Google defends Android tracking users
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 23 (UPI) -- U.S. Internet giant Google said this week that location information tracked by Android system phones required users to "opt-in" to activate the feature.
"All location sharing on Android is opt-in by the user," The Wall Street Journal reported a company spokesman as saying.
Both Google and Apple Inc. are coming under increased pressure to explain what some consider a violation of consumer privacy, as it has become known that certain smartphones track a user's whereabouts often without the person's knowledge.
Apple remained silent on the subject this week, but the company, in a letter to Congress last year did admit the iPhone "intermittently" collected data on a user's location and sent it back to the company.
The Journal reported Saturday phones using the Android system developed by Google are not set with the tracking system turned off, but users are offered a choice to uncheck a box on a screen that explains the system will send anonymous data to the company regardless of whether or not an application is being used.
"We provide users with notice and control over the collection, sharing and use of location in order to provide a better mobile experience on Android devices," Google's spokesman said.
"Any location data that is sent back to Google location servers is anonymized and is not tied or traceable to a specific user."
Google has also said tracking a user's location is necessary to provide high quality service for users who download maps or require directions to various places.
China shows a tough line on pirated works
BEIJING, April 23 (UPI) -- China demonstrated a tough stance against intellectual property theft Friday, destroying 26 million pirated CDs, books and DVDs, authorities said.
In honor of the upcoming World Intellectual Property Day, authorities shredded illegal books and newspapers and crushed CDs and DVDs with bulldozers, Xinhua, China's state-run news agency reported.
In eastern Beijing Friday, officials from the National Office of Eliminating Pornography and Illegal Publications made a few speeches, then fed stacks of illegal copies of familiar Hollywood movies through a wood chipper, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The state is kicking off a campaign to have consumers buy authorized copies of music and written works, which will be designated with "green bookmark" labels.
Xinhua said 3,942 criminal charges were filed against individuals in 2010 involving incidents of intellectual property rights pirating.
Six-thousand people were found guilty in the various cases.
The public demonstrations have become an annual event in China. In 2009, authorities destroyed nearly 47 million copies of confiscated materials and in 2010 they destroyed 26 million.
China expects sharp rise in energy demand
BEIJING, April 23 (UPI) -- The National Energy Administration in China said the country's demand for energy is growing faster than previously reported.
The NEA said demand for electricity would grow up to 12 percent in 2011 with total consumption reaching up to 4.69 trillion kilowatt hours, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported Saturday.
In January, the NEA estimated China's demand for electricity would grow 9 percent this year compared to 2010.
The NEA also released new figures on the expected demand for gas and oil, which is now forecast to grow 7.5 percent and 8 percent, respectively.
Demand for petroleum products is expected to rise fastest in the summer as more Chinese consumers take to the roads. Automobile sales are expected to rise 11 percent in 2011 compared with 2010, with more than 19 million vehicle sales expected this year.
Economic security, poverty line, different
BUFFALO, N.Y., April 23 (UPI) -- There is a dramatic difference between achieving "basic economic security" and the federal government's "poverty line," University at Buffalo researchers say.
One of the researchers, Yunju Nam of the University at Buffalo's School of Social Work, says the Basic Economic Security Table, or BEST Index, is a report prepared jointly by the Wider Opportunities for Women and the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis.
The BEST report concludes that single workers need more than $30,000 a year for economic security. Single-parents with two children need nearly twice the income -- $57,756 -- to cover basic expenses and save for emergencies and retirement, while dual-income households with two children require $67,920.
However, Nam says, those figures are well above the traditional measurements like the poverty line and minimum wage designed to show what workers require for a basic standard of living.
The 2010 national poverty level is $10,830 for a single-person family and $18,310 for a family of three, Nam says.
The BEST Index is different from the federal poverty measure because it takes into account actual spending for essentials such as food, housing, transportation and child care for a family to meet its basic needs. In contrast, the federal poverty measure is calculated based solely on food cost.
"Meeting basic monthly living expenses alone leaves a family short of genuine financial stability," Nam says.
