reciprocate pokes back and forth until one side gives up, an event known as a "Poke War".

[edit]Smartphones

Many new smartphones offer access to the Facebook services either through their web-browsers or applications. The Facebook iPhone-compatible web site was launched August 2007 and as of July 2008 over 1.5 million people used it regularly, at the point when a free application for the iOS named "Facebook for iPhone" was launched.^[50] Version 2.0 of this app was released in September 2008 and featured improved services such as being able to respond to friend requests and notifications.^[51] Version 3.0 was released in August 2009 and added features such as events, and uploading video with an iPhone 3GS.^[52] In the latest update for the Facebook for iPhone app, GPS use is also integrated in the app under the section "places" in which you can discover moments and experiences when you and your friends are at the same place at the same time. This app is compatible with iPhone 3G, 3Gs, 4, and 4S running iOS 3.0 or later.^[53]

Microsoft developed an application for Facebook on their Windows Phone 7 platform, available in the Windows Phone Marketplace. You can pin elements such as Messages, Events, the News Feed, and Photos directly onto your homescreen. It also includes tile notifications for events, friend requests, tags, and so on. ^[54] Windows Mobile platform, including features such as messaging, uploading pictures and video straight from the device, managing profile information, contact integration allowing users to call anyone in their friends list that has their number in their profile information. It is also possible to add an chat feature to Windows Mobile via third-party software such as FIM, available in the Windows Mobile Marketplace. Nokia also offers a Facebook app on its Ovi Store for Nokia S60 devices such as the N97 and contains most of the functionality of the full website.^[55]

Google's Android 2.0 OS automatically includes an official Facebook app. The first device to use this is the Motorola Droid. The app has options to sync Facebook friends with contacts, which adds profile pictures and status updates to the contacts list. Research In Motion also offers a Facebook application for the BlackBerry. It includes a range of functions, including an ability to integrate Facebook events into the BlackBerry calendar, and using Facebook profile pictures for Caller ID.^[56]

[edit]Feature phones

Although like all other website apps Facebook made its presence on the smartphones as mentioned but also is present for the feature phones. As the company said that the feature phones dominate the American cell phone markets hence an app was exclusively made for this purpose as well.^[57]

[edit]Status updates

"Status updates" (also called as a "status") allows users to post messages for their friends to read. In turn, friends can respond with their own comments, as well as clicking the "Like" button. A user's most recent updates appear at the top of their Timeline/Wall and is also noted in the "Recently Updated" section of a user's friend list. Originally, the purpose of the feature was to allow users to inform their friends of their current "status," including feelings, whereabouts, or actions, where Facebook prompted the status update with "Username is..." and users filled in the rest. This feature first became available in September 2006, though on December 13, 2007, the requirement to start a status update with is was removed.^[58]

The is updates were followed by the "What are you doing right now?" status update question; in March 2009, the question was changed to "What's on your mind?"^[59] In 2009, Facebook added the feature to tag certain friends (or groups, etc.) within one's status update by adding an @ character before their name, turning the friend's name into a link to their profile and including the message on the friend's wall. Tagging has since been updated to recognize friends' names by typing them into a status while a list of friends whose names match the inputted letters appears.

[edit]Ticker

In 2011, Facebook launched a ticker that showed all of their friends and pages updates. For example, it shows when their friends comment or like a status, and their status updates as soon as they posted them. If users do not have the chat sidebar open, the ticker appears on Facebook home next to the News Feed. If users do have the chat sidebar open, the ticker appears above the list of friends, and can be re-sized (it can't be if the chat sidebar isn't open). The ticker cannot be closed, and this has brought up concern among users, especially privacy concerns. However, Facebook has been keen to emphasize that the ticker only shows what people could see before – it just makes it "more discoverable".^[60]

[edit]Timeline

Since December 15, 2011, a Timeline is the new virtual space in which all the content of every Facebook user will be organized and shown.^[61] Replacing the Facebook Profile, in a Timeline the photos, videos, and posts of any given user will be categorized according to the period of time in which they were uploaded or created.^[62] Posts and events are displayed along a timeline that runs through the center of the profile, with the option of adding events that occurred prior to the user joining Facebook as well as "hiding" posts.^[63][64] Some experts^[65] see this as a crucial step on the use of social networks.

Like the Wall, users can set Timeline privacy settings to change who can see their entire profile. Users' friends have the ability to post messages on the user's timeline.

Timeline was originally offered as an option, but all users will be migrated to the format despite considerable antipathy.^[66]

[edit]URL shortener

On December 14, 2009, Facebook launched its own URL shortener based on FB.me domain name.^[67] From that point on, all links based on facebook.com can be accessed after fb.me, which is seven characters shorter.

[edit]Usernames

Starting June 13, 2009, Facebook introduced a feature that allowed users to choose a Facebook username to make user location easier. The user is able to direct others to their page through a simple link such as www.facebook.com/username rather than an otherwise complex URL. This feature on Facebook quickly spread, with more than 1 million users registering usernames in the first three hours.^[68] Usernames are now available to any existing or newly registered user.

According to the FAQ, "Facebook reserves the right to remove and/or reclaim any username at any time for any reason".^[69]

[edit]Wall

The Wall is the original profile space where Facebook users' content, as of December, 2011, is shown. It allows the posting of messages, often short or temporal notes, for the user to see while displaying the time and date the message was written. A user's Wall is visible to anyone with the ability to see his or her full profile, and friends' Wall posts appear in the user's News Feed.

In July 2007, Facebook allowed users to post attachments to the Wall,^[70] whereas previously the Wall was limited to text only. In May 2008, the Wall-to-Wall for each profile was limited to only 40 posts. Recently^[when?] Facebook has allowed users to insert html code in boxes attached to the wall via apps like Static FBML which has allowed marketers to track use of their fan pages with Google Analytics.^[71]

In addition to postings by other users, the Wall also displays other events that happened to the user's profile. It displays when information is changed, when they change their profile picture, and when they connect with new people, among other things.

The Wall is being replaced by the Timeline profile layout, which was introduced in December 2011.

[edit]Questions

On March 24, 2011, Facebook announced that its new product – Facebook Questions – facilitates short, poll-like answers in addition to long-form responses, and also links directly to relevant items in Facebook's directory of "fan pages." ^[72]