Affordable gas prices: TeleNav helps find them

Affordable gas prices:TeleNav helps find them
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Finding cheap gasoline could soon be a cell phone call away.
Televigation Inc., a location-based service provider for mobile phones, will launch a feature next month to direct its TeleNav subscribers to the nearest, most affordable gas stations.
Given the high prices of fuel nowadays -- the nationwide average for a gallon of regular unleaded was $1.92 on Wednesday, according to AAA -- a growing number of Web sites, including gasbuddy.com and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN "My Car" service, are vetting the cheapest gas prices around.
Televigation brings that to the mobile phone as part of its TeleNav service, which works on cell phones with built-in satellite navigation, or GPS -- and so far, only with service from Nextel Communications Inc.
TeleNav uses GPS to automatically pinpoint a subscriber's location. TeleNav will check gas stations within a five-mile radius and give motorists turn-by-turn directions to fill up at the lowest prices.
The Sunnyvale-based company says it will update its gas prices daily with help from a company that compiles prices from about 65,000 gas stations nationwide using credit-card purchase information.
Single or married? True.com will find out
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- It's one of life's biggest letdowns -- discovering that Mr. or Ms. Right is already wedded. An online dating service hopes to help its love seekers avoid the sleazily married by filtering philanderers.
Upstart dating service True.com, which already screens for felons, recently expanded its partnership with database provider Rapsheets.com to review public records and verify a user's single status.
If a wannabe Romeo turns out to be a married Pinocchio, the user is thrown out of the cyber-circle.
"We're trying to provide a wholesome environment for courtship," said Herb Vest, founder and chief executive of Dallas-based True. "And we're interested in making relationships last."
Of course, people seeking extramarital bliss have other options: Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN even have online chat groups dedicated to the "married and flirting."
Surfing for love on the Internet has become a hot business for companies such Match.com, eHarmony.com and America Online Inc.'s Love.com.
True entered the scene in December and appears to be the first dating Web site that tries to weed out felons and now also the married. It's also lobbying state legislators to propose laws requiring that all online dating services do criminal background checks.
True's screening system, which crosschecks "hundreds of millions" of public and proprietary records, isn't foolproof, Vest acknowledged.
Then again, neither is love.
Broadband Internet useincreases in China
BEIJING (AP) -- China's Internet population grew 28 percent over the past year to 87 million, while use of broadband and online commerce is soaring, according to a government report.
China has 31 million subscribers to broadband high-speed lines, an increase of 79 percent over the past six months, the China Internet Network Information Center said on its Web site.
The country aggressively promotes Internet use for business and education, despite an average annual income of less than $1,000 per person.
At the same time, the government tries to crush attempts to use the Internet to spread criticism of communist rule, imprisoning activists for posting political material online. Censors monitor domestic Web sites and block access to foreign sites deemed subversive or obscene.
According to the Network Information Center, more than half of Chinese Internet users plan to start shopping online in the coming year. The finding could give Internet retailers a morale boost as they struggle to fulfill early projections that China's 1.3 billion people would offer a huge online marketplace.
Growth of online commerce has been held back by China's lack of credit cards and poor delivery services. But entrepreneurs are developing new methods for online payment, and distribution is improving.
Despite the booming growth, China's Internet population is only 6.7 percent of the overall population, just over half the world average of 12 percent, the agency said.