In ancient Greece, purslane herb (马齿苋) was regarded as an important medicinal herb for treatment of fever, female disorders, stomachaches, and headaches, and Hippoctrates, the famous father of medicine, practically tried it for the healing of wounds. Purslane herb was later considered as a cold herb around the 17th. Century.

Purslane is today known as a beneficial juicy herb found as a weed throughout the world. Purslane is commonly used as an ingredient for salads. Purslane has been recently identified as an excellent source of alpha-linolenic acid (亚麻酸). Alpha-linolenic is a kind of an omega-3 fatty acid, also known as fish oil. This important content in purslane herb plays an important role in human growth, development and preventing disease. Modern medical research claims that purslane herb is five times richer in omega-3 fatty acids than another vegetable, and also is high in vitamin C.

Purslane has small, green leaves, which are usually delicate and juicy. The stem is round and smooth. Young plants have a green stem but as the plant matures the stems take on reddish colors. Flowers are 1/4 inch long and a brilliant yellow in color with 5 petals (花瓣), which contain round black seeds. Purslane herb presents a wide variety of medical uses and each part of the herb is beneficial. Purslane herb is widely used all over the world and here is its known benefit: Purslane is known as an excellent source of vitamins C and E and the essential alpha-linolenic acids.

Reports describe purslane as power food of the future because of its high value of nutrition and medicine. Purslane leaves contain Omega-3 fatty acids which regulate the metabolic (新陈代谢) activities of bodies. The stems of purslane herb are known to be high in vitamin C. Purslane-herb is known to have one of the best known concentrations of Omega-3 fatty acid.

It’s a connected world, and nearly every device, appliance, and machine with some sort of computer running inside it can be connected to others through the Internet of Things (IoT). What a great leap forward in this journey we call human civilization! But does this recent advancement come with a dark secret that can someday turn on us? Are smart devices spies around us?

Many smart appliances today, particularly smartphones and virtual assistants are equipped with voice command capabilities. They can, therefore, listen to and record your comments and conversations even after they’ve carried out your original command. Concerns about devices turning on voice command by themselves and listening even when you do not enable the feature have also been raised. The question then is: What actually happens when your smart device is listening? How much information gets recorded, and where does this eventually end up in?

Take a listening app called “Alphonso” as an example. You can’t download it directly from the App Store, but it comes with some games and apps that you can fix. While you are playing games on your smartphone, Alphonso comes to life and listens to what you are watching on TV. It then records this information and sends it to some server somewhere, and the data is analyzed to build a profile about your TV-viewing habits. Alphonso proves that devices can listen to what you say and do.

Alphonso proves that devices can listen to what you say and do. Now, what’s to stop devices from gathering other data? They can be made to look at chat and text messages or your calendar, for example, everything about you would be fair game. Some popular smart home platforms can control the platforms to fall silent but still remain active, capturing every word you speak that can potentially land you in some sort of phishing (网络欺诈) trouble. This seems to be the price we have to pay for the convenience that technology gives us. Privacy seems non-existent. So we should thus take steps to protect ourselves from this eventuality.