'Facebook profile may expose mental illness'

ht not necessarily emerge in a session with a psychiatrist, a new study suggests.

According to researchers from the University of Missouri, the social media activity when used as a tool in psychological diagnosis can remove some of the problems associated with patients' self-reporting.

"For example, questionnaires often depend on a person's memory, which may or may not be accurate. By asking patients to share their Facebook activity, we were able to see how they expressed themselves naturally," said study researcher Elizabeth Martin.

"Even the parts of their Facebook activities that they chose to conceal exposed information about their psychological state," said Martin.

Social media profiles could eventually be used as tools for psychologists and therapists, according to Martin, doctoral student in MU's psychological science department in the College of Arts and Science.

"Therapists could possibly use social media activity to create a more complete clinical picture of a patient," Martin said in a statement.

Martin's team asked participants to print their Facebook activity and correlated aspects of that activity with the degree to which those individuals exhibited schizotypy, a range of symptoms including social withdrawal to odd beliefs.

Some study participants showed signs of the schizotypy condition known as social anhedonia, or the inability to experience pleasure from usually enjoyable activities, such as communicating and interacting with others.

People with social anhedonia tended to have fewer friends on Facebook, communicated with friends less frequently and shared fewer photos.

Other study participants concealed significant portions of their Facebook profile before presenting them to researchers.

These participants also showed schizotypy symptoms, known as perceptual aberrations, which are anomalous experiences of one's senses, and magical ideation, which is the belief that events with no physical cause-and-effect are somehow causally connected. Hiding Facebook activity also was considered a sign of higher levels of paranoia.

The study was published in the journal Psychiatry Research.

Nokia's Windows Phone 8: 4 little-known things

Windows Phone 8-based devices are populating retail stores. The latest to arrive is the much-hyped Nokia's flagship smartphone, Lumia 920, launched last week. HTC 8X and HTC 8S also run on Windows Phone 8. They have a fewremarkable features that will give a good competition to the seemingly runaway popularity of Android-based devices.

Space for kids on your phone
How often children have taken your phone, and without your knowledge changed the ringtone, dialled your boss, downloaded games, and worse, strayed into murky corners of cyberspace? Kids Corner, an innovative feature of Windows Phone 8, lets you stay in peace. From the Start screen go to the Kids Corner. Choose the features and apps the child can access. The home screen remains password protected.

Click in the dark
Thanks to Nokia Pure View imaging innovations and floating lens technology , Lumia 920 users will have some photo to show off, even if they click in very poor light without using flash. That is because the camera takes in five times more light than those in other smartphones.

Video in a photograph
There are two lens applications that bring in a new dimension to photography. One is the Cinemagraph. It adds movement to still photography, yet it is not a video. It's like the GIFs. As you click, the app will detect areas of movement in the frame, and you can pick the areas you want to animate. This works best while clicking a photo which has continuous motion, like a waterfall. With Cinemagraph, your photo will show the water flowing, giving the impression of a video.

Choose the right frame
The second app, Smart Shoot, solves two problems we face when we take pictures -- you realise one of your friends closed her eyes when you clicked; and two, there was a stranger walking behind your friend when you clicked her photo. But with Smart Shoot app, you end up taking a sequence of photos . So, it doesn't matter if your friend closed her eyes. You just pick the right frame.

The app also allows you to remove unwanted people or objects from the photo. This is of great help when your friend is posing on the beach and there are people walking in front of and behind her. All that you have to do is just mark them out and erase. And you have just your friend all alone in the beach, with the sea waves and the setting sun behind her.

2013, the year of free mobile roaming

A new communications era is set to dawn in 2013 - mobile roaming will be made free and number portability, limited to circles, will become borderless. If you are in Chennai and shift to Ahmedabad, you will be able to take the same number, much like you own it and decide which operator to go with. 

And if you are merely traveling on work - there won't be roaming charges. While such conveniences will usher in a truly borderless mobile era and reduce your roaming bill to zilch, telcos will suffer a Rs 13,500 crore revenue loss when roaming becomes free. 

What they lose in roaming can be gained multiple times via faster internet services. 

India's two world's - rural and urban - suffer a common pain - lack of bandwidth. The former doesn't have it and the latter surfs at glacial speeds, making videos or downloading sites and files on smart devices too slow. For both, 2013 will be a revolution. 

Rural areas will leapfrog into broadband and urban areas will connect on faster fourth generation (4G) networks. 

Under the Rs 20,000 crore Bharat Broadband project by end 2013, fiber will reach 250,000 gram panchayats, taking internet to villages. In three rural clusters where pilots are on, 100 mbps bandwidth is available. In all 13 states have given permission for laying fibre on ground and the rest expected to sign on by February end. 

For urban users, graduation to 4G will mean a three-fold jump in internet speeds on 3G, to 100 mbps. Bharti Airtel launched 4G in 2012. Others including Reliance, Tikona, Aircel, who have the4G licence, will follow suit in the New Year. Welcome to ultra-broadband mobile internet.

Samsung Galaxy phones get price cut in India

This is the third price cut for Galaxy S III, whose prices were reduced in September, when iPhone 5 was launched. The smartphone was launched at Rs 43,000 in the market in May 2012 and now costs nearly 25% less than its launch price.

The price of Samsung Galaxy S III hovers around Rs 32,000 in the Indian e-commerce market, with major sellers like Indiatimes Shopping and Flipkart selling it for Rs 31,900. However, a seller on Tradus, which has listings of various retailers, is offering the device for Rs 30,490, the lowest price for the device so far. HTC One X, a rival of Samsung Galaxy S III, is also available in a similar price band - Rs 30, 749 - on the internet. However, the other big rival Apple iPhone 5, which launched in early November in India, is priced between Rs 45,500 and Rs 59,500. The device's almost year-and-a-half-old version, iPhone 4S is selling at a price of Rs 37,500.

Some of the other Samsung Galaxy series devices like Galaxy Note, Galaxy S II and Galaxy S Duos too have seen price cuts. Samsung Galaxy Note is now available for Rs 25,500 on the internet. Likewise, Samsung Galaxy S II is available for Rs 22,990 on the web, though its official price is Rs 25,900.

Galaxy S Duos, a mid-range dual-sim Android device from Samsung, is also selling at reduced prices on the internet. The device, whose official price is Rs 15,200, is available for Rs 14,300.

HaPpY nEw YeAr 2013!!!