Sunday, April 24, 2011

Your Phone, Yourself: When is tracking too much?

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- If you're worried about privacy, you can turn off the function on your smartphone that tracks where you go. But that means giving up the services that probably made you want a smartphone in the first place. After all, how smart is an iPhone or an Android if you can't use it to map your car trip or scan reviews of nearby restaurants?

The debate over digital privacy flamed higher this week with news that Apple Inc.'s popular iPhones and iPads store users' GPS coordinates for a year or more. Phones that run Google Inc.'s Android software also store users' location data. And not only is the data stored - allowing anyone who can get their hands on the device to piece together a chillingly accurate profile of where you've been - but it's also transmitted back to the companies to use for their own research.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

AP Exclusive: Millions in malaria drugs stolen

LONDON (AP) -- A global health fund believes millions of dollars worth of its donated malaria drugs have been stolen in recent years, vastly exceeding the levels of theft previously suspected, according to confidential documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The internal investigation by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria comes two months into a new anti-corruption program that the fund launched after an AP report detailing fraud in their grants attracted intense scrutiny from donors.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Tunisian court drops case at heart of protests

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) -- A Tunisian court dropped charges Tuesday against a policewoman whose dispute with a fruit vendor who killed himself sparked a chain of events that unleashed uprisings around the Arab world.

The state news agency TAP says the case against Fedia Hamdi was closed after the vendor's family withdrew its original complaint. The family says it acted in a gesture of tolerance and an effort to heal wounds suffered in Tunisia's upheaval of recent months.