Priyanka Chopra Banned from Using Twitter

Priyanka Chopra’s Twitter obsession has been curbed. And it’s all owing to her latest film producer Sajid Nadiadwala who has banned the actress from posting any kind of information on the social networking site.

Sajid has banned the actress from posting any kind of information on the social networking site. While most filmmakers are still looking for ways to approach their actors on the issue, Nadiadwala has taken strict steps to assure that no member of the cast or the crew will leak any kind of details about his project ‘Anjaana Anjaani’ on any networking site.

Confirming the news, Sajid told a daily, “I actually took the decision to forbid my cast and crew from putting any information on websites after an incident that happened with Sajid Khan, my director of ‘Housefull’.

We were doing a photo-session with the film’s stars. We weren’t even finished and Sajid Khan had already put one of the pictures on the site. I was horrified. That’s when I decided it was time to make the confidentiality clause a legal issue in all my contracts.”

Regretting the lack of privacy among stars, Sajid further added, “I remember when my father produced JP Dutta’s Ghulami, we’d stand outside Dharmendra’s van for hours waiting for him to emerge so we could see what he wore, how he styled his hair, what watch he had on, etc.

Though it is a very hard decision but looks like Piggy Chops have to follow her producer’s wish. After all professionalism matters most. Today the stars volunteer all this information on the social networks even before the director takes his first shot. I think all of us need to make confidentiality compulsory for every film."

Disabled Fan Accuses Salman Khan

Actor Salman Khan is in trouble for meeting a disabled fan and then using it as a ‘publicity stunt’. The Bombay High Court on Saturday issued a notice to the actor on Phoolbanoo Bakshi Ilahi’s petition seeking damages of Rs 25 lakh after her photograph with the actor appeared in a Mumbai tabloid

Ilahi said in April 2009, she and her family had visited Salman’s home in Bandra, where the actor also posed with her for a photograph. She said that she was shocked to see that photograph alongside a story titled, ‘Dildar Salman Khan’, in the tabloid. Khan even stated in the story that he had helped Ilahi by giving her Rs1 lakh. “Not a single penny was given to her,” said Ilahi’s cousel.
for his film’s Veer’s publicity.

The Language of Facebook

I HAVE a feeling that if Andy Warhol were alive he would be spending the summer writing a novel that takes place in real time on Facebook. In that spirit, Lauren Mechling and Laura Moser have been writing a clever serialized novel on Slate called “My Darklyng.” Their innovation: the plot unfolds not just in text but on Facebook and Twitter.

For the purposes of what they affectionately call their “gonzo art project,” the veteran young-adult novelists Ms. Mechling and Ms. Moser created a fake Facebook page for their main character, 16-year-old Natalie Pollock. What’s fascinating is that Natalie’s page may seem fake and stilted and artificial, but only in the way all teenagers’ Facebook pages seem fake and stilted and artificial.

Which is to say “My Darklyng” offers a brilliant commentary on how fictional teenagers are on Facebook. Their stylized, mannered projections of self are as invented as any in a novel. There are regional differences, of course, to the mannerisms but there are certain common tics: Okayyyyyyyyy. Ahhhhhhh. Everything is extreme: So-and-so “is obsessed with.” So-and-so “just had the longest day EVERRRRRR.” They are in a perpetual high pitch of pleasure or a high pitch of crisis or sometimes just a high pitch of high pitch. Holden Caulfield might have called it “phoniness.”

Google Leads, You Pedal - Road Runner

I would bike from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, hit the taco trucks along the ball fields of Red Hook, Brooklyn, cruise through Prospect Park over to Brighton Beach for a quick dip, then hypotenuse it back to a bar in Williamsburg to watch the World Cup finals.

Out of curiosity, I consulted Google Maps's new bike software on my computer, to see if its brainy algorithm would match my battle-tested sense of directions. It did, for the most part, but for a few snags: It sent me the wrong way on Smith Street in Brooklyn, then diverted me away from Prospect Park -- the borough's best piece of biking real estate -- and on the way back, like an overprotective concierge, it steered me away from the rough parts of Bedford Stuyvesant (normally I would have just bombed up Bedford Avenue).
Still, not bad for a piece of software created by some techie thousands of miles away.
"It's still an experiment of sorts," said Dave Barth, a product manager at Google Maps in Seattle. "We launched the bike maps without complete coverage because of the passion we were hearing among cyclists on the Internet."
The beta version for bicyclists is just a few months old, but it is already reshaping how bike enthusiasts travel. Spanning more than 200 cities nationwide -- and with plans to roll out bicycle routes internationally -- Google Maps relies on a mash-up of data, from publicly available sources like bike maps to user-generated information. It joins a host of other bike-mapping Web sites, from Bikely, which lets people share routes in cities around the world, to Ride the City, a geowiki (or self-editing map) app, available in 10 cities (including New York, Boston, San Francisco and Toronto) that allows users to edit their routes as they ride, to MapMyRide, which is geared more toward fitness training and logging workouts.
But the one with the most potential -- and the most buzz among bikers -- is Google's. There are three kinds of routes highlighted on its maps: bike-only trails (dark green), dedicated bicycle lanes (light green) and bike-friendly roads but with no separate lanes (dashed green). The algorithm factors in variables besides bike lanes, like confusing intersections, steep hills or busy streets, before spitting out the "best" route. The software includes more than 12,000 miles of off-road trails as well.

Rapper Foxy Brown indicted for court violation

Rapper Foxy Brown has been indicted on charges of violating an order of protection stemming from a 2007 confrontation with her neighbor in New York City.
Prosecutors say Brown violated the order in July by screaming at neighbor Arlene Raymond before bending over, baring her buttocks at Raymond and showing her underwear while shouting an obscenity.
The 31-year-old Brown was issued the order of protection after pleading guilty in 2008 to menacing Raymond with her cell phone.
The two had been in a dispute over Brown blasting her car stereo outside their Brooklyn building.
The indictment announced Friday charges Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand, with criminal contempt in the second degree. She could face up to one

Doctor’s Orders - Eat an Apple

Doctors at three health centers in Massachusetts have begun advising patients to eat “prescription produce” from local farmers’ markets, in an effort to fight obesity in children of low-income families. Now they will give coupons amounting to $1 a day for each member of a patient’s family to promote healthy meals.

“A lot of these kids have a very limited range of fruits and vegetables that are acceptable and familiar to them. Potentially, they will try more,” said Dr. Suki Tepperberg, a family physician at Codman Square Health Center in Dorchester, one of the program sites. “The goal is to get them to increase their consumption of fruit and vegetables by one serving a day.”

The effort may also help farmers’ markets compete with fast-food restaurants selling dollar value meals. Farmers’ markets do more than $1 billion in annual sales in the United States, according to the Agriculture Department.