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The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday cautioned consumers against using quinine for leg cramps, warning that the drug could cause severe side effects, including death. Quinine, sold in this country under the brand name Qualaquin, is approved for treatment of uncomplicated malaria, but has a long history of use as a remedy for leg cramps, especially at night. In many countries, it is sold over the counter. Studies have shown that it can reduce the incidence of cramps by one-third to one-half but that as many as one in every 25 users can suffer serious side effects.

Video-on-demand services usually come into play toward the end of a film's life span — either to follow a theatrical run or to take a movie straight to video. For the website Prescreen, however, VOD is the launching pad. Prescreen, which debuted in September, offers users a curated selection of independent films, most available for 60 days and many exclusive to the site. A single film is spotlighted in a daily email, and most rentals cost $2 to $8 for a 48-hour viewing window.

If you think Bluetooth is a rare dental condition and an app is what you eat before the entree, you might not be a candidate for today's high-tech, whiz-bang smart phones. Instead, you might be happier with a mobile phone geared toward seniors. Those phones typically don't have Web-surfing capability, GPS maps and video games. Instead they have large buttons, oversized digital readouts and hearing-aid compatibility, along with a relatively simple calling plan. Although senior-friendly phones aren't new, their lower prices and variety are. A recent price skirmish among wireless companies means seniors can get an easy-to-use cellphone and cheap service to go with it, said Mac Haddow, senior fellow on public policy for the independent and nonprofit Alliance for Generational Equity.

In another move to beef up its mobile offering, Facebook has hired the entire staff of Lightbox, a tiny start-up known for its popular photo sharing app for Android smartphones. The hiring of the seven-person team at Lightbox comes as the social network nears what is expected to be the largest ever Internet initial public offering. Investors have been weighing the value of Facebook and have questioned how well it will be able to generate ad revenue from mobile devices. Facebook made more than $3 billion off of ads seen on its laptop and desktop website in 2011 but has not yet figured out how to monetize its 500 million mobile app users.

A year ago, South By Southwest Interactive wasn't even on JJ Aguhob's radar. He was hard at work developing a mobile app idea -- a sort of Instagram for videos -- but was still a month away from launch. A lot has changed. On Monday, Aguhob, Viddy's founder, and his chief marketing officer, Evan White, rolled through the streets of downtown Austin, where thousands of attendees have descended on the city for the annual tech fest, and he heard shouts of recognition along the way. “We were literally driving the pedicab over and people were like, 'Viddy!

E-reader lovers, get ready to toss your clip-on light--Barnes & Noble has just announced a new version of its Nook Simple Touch Reader that has an adjustable glow light built right in, making it possible to read in the dark -- unobtrusively. This is excellent news for middle-of-the-night readers, partners of middle-of-the-night readers who can't sleep with the light on, and parents trapped in a dark hotel room with a sleeping baby at 7:45 p.m. The new Nook will hit stores in May and will cost $139 -- about $40 more than the original Nook.

Do you have Instagram? Well, pick a team -- #TeamAndroid or #TeamiPhone ? Now that Instagram has launched its Android app, many iPhone app users with a not-in-my-backyard approach are crying, "There goes the neighborhood!" Can you blame them? For the past year and a half, iPhone users have graduated through the stages of development with Instagram. First, you shoot and share everything you see -- food and pets, mostly -- but without any discipline. Eventually, you develop an eye, a style, a flair, if you will.

If the thought of a health-related gift inspires the same feeling of dreariness as receiving a mail-order fruitcake or a six-pack of tube socks, it's time time to broaden your horizons. Health doesn't have to be ho-hum: Think items to help you stay in shape, accessories inspired by biology, stories about the frontiers of medicine and much more. Read on for some suggestions from the Health staff. Activity tracker Fitbit Ultra, $99.95 Devices that track physical activity have trickled into the marketplace since the debut of the Bodybugg system made famous on the show "The Biggest Loser.

If smartphones could talk, they'd probably tell of how much smarter they are than their owners. We users put them through all the elements and then some. Fire, water, wind, snow, safari -- they've seen it all. Consumer electronics warranty provider SquareTrade asked owners to post on Facebook some of the trials and tribulations their phones endured. Several met their demise by car -- either sliding off the top of the car into traffic or just being dropped by overwhelmed or clumsy hands and getting run over as the car backed out. Some got dunked in a coffee bath like a biscotti at breakfast.

The Internet and digital technology have made it far easier than ever before for musicians to create and distribute their tunes. Now, Music Mastermind is making it easier for non-musicians to do the same. On Monday the company made a "first look" version of  Zya , a music-recording tool that's built like a game, available to the public as a free download. Zya -- which the company  demonstrated  in prototype form at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2010 -- lets users blend their own sounds seamlessly with pre-recorded loops and clips from well-known works.

SACRAMENTO — Let's begin with the basics: Tobacco companies are inherently evil. They peddle poison that causes cancer and addicts people to their killer products. Second, smoking is nuts. Smokers know that. Spare the lectures. Can't stop, they say. Nonsense. Millions have. They'll stop eventually when the nurse thrusts the ventilator tube down their throat. I've been blessed. Never smoked. But for much of my generation, lighting up was a rite of passage.

The Transportation Security Administration reached what seems like a lofty milestone last week when it announced it had screened 1 million passengers through a new accelerated security program at airports across the country. But the TSA acknowledges that the new security program, dubbed PreCheck, has served only a small fraction of the nation's air travelers. The TSA screens an estimated 1.8 million passengers a day at 450 commercial airports. That means that in the same time that the PreCheck program screened 1 million passengers since it launched in October, the TSA has processed nearly 335 million passengers.

That stereotypical image of the American teenager glued to the phone needs an update. A new study from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found that 37% of Internet users ages 12 to 17 participate in video chats using such applications as Skype, Google Talk and iChat - and girls are more likely to engage in them than boys. "As more and more devices in our lives have video capabilities - as laptops and computers come with built-in video cameras, and many smartphones have cameras that allow for video chatting, for taking videos - teens are taking advantage of that," said Amanda Lenhart, senior research specialist with Pew Research Center.

Picture this: Kindle Fire users finally get to join in the addictive fun of Draw Something. Amazon announced the app's release in a tweet on Wednesday night. Google Android users were already drawing stuff with the app, but the Kindle Fire tablet, which runs on an altered version of the Android operating system, doesn't have access to the apps on Google Play . Draw Something is also available for iOS users . Zynga's popular social sketching and guessing game comes in the free and ad-free $1.99 versions for the Fire.

SAN FRANCISCO — As it closes in on 1 billion users, Facebook Inc. has formed partnerships with five security software outfits to crack down on pfishing schemes. Facebook said Wednesday that Microsoft Corp., McAfee Inc., Trend Micro Inc., Sophos Ltd. and Symantec Corp. will join the fight to keep its users from sharing links to sites that install malware. Facebook also has its own tools in its arsenal and a vast database of malicious URLs. Facebook users, who number more than 900 million, post a ton of links, some from blacklisted sites.

The burgeoning cloud storage space business got more crowded Tuesday as Google launched its much-rumored and highly anticipated remote storage service, Drive. Cloud-based storage gives users a place to park their documents, photos, presentations and other files so they can easily and immediately access and share them with various digital devices wherever they have an Internet connection. But Google said its Drive service also gives users the ability to collaboratively edit documents in real time.

Maybe Instagram needs a better filter for how it announces its deals. Its user base seems to have a twitchy reaction with every announcement. Last week, it was the end of the world as they knew it for iPhone users, who had the Instagram universe all to themselves until Android users were given the keys. It seemed a photo joust might have been in order. And now Facebook has announced it's buying the super popular photo-sharing app and social network for $1 billion. As @HmSeb put it on Twitter, Instagram is in a relationship now, and it's complicated.

Should Facebook users get a taste of the company's initial public offering? More than a few say yes. The reasoning here is that because Facebook's more than 800 million users make the site what it is -- and provide all that personal data that allows Facebook to prosper -- they're entitled to participate in what's sure to be a very lucrative IPO. Dream on. We heard pretty much the same when AOL purchased Huffington Post for more...

As it closes in on 1 billion users, Facebook has formed partnerships with five security software outfits to crack down on pfishing schemes. Facebook said Wednesday that Microsoft, McAfee, Trend Micro, Sophos and Symantec will join the fight to keep its users from sharing links to sites that install malware. Facebook also has its own tools in its arsenal and a vast database of malicious URLs. Facebook users, who number more than 900 million, post a ton of links, some from blacklisted sites.

If you've ever lusted after unused items in a friend's closet, here's your chance. Threadflip, a San Francisco start-up that launched this week, aims to give users a new way to discover, buy and sell fashion. The site's users can upload images of their belongings and set their own prices on clothing, shoes, bags and jewelry; photos can be directly imported from Facebook or Instagram. Threadflip co-founder and Chief Executive Manik Singh said the company offered a seamless end-to-end experience.