Singulair linked to serious mood and behavior issues

United States' Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that it is evaluating available information for a potential link between some serious issues involving mood changes and behavior affecting patients who take Merck & Co, Inc's Singulair (montelukast).

Singulair is a prescription drug for the treatment of asthma, allergic rhinitis, and the prevention of exercise-induced asthma. Accordingly, it has been associated with unlikely mood changes, suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality), and suicide. Merck & Co, Inc has made several changes to the patient and prescriber information issued for Singulair and has worked with the FDA to determine how to communicate the latest changes in the most effective manner.
Updates on the drug include alerts for adverse reactions and recently has included tremor, depression, suicidality, and anxiousness. Plans to increase awareness of these potential side effects include personal interaction with prescribers and information leaflets for patients. Merck is conducting a re-evaluation study for Singulair and the FDA is reviewing patient reports of adverse reactions while taking Singulair. The FDA anticipates the review and evaluation process may take as long as nine months before firm data is available for public release.
Singulair is a leukotriene receptor antagonist with mechanism of action similar to Accolate (zafirlukast). Another popular drug used for the treatment of similar symptoms is Zyflo/Zyflo CR (zafirlukast), which is a leukotriene synthesis inhibitor. The FDA is also reviewing reports of similar adverse reactions reported in patients taking these medications to determine if further investigation should be made.
Patients and physicians are requested to report any incidence of these adverse reactions while taking any of these drugs. The FDA has a program for reporting adverse reactions, the MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program, that can be accessed by:
going online to www.fda.gov/medwatch/report.htm,
by calling 1-800-332-1088, or
by faxing to 1-800-FDA-1078.
Source: FDA

Photoshop Express

Adobe recently released its online Photoshop Express application (on public beta). This isn't GIMP but it's a free web-based application that is also cross-platform available. Installed with Adobe's Air technology, Photoshop Express could readily serve the needs of MySpace users and educators who upload illustrations and images on the web.

This new online Adobe service features all the basic photo manipulation features including red eye reduction, retouching, and cropping. Adobe is looking into the possibility of monetizing the service but for now, it appears Photoshop Express will be available for free in its present form.

Photoshop Express offers a variety of features in an easy-to-use package with 2GB of web storage and sharing for photos. One minor drawback though, there is no Linux support for Adobe Air yet. Moreover, Photoshop Express may not be satisfactorily considered as an online extension of the image editing heavyweight. Seems a disappointment: How can Adobe let itself lose to Splashup and the extensive design suite Aviary.

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Paypal is not for Safari

"Drop Safari if you want to avoid online fraud." This somehow sums up a statement issued by Michael Barrett, PayPal's chief information security officer.

The default browser on Apple's Macintosh computers doesn't figure in PayPal's list of recommended browsers because it doesn't have important anti-phishing security features. Now that Apple seems bent on reaching a wider base of users (Safari is being introduced to the Windows platform), the Paypal warning is indeed timely.

Safari has no built-in phishing filter to warn users when they are visiting suspicious websites. It also lacks support for an anti-phishing technology, called Extended Validation (EV) certificates. Extended Validation is an Internet technology turns the address bar green when the browser is visiting a legitimate Web site. EV certificates are already supported in Internet Explorer 7, and they have been used on the PayPal website for over a year now.

Barrett says: "Opera, IE, and Firefox are safer, precisely because we think they are safer for the average consumer." "I'd love to say that Safari was a safer browser, but at this point it isn't."

Reason to buy PS3 console as Blu-Ray player

Sony's PlayStation 3 video game console was the cheapest Blu-Ray player on the market when it was launched. Recently, an announcement of a firmware upgrade seems to give consumers a reason to buy the console a little beyond it Blu-Ray capabilities.

Sony says the new firmware enables users to take advantage of something called BD-Live, and to dynamically download "additional content and special features" associated with movies on Blu-ray. This means (as Sony adds) that BD-Live "will keep your (Blu-ray) discs fresh with new content and in some cases exclusive content only accessible to owners of BD-Live enabled discs." "With this update, the PlayStation 3 becomes the first Blu-ray player on the market with BD-Live functionality."

The PS3 appears (for the video gamers' community at the least) to be that illegitimate child that has been always outclassed by Nintendo's Wii and Microsoft's Xbox 360. This recent--shall we call it smart--move from Sony could bring up sales for the machine. And as how a CNET article puts it "After all, they say, when faced with lemons, make lemonade."

Windows Mobile to get Flash support

Microsoft has Silverlight, its own mobile video-viewing software, but it has still decided to license Adobe's Flash Lite and Reader software. What does this mean? Simply put, future generations of Windows Mobile devices will be able to view and interact with a wider range of mobile websites.

This development between Microsoft and Adobe provides Microsoft's mobile browser an advantage. IE for mobile devices is fine but other mobile browsers that perform better -- Opera Mini, Opera Mobile, the S60 browser, and the iPhone's Safari. The iPhone browser has no Flash support.

Devices that offer users greater web experience are definitely welcome. There is a prevailing perception that Apple's products are better and more user-oriented. And Microsoft seems to be hell-bent on changing that. If for Apple, less is better; Microsoft thinks otherwise. Undoubtedly, Flash is the hot and dominant item Microsoft would find hard to topple. Microsoft's move here is a welcome one. Definitely benefits users!

The financial terms of the agreement weren't disclosed, and Microsoft didn't provide any details on when or the software support would become available to users.

Ad management service from Google

The leader of web advertising launches a free hosted service called Ad Manager. It is designed to help website publishers in selling advertising slots on their websites faster. It aims to streamline the way ads are placed on websites and to generate performance reports that detail how successful published ads are in reaching readers or viewers.

Google says Ad Manager is meant to ease some problems associated with the management of website advertisements. It simplifies the gauging of inventory and the process of picking the highest paying ads. Website owners can easily access this new service as it is hosted on Google's servers.

Ad Manager is developed to be flexible enough to allow publishers sell their own advertising. For ad space they can't sell, publishers can choose to use Google's AdSense system to fill unsold slots. What's more, Google also enables publishers to use Ad Manager with similar technology from other competing ad placement networks.

Ad Manager can also target ads at specific users and delivers ads based on a user's domain, the brand of web browser, language, operating system, and bandwidth.