WHO INVENTED THE HEATER

Willis Haviland Carrier (November 26, 1876 – October 7, 1950) was an American engineer and inventor, and is known as the man who invented modern air conditioning.
In Buffalo, New York, on July 17, 1902, in response to a quality problem experienced at the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing & Publishing Company of Brooklyn, Willis Carrier submitted drawings for what became recognized as the world's first modern air conditioning system. The 1902 installation marked the birth of air conditioning because of the addition of humidity control, which led to the recognition by authorities in the field that air conditioning must perform four basic functions: 1.) control temperature; 2.) control humidity; 3.) control air circulation and ventilation; 4.) cleanse the air.
After several more years of refinement and field testing, on January 2, 1906, Carrier was granted U.S. patent No. 808897 on his invention, which he called an "Apparatus for Treating Air," the world's first spray-type air conditioning equipment. It was designed to humidify or dehumidify air, heating water for the first and cooling it for the second.
In 1906, Carrier discovered that "constant dew-point depression provided practically constant relative humidity," which later became known among air conditioning engineers as the "law of constant dew-point depression." On this discovery he based the design of an automatic control system, for which he filed a patent claim on May 17, 1907. The patent, No. 1,085,971, was issued on February 3, 1914.
On December 3, 1911, Carrier presented the most significant and epochal document ever prepared on air conditioning – his "Rational Psychrometric Formulae" – at the annual meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. It became known as the "Magna Carta of Psychrometrics." This document tied together the concepts of relative humidity, absolute humidity, and dew-point temperature, thus making it possible to design air-conditioning systems to precisely fit the requirements at hand.
With the onset of World War I in late-1914, the Buffalo Forge Company, for which Carrier had been employed 12 years, decided to confine its activities entirely to manufacturing. The result was that seven young engineers pooled together their life savings of $32,600 to form the Carrier Engineering Corporation in New York on June 26, 1915. The seven were Carrier, J. Irvine Lyle, Edward T. Murphy, L. Logan Lewis, Ernest T. Lyle, Alfred E. Stacey, Jr., and Edmund P. Heckel. The company eventually settled on Frelinghuysen Avenue in Newark, New Jersey.
Despite the development of the centrifugal refrigeration machine and the commercial growth of air conditioning to cool buildings in the 1920s, the company ran into financial difficulties, as did many others, as a result of the Wall Street Crash in October 1929. In 1930, Carrier Engineering Corp. merged with Brunswick-Kroeschell Company and York Heating & Ventilating Corporation to form the Carrier Corporation, with Willis Carrier named Chairman of the Board.
Spread out over four cities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Carrier consolidated and moved his company to Syracuse, New York, in 1937, and the company became one of the largest employers in central New York. In 1930, he started Toyo Carrier and Samsung Applications in Korea and Japan. South Korea is now the largest producer for air conditioning in the world.
The Great Depression slowed residential and commercial use of air conditioning. Willis Carrier's igloo in the 1939 New York World's Fair gave visitors a glimpse into the future of air conditioning, but before it became popular, World War II began. During the post-war economic boom of the 1950s, air conditioning began its tremendous growth in popularity.
The company pioneered the design and manufacture of refrigeration machines to cool large spaces. By increasing industrial production in the summer months, air conditioning revolutionized American life. The introduction of residential air conditioning in the 1920s helped start the great migration to the Sunbelt. The company became a subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation in 1980. Carrier remains a world leader in commercial and residential HVAC and refrigeration. In 2007, the Carrier Corporation had sales of more than $15 billion and employed some 45,000 people.

WHO INVENTED THE DIGITAL CAMARA?

Steven J. Sasson (b. 1950) is an electrical engineer and the inventor of the digital camera.

His invention began in 1975 with a very broad assignment from his supervisor at Eastman Kodak Company, Gareth A. Lloyd: Could a camera be built using solid state electronics, solid state imagers, an electronic sensor known as a charge coupled device (CCD) that gathers optical information?

Texas Instruments Inc. had designed an electronic camera in 1972 that was filmless but not digital, using instead analog electronics. After a literature search on digital imaging came up virtually empty, Sasson drew on whatever was available: an analog-to-digital converter adapted from Motorola Inc. components, a Kodak movie-camera photographic lens|lens and the tiny CCD chips introduced by Fairchild Semiconductor in 1973.

He set about constructing the digital circuitry from scratch, using oscilloscope measurements as a guide. There were no images to look at until the entire prototype - an 8-pound (3.6-kilogram), toaster-size contraption - was assembled. In December 1975, Sasson and his chief technician persuaded a lab assistant to pose for them. The black-and-white image, captured at a resolution of .01 megapixels (10,000 pixels), took 23 seconds to record onto a digital cassette tape and another 23 seconds to read off a playback unit onto a television. Then it popped up on the screen.

"You could see the silhouette of her hair," Sasson said. But her face was a blur of static. "She was less than happy with the photograph and left, saying 'You need work,"' he said. But Sasson already knew the solution: reversing a set of wires, the assistant's face was restored.

In 1978, Sasson and Lloyd were issued United States Patent 4,131,919 for their digital camera.

Sasson now works to protect the intellectual capital of his employer, Eastman Kodak Company.



Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_the_digital_camera#ixzz1dtNWuyLQ

“Pea hybrids form germinal and pollen cells that in their composition correspond in equal numbers to all the constant forms resulting from the combination of traits united through fertilization.”


Gregor Johann Mendel was born on July 22, 1822 to peasant parents in a small agrarian town in Czechoslovakia. During his childhood he worked as a gardener, and as a young man attended the Olmutz Philosophical Institute. In 1843 he entered an Augustinian monastery in Brunn, Czechoslovakia. Soon afterward, his natural interest in science and specifically hereditary science led him to start experiments with the pea plant. Mendel's attraction for scientific research was based on his love of nature in general. He was not only interested in plants, but also in meteorology and theories of evolution. However, it is his work with the pea plant that changed the world of science forever.
His beautifully designed experiments with pea plants were the first to focus on the numerical relationships among traits appearing in the progeny of hybrids. His interpretation for this phenomenon was that material and unchanging hereditary “elements” undergo segregation and independent assortment. These elements are then passed on unchanged (except in arrangement) to offspring thus yielding a very large, but finite number of possible variations.
Mendel often wondered how plants obtained atypical characteristics. On one of his frequent walks around the monastery, he found an atypical variety of an ornamental plant. He took it and planted it next to the typical variety. He grew their progeny side by side to see if there would be any approximation of the traits passed on to the next generation. This experiment was “designed to support or to illustrate Lamarck's views concerning the influence of environment upon plants.” He found that the plants' respective offspring retained the essential traits of the parents, and therefore were not influenced by the environment. This simple test gave birth to the idea of heredity.
Overshadowing the creative brilliance of Mendel's work is the fact that it was virtually ignored for 34 years. Only after the dramatic rediscovery of Mendel’s work in 1900 (16 years after Mendel's death) was he rightfully recognized as the founder of genetics.1


Why Peas?
Pisum sativum

Mendel was well aware that there were certain preconditions that had to be carefully established before commencing investigations into the inheritance of characteristics. The parental plants must be known to possess constant and differentiating characteristics. To establish this condition, Mendel took an entire year to test “true breeding” (non-hybrid) family lines, each having constant characteristics. The experimental plants also needed to produce flowers that would be easy to protect against foreign pollen. The special shape of the flower of the Leguminosae family, with their enclosed styles, drew his attention. On trying several from this family, he finally selected the garden pea plant (Pisum sativum) as being most ideal for his needs. Mendel also picked the common garden pea plant because it can be grown in large numbers and its reproduction can be manipulated. As with many other flowering plants, pea plants have both male and female reproductive organs. As a result, they can either self-pollinate themselves or cross-pollinate with other plants. In his experiments, Mendel was able to selectively cross-pollinate purebred plants with particular traits and observe the outcome over many generations. This was the basis for his conclusions about the nature of genetic inheritance.3


Mendel observed seven pea plant traits that are easily recognized in one of two forms:

1. Flower color: purple or white
2. Flower position: axial or terminal
3. Stem length: long or short
4. Seed shape: round or wrinkled
5. Seen color: yellow or green
6. Pod shape: inflated or constricted
7. Pod color: yellow or green


Mendel's Law of Segregation

Mendel's hypothesis essentially has four parts. The first part or “law” states that, “Alternative versions of genes account for variations in inherited characters.” In a nutshell, this is the concept of alleles. Alleles are different versions of genes that impart the same characteristic. For example, each pea plant has two genes that control pea texture. There are also two possible textures (smooth and wrinkled) and thus two different genes for texture.
The second law states that, “For each character trait (ie: height, color, texture etc.) an organism inherits two genes, one from each parent.” This statement alludes to the fact that when somatic cells are produced from two gametes, one allele comes from the mother, one from the father. These alleles may be the same (true-breeding organisms), or different (hybrids).
The third law, in relation to the second, declares that, “If the two alleles differ, then one, the dominant allele, is fully expressed in the organism's appearance; the other, the recessive allele, has no noticeable effect on the organism's appearance.”
The fourth law states that, “The two genes for each character segregate during gamete production.” This is the last part of Mendel's generalization. This references meiosis when the chromosome count is changed from the diploid number to the haploid number. The genes are sorted into separate gametes, ensuring variation. This sorting process depends on genetic “recombination.” During this time, genes mix and match in a random and yet very specific way. Genes for each trait only trade with genes of the same trait on the opposing strand of DNA so that all the traits are covered in the resulting offspring. For example, color genes do not trade off with genes for texture. Color genes only trade off with color genes from the opposing allelic sight as do texture genes and all other genes. The result is that each gamete that is produced by the parent is uniquely different as far as the traits that it codes for from every other gamete that is produced. For many creatures, this available statistical variation is so huge that in all probability, no two identical offspring will ever be produced even given trillions of years of time.
So, since a pea plant carries two genes, it can have both of its genes be the same. Both genes could be “smooth” genes or they could both be “wrinkled” genes. If both genes are the same, the resulting pea will of course be consistent. However, what if the genes are different or “hybrid”? One gene will then have “dominance” over the other “recessive” gene. The dominant trait will then be expressed. For example, if the smooth gene (A) is the dominant gene and the wrinkle gene (a) is the recessive gene, a plant with the “Aa” genotype will produce smooth peas. Only an “aa” plant will produce wrinkled peas. For instance, the pea flowers are either purple or white. Intermediate colors do not appear in the offspring of these cross-pollinated plants.

The observation that there are inheritable traits that do not show up in intermediate forms was critically important because the leading theory in biology at the time was that inherited traits blend from generation to generation (Charles Darwin and most other cutting-edge scientists in the 19th century accepted this “blending theory.”). Of course there are exceptions to this general rule. Some genes are now known to be “incompletely dominant.” In this situation, the “dominant gene has incomplete expression in the resulting phenotype causing a “mixed” phenotype. For example, some plants have “incomplete dominant” color genes such as white and red flower genes. A hybrid of this type of plant will produce pink flowers. Other genes are known to be “co-dominant” were both alleles are equally expressed in the phenotype. An example of co-dominant alleles is human blood typing. If a person has both “A” and “B” genes, they will have an “AB” blood type. Some traits are inherited through the combination of many genes acting together to produce a certain effect. This type of inheritance is called “polygenetic.” Examples of polygenetic inheritance are human height, skin color, and body form. In all of these cases however, the genes (alleles) themselves remain unchanged. They are transmitted from parent to offspring through a process of random genetic recombination that can be calculated statistically. For example, the odds of a dominant trait being expressed over a recessive trait in a two-gene allelic system where both parents are hybrids are 3:1. If only one parent is a hybrid and the other parent has both dominant alleles, then 100% of the offspring will express the dominant trait. If one parent has both recessive alleles and the other parent is a hybrid, then the offspring will have a phenotypic ratio of 1:1.


Mendel's Law of Independent Assortment

The most important principle of Mendel's Law of Independent Assortment is that the emergence of one trait will not affect the emergence of another. For example, a pea plant's inheritance of the ability to produce purple flowers instead of white ones does not make it more likely that it would also inherit the ability to produce yellow peas in contrast to green ones. Mendel's findings allowed other scientists to simplify the emergence of traits to mathematical probability (While mixing one trait always resulted in a 3:1 ratio between dominant and recessive phenotypes, his experiments with two traits showed 9:3:3:1 ratios).
Mendel was so successful largely thanks to his careful and nonpassionate use of the scientific method. Also, his choice of peas as a subject for his experiments was quite fortunate. Peas have a relatively simple genetic structure and Mendel could always be in control of the plants' breeding. When Mendel wanted to cross-pollinate a pea plant he needed only to remove the immature stamens of the plant. In this way he was always sure of each plants' parents. Mendel made certain to start his experiments only with true breeding plants. He also only measured absolute characteristics such as color, shape, and texture of the offspring. His data was expressed numerically and subjected to statistical analysis. This method of data reporting and the large sampling size he used gave credibility to his data. He also had the foresight to look through several successive generations of his pea plants and record their variations. Without his careful attention to procedure and detail, Mendel's work could not have had the same impact that is has made on the world of genetics.

Mendel and Darwin

Mendel's ideas on heredity and evolution were diametrically opposed to those of Darwin and his followers (although neither Mendel nor Darwin knew of the other’s work).2 Darwin believed in the inheritance of acquired characters. This led him to his famous theory of continuous evolution. Mendel, in contrast, rejected both the idea of inheritance of acquired characters (mutations) as well as the concept of continuous evolution. The laws discovered by him were understood to be the laws of constant elements for a great but finite variation, not only for cultured varieties but also for species in the wild.3 In his short treatise, Experiments in Plant Hybridization, Mendel incessantly speaks of "constant characters", "constant offspring", "constant combinations", "constant forms", "constant law", "a constant species" etc. (in such combinations the adjective "constant" occurs 67 times in his original paper). He was convinced that the laws of heredity he had discovered corroborated Gärtner's conclusion "that species are fixed with limits beyond which they cannot change". And as Dobzhansky aptly put it, "It is...not a paradox to say that if someone should succeed in inventing a universally applicable, static definition of species, he would cast serious doubts on the validity of the theory of evolution".
As the Darwinians won the battle for the minds in the 19th century, no space was left in the next decades for the acceptance of the true scientific laws of heredity discovered by Mendel. Further work in genetics was continued mainly by Darwin's critics. In agreement with de Vries, Tschermak-Seysenegg, Johannsen, Nilsson, et al., Bateson stated:

“With the triumph of the evolutionary idea, curiosity as to the significance of specific differences was satisfied. The Origin was published in 1859. During the following decade, while the new views were on trial, the experimental breeders continued their work, but before 1870 the field was practically abandoned. In all that concerns the species the next thirty years are marked by the apathy characteristic of an age of faith. Evolution became the exercising-ground of essayists. The number indeed of naturalists increased tenfold, but their activities were directed elsewhere. Darwin's achievement so far exceeded anything that was thought possible before, that what should have been hailed as a long-expected beginning was taken for the completed work. I well remember receiving from one of the most earnest of my seniors the friendly warning that it was waste of time to study variation, for "Darwin had swept the field.”” 4

The general acceptance of Darwin's theory of evolution and his ideas regarding variation and the inheritance of acquired characters are, in fact, the main reasons for the neglect of Mendel's work, which (in clear opposition to Darwin) pointed to an entirely different understanding of the questions involved.1

1. Genetics 131: 245-253, 1992.

2. Callender, L. A., Gregor Mendel: An opponent of descent with modification. History of Science 26: 41-75. 1988.

3. Mendel, Gregor. Experiments in Plant Hybridization. 1865.

4. Bateson, W. Mendel's Principles of Heredity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN´S DAY TO ALL THE LADIES IN THE WORLD

International Women's Day has been observed since in the early 1900's, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies.
1908
Great unrest and critical debate was occurring amongst women. Women's oppression and inequality was spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. Then in 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.
1909
In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman's Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913.
1910
n 1910 a second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named a Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women's Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day - a Women's Day - to press for their demands. The conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women's clubs, and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted Zetkin's suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women's Day was the result.
1911
Following the decision agreed at Copenhagen in 1911, International Women's Day (IWD) was honoured the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. However less than a week later on 25 March, the tragic 'Triangle Fire' in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working women, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This disastrous event drew significant attention to working conditions and labour legislation in the United States that became a focus of subsequent International Women's Day events. 1911 also saw women's 'Bread and Roses' campaign.

1913-1914
On the eve of World War I campaigning for peace, Russian women observed their first International Women's Day on the last Sunday in February 1913. In 1913 following discussions, International Women's Day was transferred to 8 March and this day has remained the global date for International Wommen's Day ever since. In 1914 further women across Europe held rallies to campaign against the war and to express women's solidarity.
1917
On the last Sunday of February, Russian women began a strike for "bread and peace" in response to the death over 2 million Russian soldiers in war. Opposed by political leaders the women continued to strike until four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. The date the women's strike commenced was Sunday 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia. This day on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere was 8 March.
1918 - 1999
Since its birth in the socialist movement, International Women's Day has grown to become a global day of recognition and celebration across developed and developing countries alike. For decades, IWD has grown from strength to strength annually. For many years the United Nations has held an annual IWD conference to coordinate international efforts for women's rights and participation in social, political and economic processes. 1975 was designated as 'International Women's Year' by the United Nations. Women's organisations and governments around the world have also observed IWD annually on 8 March by holding large-scale events that honour women's advancement and while diligently reminding of the continued vigilance and action required to ensure that women's equality is gained and maintained in all aspects of life.
2000 and beyond
IWD is now an official holiday in Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China (for women only), Cuba, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar (for women only), Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal (for women only), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia. The tradition sees men honouring their mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues, etc with flowers and small gifts. In some countries IWD has the equivalent status of Mother's Day where children give small presents to their mothers and grandmothers.
The new millennium has witnessed a significant change and attitudinal shift in both women's and society's thoughts about women's equality and emancipation. Many from a younger generation feel that 'all the battles have been won for women' while many feminists from the 1970's know only too well the longevity and ingrained complexity of patriarchy. With more women in the boardroom, greater equality in legislative rights, and an increased critical mass of women's visibility as impressive role models in every aspect of life, one could think that women have gained true equality. The unfortunate fact is that women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts, women still are not present in equal numbers in business or politics, and globally women's education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men.
However, great improvements have been made. We do have female astronauts and prime ministers, school girls are welcomed into university, women can work and have a family, women have real choices. And so the tone and nature of IWD has, for the past few years, moved from being a reminder about the negatives to a celebration of the positives.
Annually on 8 March, thousands of events are held throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate achievements. A global web of rich and diverse local activity connects women from all around the world ranging from political rallies, business conferences, government activities and networking events through to local women's craft markets, theatric performances, fashion parades and more.
Many global corporations have also started to more actively support IWD by running their own internal events and through supporting external ones. For example, on 8 March search engine and media giant Google some years even changes its logo on its global search pages. Year on year IWD is certainly increasing in status. The United States even designates the whole month of March as 'Women's History Month'.
So make a difference, think globally and act locally !! Make everyday International Women's Day. Do your bit to ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal, safe and rewarding.

WHO CREATED THE GAME FARMVILLE AND WHAT IS THE GAME ALL ABOUT?

Farmville was created by a company called Zynga Mark Pincus is the founder and CEO of Zynga and he is from New York.


FarmVille is a farming social network game developed by Zynga. It is available on the social-networking website Facebook and as an App on the Apple iPhone. The game allows members of Facebook to manage a virtual farm by plowing land, planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops, harvesting trees and bushes, and by raising livestock. FarmVille started as a clone of the popular Farm Town, which also featured on Facebook in June 2009, but has since grown to be the social network's most popular application, with over 62 million active users and over 24.6 million Facebook application fans as of September 2010. Ten percent of all Facebook users play it. Despite this, Farmville is still classed by Zynga as being in a "Beta Testing Stage", with "all of [their] players ... currently considered Testers."
On February 4, 2010, Microsoft's MSN Games also launched FarmVille on its website, requiring a Facebook account but not a Windows Live ID in order to play the game. On June 7, 2010, at Apple's WWDC, the CEO of Zynga announced that they were porting FarmVille for the Flash-less iOS platform. It was later released on June 23, 2010 for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.



WHAT IS FARMVILLE ALL ABOUT?
Gameplay
Upon beginning a farm, the player first creates a customizable avatar which may be changed at any point. The player begins with an empty farm and a fixed starting amount of "farm coins", the primary currency in the game. Players also earn XP (experience points) for performing certain actions in the game such as plowing land or buying items. At certain XP benchmarks, the player's level rises. As the player obtains more items and progresses through levels, crops and animals become available to them via the "market" where items can be purchased using either farm coins or "farm cash". Farm cash is earned by leveling up, completing offers or microtransactions

Crops
The main way a player earns farm coins is through harvesting of crops. The player does this by paying coins for plowing a unit of land and for planting crops, such as tomatoes on it, finally harvesting them after a certain amount of time has elapsed. The amount of time it takes for it to mature and how much money it yields when harvested is dependent on the crop planted and is noted on its entry in the "market" dialog.They will wither,or they will be of no use when time has elapsed.to determine how much time,multiply the time with 2.5n (for eg-crops which take 8 hours to grow will wither after 20 hours as 2.5*8=20). However, a player can use farm cash to purchase an "unwither" to rejuvenate the crops or can use a biplane with "instant grow" to cause crops to be immediately available for harvest. Although the biplane can be purchased with coins, this special feature is only available for farm cash. As a player levels up more, crops with a higher payoff and economy will become available.

Livestock and other plants
A player may also buy or receive from friends livestock and trees or bushes, such as cherry trees or chickens, which do not wither but instead become ready for harvest for preset amounts of money a set amount of time from their last harvest.
Social interaction
Like most Zynga games, FarmVille incorporates the social networking aspect of Facebook into many areas of gameplay. Players may invite their friends to be their neighbors, allowing them to perform five actions on each other's farms per day by "visiting" it. Neighbors may also send gifts and supplies to each other, complete specialized tasks together for rewards, and join "co-ops" - joint efforts to grow a certain amount of certain crops.

Gifts
Neighbors may also send gifts to each other in the form of mystery gifts with expensive, but random items, special deliveries with building supplies, or by choosing a particular item to send. They cost the sending user nothing.

Decorations
Decorations can be purchased in the market for coins or cash or can be sent in the form of free gifts.Decorations include many items like buildings, hay bales, fences, nutcrackers, gnomes, flags, topiaries, etc. There are sometimes limited edition items depending on the theme such as a Valentine's Day theme, halloween theme, winter theme, etc. Decorations also give experience points (xp) depending on the cost.

Controversy
Accused scamming
FarmVille had offered users "farm cash" for completing various advertising surveys or signing up for services: for instance, the player would get some virtual currency for signing up for Netflix. However, FarmVille has been accused of scamming its users through misleading offers, such as filling in bogus survey or IQ tests which in fact subscribe the users to an unwanted service which appears on their phone bill or sending them advertisements through email. In a video posted November 9, 2009, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus says "I did every horrible thing in the book too, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar which was like, I don't know, I downloaded it once and couldn't get rid of it," in regard to criticism about business practices. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch accused Facebook of allowing Zynga's FarmVille to continue these practices because a great deal of the money it gets from such leads is reinvested in ads inside the Facebook network. In response to this negative publicity, Zynga removed all virtual cash offers on 8 November 2009 only on those pages on the main farmville.com website, but at least since July 12, 2010, farmville.com has still offered its virtual cash. Players accessing the game from within Facebook also may see these offers.
More recently, Zynga has been accused of sharing information with advertisers and other internet tracking companies about their users, however, Zynga had denied these accusations.

Originality
FarmVille has also been criticized for being "almost an exact duplicate" of its previously released competitor Farm Town.

Critical reception
In a December 2010 interview with Gamasutra, game designer Jonathan Blow criticized FarmVille for being designed to create an atmosphere of negativity, requiring an unprecedented commitment to the game, and encouraging users to exploit their friends.

Awards
FarmVille won an award at the Game Developer's Conference for the "Best New Social/Online Game" in 2010.