The Facebook application for iPhone now has over 100 million active monthly users, according to the latest reports. The latest version of Facebook for iPhone includes a number of new features, including Places, currently only available in the U.S. Places gives you the option to share your location by “checking in” to a place and letting friends know where you are.

The recent Facebook iPhone update adds “granular” privacy settings, a snappier inbox with support for threads with multiple users, and improved performance when commenting, liking or posting stories and fixes login issues.

According to David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect, the application is: “So heavily used compared to other apps that I have been told by someone who thought he knew the data — this is highly secret data and I don’t know the actual numbers – that more than half of all usage of the iPhone of apps, other than those provided by the phone itself like telephony and email, is coming from Facebook.” Read more...

FACEBOOK PLACES:

The social networking site’s new location-based feature , dubbed Places, was unveiled last week. The smartphone -based service is designed to let users tell their friends where they are, while also helping them track their own friends. The service also enables users to give away their friends’ current location.

While a portion of the social networking world will think it’s fun and cool to chart their travels around town, another segment of users thinks it’s a sign of Big Brother watching.

“If someone isn’t familiar with geolocation-type services , if they’re not a Foursquare user or a Gowalla user, they should disable Places and then explore it,” said Brad Shimmin, an analyst at Current Analysis. “Always be cautious with anything that could get you in trouble.”

Dan Olds, an analyst at The Gabriel Consulting Group, said there are a many reasons why someone might be hesitant to use Facebook Places. READ MORE…

People are going GaGa about fitness and diet plans and weight loss. Why this sudden trend and why all this humbug about losing weight, getting fit and staying healthy? our lifestyles have changed considerably lately and diseases and illness is taking toll on the idle body and over stressed mind. People somehow have lost touch with nature and started living an artificial life where they eat, sleep and pray all automatically or aided by electronic gadgets or devices. Walking or taking a stroll was always considered refreshing for the brain and mind. Now it is scientifically proven by the University of Illinois psychology professor and Beckman Institute Director Art Kramer’s research findings.
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Alright. Orkut is losing to Facebook in India and the social network is gearing up for the big bang launch of new features that *hopefully* creates a differentiation.

Starting today, Google will change the core function of orkut so we can share and interact with different groups of friends on the Internet just like we do in real life. More..

The algorithms behind Orkut’s updated platform suggest groups from each user’s existing contacts, based on that user’s interactions and connections. Users can freely accept, reject or edit group suggestions from Orkut. This will empower Orkut users to greater privacy and security over their shared information. Source

Facebook has beaten competitors like Orkut and Yahoo to become the top social networking site in India with 20.9 million visitors in July this year, according to research firm comScore.

India, which was one of the few countries where Orkut retained the top spot amongst social networking websites, now has more people logging on to Facebook.

Facebook.com has grabbed the number one ranking in the social networking category for the first time in July with 20.9 million visitors, up 179 per cent versus year ago, comScore said in a statement.

Compared to this, Google’s social networking platform registered a growth of just 16 per cent with 19.9 million visitors in July.

This was followed by BharatStudent with 4.4 million visitors (up 3 per cent) and Twitter.com (3.3 million), while Yahoo owned two of the top ten social networking sites: Yahoo Pulse (3.5 million visitors) and Yahoo! Buzz (1.8 million visitors).

According to the report, more than 33 million Internet users (aged 15 and older) in India visited social networking sites in July.

With this, India now ranks as the seventh largest market worldwide for social networking, after the US, China, Germany, Russia, Brazil and the UK.

“The social networking phenomenon continues to gain steam worldwide, and India represents one of the fastest growing markets at the moment,” comScore Executive Vice President (Asia-Pacific) Will Hodgman said.

Though Facebook has tripled its audience in the past year to pace the growth for the category, several other social networking sites have posted their own sizeable gains, he added.

Read more: Facebook takes India too from Orkut – Internet – News – Tech -The Times Of India

National award winning South Indian actor Prakash Raj married his girlfriend, choreographer Pony Verma at a private ceremony held in Mumbai.

The marriage was attended by the family members and close friends of the couple.

Prakash Raj and Pony Verma also hosted a reception which was attended by Rani Mukherjee, Govinda and Tabu.

Prakash Raj won the National Film Award for Best Actor in 2009 for his role in the movie Kanchivaram, a Tamil film directed by Priyadarshan. Pony Verma is a Bollywood choreographer and has made top actors like Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor to name a few dance to her tunes. Recently she has also choreographed a song in Prakash Raj’s upcoming Tamil movie.
source NDTV

The marriage ceremony was performed in Punjabi custom.

Inidhu Inidhu director KV Guhan, Kumaravel, Radha Mohan were spotted at the ceremony. Prakash Raj’s daughters, mother and sister were also seen at the function.

Ponu Verma was seen in traditional Lehenga choli and Prakash Raj was dressed in Maroon Sherwani. The couple
is planning hosting party for Sandalwood, Tollywood, Kollywood’s friends, which will be held in Hyderabad. sOURCE

Some researchers – and surely many women – have suspected that stress can exacerbate symptoms of PMS. Some of the most common symptoms of premenstrual syndrome are anger, anxiety, depression, mood swings and decreased concentration – all things that clearly could be made worse by stress.

At least 10 studies have found an association between stress and PMS symptoms, but none was able to tell whether stress made symptoms worse – or if severe PMS caused women to feel stressed out. To answer that question, researchers from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and colleagues tracked 259 women over two-and-a-half menstrual cycles to see how stress before a cycle affected PMS. (more…)

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