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London: Facebook on Monday made its most significant acquisition to date, announcing it will buy the social sharing service FriendFeed in a move that will fuel Facebook's drive to enmesh itself more widely throughout the web. Both companies are privately held and terms of the deal were not released. The announcement follows last year's failed attempt by Facebook to buy Twitter for $500 million (Dh1,835 million). FriendFeed lets users share content and links with a group of followers in real time and broadcast that information across other social networks and blogs. It has about 1 million monthly visitors, according to analytics firm Compete. Many of its features have been mimicked by Facebook and Twitter, both of which are also trying to develop real-time search capabilities and share content more widely. Facebook in March redesigned its homepage with a real-time news feed, emulating much of FriendFeed's functionality. "Over the past year and a half we felt our pro

Dubai: Despite e-mail's growing ubiquity, few have mastered the art of writing an effective one. Cardinal rule number one: Assume that e-mail is public. If people want to read your notes and share them with the world, they will. Peter Post, director of the Emily Post Institute and author of five books on etiquette, insists on polite salutations ("Dear Mr. or Ms.") and courteous endings ("Sincerely") and recommends always using an e-mail signature at the end of a business note. Post said emoticons have no place in business e-mail. However, Will Schwalbe, co-author with David Shipley of Send: The Essential Guide to E-mail for Office and Home, said emoticons can be useful in other instances. Hurst said that because irony and humour are so frequently misconstrued in e-mail notes, the emoticon offers a quick, effective way to convey feelings. "Emoticons are necessary," Hurst said, "because there is no subtlety in e-mail, and jokes do not transmit well

New York: Mike Zafirovski, chief executive of Nortel Networks for the last four years, is close to announcing his departure from the Canadian telecoms equipment maker as it sells off assets under Chapter 11 protection, people familiar with the matter said. Nortel declined to comment. Zafirovski was not expected to take another position in the short term, the people said. The former Motorola and GE executive was appointed in 2005 to try to revive equipment sales at a company that was still recovering from an accounting scandal dating back to 1999, which brought the Canadian technology icon to its knees. Zafirovski led its bankruptcy filing in mid-January. However, the global recession derailed his turnround plans. His decision to step down at this stage is said to reflect his belief that he has succeeded in stabilising the company since the filing and that an orderly sale of its assets can now be completed this year. Last month, he argued that an orderly sale would yield "the be

New York/London/Paris: Rupert Murdoch's pledge to charge for online content from all his news outlets has been met with scepticism from rivals, even as they attempt to find their own alternatives to a broken business model. Murdoch, a born newspaperman who named his multimedia empire News Corp, has more at stake than anyone as the industry grapples with falling print, television and online advertising. "If we're successful, we'll be followed by all media," he said on Wednesday, but rivals expressed doubts that erecting pay walls around everything from Fox News to the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier would trigger copycat moves. "I don't think this is about what Rupert Murdoch wants. It's about what the consumer is prepared to pay for. And why would you pay when you can get the same thing somewhere else for free?" asked Sly Bailey, Trinity Mirror's chief executive. "The idea that there is going to be direct as opposed to indirect monetisa

Thousands of middle class motorists who challenge speeding fines face having to pay most of their legal costs even if they win their cases. Reforms, which have been described as a "stitch-up" aimed at excluding the middle classes, will limit the costs that can be claimed back by the drivers. From October, the Ministry of Justice is cutting the current generous level of costs awarded to successful defendants to the lower rates used in legal aid cases. Legal experts say that as a result, some court victors, who currently have between 80 per cent and 100 per cent of their costs reimbursed by the legal system, can expect to have only between a fifth and a third paid back. The new rules will also affect drivers who successfully challenge drink-drive and other motoring prosecutions. Currently, nearly 400,000 drivers a year -about one in four of those who go to court - win their cases. Critics say the government's decision to wage war on motorists on low and modest incomes means

They say that opposites attract. Well they are probably wrong, according to scientists. A study has found that women are most attracted to men who look just like them. The results could go some way to explaining what drew stars such as David and Victoria Beckham, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, and Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis to each other in the first place. The University of St Andrews psychologists found that women preferred men who were masculine looking but also had features that resembled their own. It is thought that facial resemblance might help to cancel out any issues of mistrust that women normally associated with strong masculine characteristics. The research, which is published this week by the scientific journal Behavioural Ecology, used computer digital techniques to manipulate men's faces and show them to 60 women. Faces were made to look more or less masculine, and more or less like the woman looking at the picture. The women rated the faces for attractiveness. Th

New Delhi: The streets of the western city of Pune were half-empty, schools in Mumbai were ordered closed, and people suffering aches flooded hospitals across the country as India confronted duel outbreaks of H1N1 infections and flu panic. Twenty-one people have died from the flu, the government said on Friday, and 1,390 have been confirmed infected in this nation of 1.2 billion people. But fear of the flu has outpaced the virus itself. "The amount of frenzy or hysteria is totally disproportionate to the overall reality of the disease," said Dr Jai Narain, the head of the regional communicable disease office for the World Health Organisation. Breathless reports of swine flu have dominated India's 24-hour news channels desperate for stories amid the August doldrums. That in turn has helped whip the public into a frenzy, even in cities with relatively few cases of flu. In New Delhi, where no deaths have been reported, people have begun wearing surgical masks in the street.

London: Heart attack survivors who snack on chocolate at least twice a week could greatly reduce their risk of dying from coronary disease, according to research. A Swedish study shows victims who eat chocolate regularly are nearly 70 per cent less likely to die from cardiac problems than those who rarely eat it. Even a weekly chocolate treat can help, almost halving the risk of death from heart problems. The findings, published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, are the latest in a long line of studies highlighting the health benefits of chocolate, especially dark chocolate. Previous investigations have found dark chocolate, which is rich in disease-busting antioxidants called flavonoids, can lower the risk of blood clots, protect against bowel cancer and even help prevent premature births.

Mumbai: Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan said he felt angry and humiliated after he was detained and questioned at a US airport, sparking an uproar in India among his fans. Khan, 43, one of India's best known actors, was en route to Chicago for a parade to mark the Indian Independence Day yesterday when he was pulled aside at Newark airport on Friday, he said. "I was really hassled perhaps because of my name being Khan. These guys just wouldn't let me through," he said in a text message to reporters in India. After a couple of hours' interrogation, he was allowed to make a call, he said, and he got in touch with the Indian consulate who vouched for him and secured his release. "Absolutely uncalled for, I think. I felt angry and humiliated," said Khan, who had just finished a month-long shoot in the US for his upcoming film My Name is Khan, which is about a Muslim man's experience with racial profiling. Indian newspapers on Sunday railed against the ques

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