Computer Almanac - Numbers About Computers
Home & Work
Unix, PC, Mac
Speed
Programming
Marketing
CS Research
Internet
Interfaces
Injuries
Crime
Misc.
Other Sources
By
Brad A. Myers
This is a collection of numbers relevant to computers, along with
references. It serves as a "Computer Almanac." These are useful for including
in articles and speeches. This list is updated periodically whenever I find
something interesting. Please send any additional references and numbers
you find to Brad Myers (bam@cs.cmu.edu),
as well as links to any other pages containing this kind of information.
Sorry, I cannot take responsibility for any errors,
typos or omissions on these pages. Use this information at your own risk.Please
do not send me requests to find information for you.
Last update, August, 2005
Featured on
LibrarySpot's
Almanac Page
Listed in
Microsoft
Network's page :
Cool Links: Look it Up"!
Majon
Web Select SEAL OF EXCELLENCE
AWARD.
Four stars: Emerald Abstracts Cool Sites, see
Computing
Milieux
"Exclusive Kool Sites"
award from
Komputer
Klinic for June 14,
1996.
Listed in Mexico's
May'98
Selection
Compiled by
Brad
A. Myers. Human Computer Interaction Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3891, bam@cs.cmu.edu.
Copyright © 1994 - 2005 - Brad A. Myers.
Computer Use in Homes and Work
Brad Stone, "Going All In for Online Poker", Newsweek, August
15, 2005, pp. 40-1
"...[P]oker is now the third most-watched televised sport on cable TV
- behind only car racing and football...Every day, 1.8 million players -
more than 70 percent from the United States - throw their chips into the
virtual pots of the Internet...online-poker revenues have grown from
$82.7 million in 2001 to $2.4 billion today...Last month at the World
Series of Poker in Las Vegas, nearly two thirds of the 5,619 players
qualified in online competitions...[T]here are 80,000 players on
PartyPoker.com every night."
Johnnie L. Roberts, "Keepin' It On the Download", Newsweek, August
1, 2005, p. 42
"As of December, more than half of U.S. homes were wired with the
high-speed pipeline to the Net. Online audiences are surging (5
million-strong for AOL's Live 8 concert coverage)."
Steven Levy, "Television Reloaded", Newsweek, May 30, 2005, p.
55
"...[H]ouseholds that receive about 60 channels usually watch only
15. Households whose systems can receive 96 channels (around the
national average) actually watch ... 15."
Brad Stone, "New Ways to Drive Home the Message", Newsweek,
May 30, 2005, p. 56
"70 percent of DVR owners skip the ads. Meanwhile, the average wired
consumer now spends more time fiddling with the Internet at work and
home than watching TV."
Linda Stern, "Corporate Spim Is No LOL Matter", Newsweek,
May 9, 2005, p. 63
"Spim...the instant-messaging version of spam...chimed in a
remarkable 1.2 billion times last year."
Nadine Joseph and Brad Stone, "Diagnosis: Internet Phobia", Newsweek,
April 25, 2005, p. 74
"...[F]ewer than 31 percent of seniors older than 65 have ventured
online, compared with more than two thirds of the younger baby boomers,
50 to 64. Of seniors older than 65 whose annual household income is less
than $20,000 a year...an even slighter 15 percent have gone online."
Brad Stone, "Hi-Tech's New Day", Newsweek, April 11, 2005, p. 62
"75 percent of Americans use the Internet and spend an average three
hours a day online."
James Surowiecki, "Technology and Happiness", Technology
Review, January 2005, pp. 72-6
"In the United States...gross domestic product per capita tripled
from 1950 to 2000. Life expectancy soared...By most standards, then,
you'd have to say that Americans are better off now than they were in
the middle of the last century. Oddly, though if you ask Amercians how
happy they are, you find that they're no happier than they were in 1946
(which is when formal surveys of happiness started). In fact, the
percentage of people who say they're "very happy" has fallen slightly
since the early 1970s - even though the income of people born in 1940
has increased, on average, 116 percent over the course of their working
lives...Between 1960 and the late 1980s, Japan's economy was utterly
transformed...yet by the late 1980s, the Japanese said they were no
happier than they had been in 1960...Since the 1950s, reports of major
depression have increased tenfold...People are more anxious, trust
government and business less, and get divorced more often."
"Richard Easterlin...in 1974 showed that when it came to developed
countries, there was no real correlation between a nation's income level
and its citizens' happiness...though poverty was strongly correlated
with misery, once a country was solidly middle-class, getting wealthier
didn't seem to make its citizens any happier."
"...[P]eople adapt very quickly to good news. Take lottery winners. One
famous study showed that although winners were very, very happy when
they won, their euphoria quickly evaporated, and after a while their
moods and sense of well=being were indistinguishable from what they had
been before the victory. Psychologists even have a word for the
phenomenon: 'hedonic adaptation.'"
"...[T]he workplace is central to people's sense of well-being and is
more important to them than anything, including family. Studies show
that nothing - not even divorce - makes people more unhappy than
unemployment."
Steven Levy, "Sony Gets Personal", Newsweek, October 25, 2004, pp.
80-2
"[The PSP draws] thousands of game polygons with PS2 speed...[and
has] built-in Wi-Fi...It will also play films and songs. It will display
your photos and home movies. It could stream television shows from your
home network. You could even use it as a voice-over-Internet
phone...'Our target user was not only kids but s, people who will
use music video and other entertainment,' says [industrial designer
Shinichi] Ogasawara...[The PSP uses] the same wide aspect ratio as a
high-end HDTV unit...[and uses] Universal Media Disks (UMD), a brand-new
CD/DVD-like disk not much bigger than a silver dollar but dense enough
to hold a whole movie...the knoblike analog control on the PS2 is, on
the PSP, a raised gutta-percha button that tilts in the direction you
want to move...[Sony] expects tens of millions of customers...[Features
include] powerful, energy-saving chips, a new kind of DVD format to hold
software and movies, and a great, low-cost screen that would handle the
intricate graphics of PS2-style games."
Steven Levy, "No Net? We'd Rather Go Without Food.", Newsweek,
October 11, 2004, p. 14
"...[T]hree quarters of all Americans have access to the Internet,
spending an average of twelve-and-a-half hours a week online...for those
between 12 and 18, usage approaches 100 percent. Though e-mail is still
the No. 1 activity, the study concludes that the Net has profoundly
changed the way we spend money, keep in touch with our friends and get
information (Internet users use the medium as their No. 1 source of
news, despite worries about credibility)."
Robert J. Samuelson, "A Cell Phone? Never for Me.", Newsweek, August
23, 2004, p. 63
"Among those 60 to 69 [years old], cell phone ownership (60 percent)
is almost as high as among 18- to 24-year-olds (66 percent), though
lower than among 30- to 49-year-olds (76 percent), according to a recent
study from the Pew Research Center. Even among those 80 and older,
ownership is 32 percent...In 2003 cell-phone conversations totaled 830
billion minutes, reckons CTIA [Cellular Telecommunications & Internet
Association]. That's about 75 times greater than in 1991 and
almost 50 hours for every man, woman and child in America...A recent
poll, sponsored by the Lemelson-M.I.T. program, asked which invention
people hated most but couldn't live without. Cell phones won, chosen by
30 percent of respondents."
Malcolm Jones, "Waiting for the Movie", Newsweek, July 19, 2004, p.
58
"Using Census Bureau data, the NEA [National Endowment of the Arts]
found that the number of Americans who say they've even opened a
single book of fiction...has declined by 10 percent, from 56.9 percent
in 1982 to 46.7 percent today...Two decades ago the number of new books
published annually hoevered around 60,000, then climbed more than
100,000 in the early '90s. Last year saw a record 164,609 new titles."
Aaron Marcus, "Insights on Outsourcing", Interactions, July/August
2004, p. 13
"In fact, even though [India] has only 3.7 million personal
computers, it has the largest number of software professionals outside
of California in the world and exports software worth about $8 billion
in 2003-4, much of it to the U.S."
Rich Ling, Ph.D., Newsweek, June 21, 2004, p. 15
"A recent survey I have done...shows that 100 percent of a nationally
representative sample of 16- to 19-year-old Norwegians had a mobile
telephone. The average teen sends about nine text messages per day...all
of this has happened in the last decade."
Brian Braiker, "So Happy Together", Newsweek, May 10, 2004, p. 12
"Only 30 percent of cell owners send text messages - but that's
double what the number was two years ago."
Steven Levy, "All Eyes on Google", Newsweek, March 29, 2004, p. 52
"...[A]nnual search revenues are just under $4 billion today (about a
billion of that is Google's)."
Linda Stern, "Here Come the Kiosks", Newsweek, March 22, 2004, p. E4
"After a few years of so-so growth, worldwide kiosk sales hit $463.7
million last year, up more than 21 percent from 2002. The number of U.S.
kiosks, now at 195,000, is expected to double in two years."
Gloriana St. Clair, "Killing discipline knowledge and its
libraries", FOCUS, Winter 2004, p. 3
"Overall since 1986, the price of scholarly scientific, technical and
medical (STM) journals has increased over 215 percent while the Consumer
Price Index has increased only 62 percent. Economists have expected this
marketplace to correct itself, but several factors contribute to the
continuing dysfunction...Brian Hawkins now estimates that knowledge
doubles every two to three years. Large STM publishers are currently
targeting for takeover of several other fields...Through the processes
of the promotion and tenure system, universities effectively outsource
their decisions about which faculty to reward and retain to the
different disciplines."
Brad Stone, "Cutting the (Phone) Cord", Newsweek, December 8, 2003,
p. 103
"...4 percent of Americans say their wireless phone is their only
phone, up from 3 percent last year. And that percentage was three times
higher for s under the age of 24."
Brad Stone, "Soaking in Spam", Newsweek, November 24, 2003, p. 66
"Spam is now approaching 60 percent of all e-mail, according to the
research firm Gartner Group. Ferris Research says spam puts a $9 billion
annual drag on productivity."
Jim Guest, "Web-Site Roulette", Consumer Reports, November 2003, p.
5
"In July, WebWatch published results of a study on consumers'
understanding of - and their reactions to - how search engines work.
WebWatch had found in an earlier study that 60 percent of Internet-savvy
consumers didn't know that companies can, and do, pay to be listed ahead
of their competitors in searches. The new study found that most
respondents knew very little about how search engines compare rank, and
list results. When told the facts, they felt, at best, misled."
Rana Foroohar, "Finding a Safe Bet," Newsweek, October 20, 2003, p.
E24
"European carriers are counting on such whiz-bang data services
[streaming football games, sending movie clips, downloading songs,
snapping pictures] to rack up an extra $90.2 billion in revenue in the
next six years...But analysts say they may be overestimating those
figures by at least half...Last year the [gambling] service [introduced
by the Hong Kong Jockey Club in 2001] generated an additional $5.2
million per year for the four mobile carriers that support it...[it] has
cultivated a whole new group of gamblers - women - who are drawn to the
anonymity of the mobile phone...Asian carriers have embraced their role
as a delivery-and-payment service, leaving the hard work of content
creation to others. The classic example is Japan's NTT DoCoMo, which
makes it easy for outside content developers to use its system, and
takes a 9 percent cut of whatever they earn...One of NTT DoCoMo's most
successful data services was a Hello Kitty cartoon that users could sign
up to have delivered to their phone, once a day, for about 70 cents a
month. The first month, 700,000 users signed up."
Anna Kuchment, "Get a Move On", Newsweek, October 20, 2003, p. E28
"Cities from Berlin to Los Angeles are pinning their hopes on
so-called advanced traveler-information systems...they rely on thousands
of sensors embedded in the asphalt, attached to street sings and hidden
in traffic lights that record data on traffic flows and density and
deliver it, wirelessly, to computer servers. Computers then combined
this information with police dispatches on accidents or emergencies and
deliver it to users who can access it on PDAs, mobile phones and the
Internet. In Japan, 10 percent of drivers rely on such systems, and that
number is growing rapidly."
Sean Smith and Devin Gordon, "Hollywood Family Feud", Newsweek,
October 20, 2003, p. 56
"But [Jack] Valenti [the head of the Motion Picture Association of
America] and the seven [major] studios have been watching piracy
increase, estimating worldwide annual losses of $3 billion."
Brad Stone, "Is That a Radio In Your Cereal?", Newsweek, September
29, 2003, p. E34
"...[T]he introduction of the bar code [was] more than 30 years
ago...today bar codes save the food industry $17 billion per year, or 50
times the savings initially forecast...Recently the price of the chips
has fallen, sending the cost of RFID [radio-frequency identification]
tags close to 10 cents apiece...60 billion items move through
Wal-Mart each year."
Daniel McGinn, "Small-Screen Dilemma", Newsweek, September 29, 2003,
p. E37
"Roughly 40 percent of households have caller ID, up from 12.6
percent in 1998."
Johnnie L. Roberts, "Out of Tune," Newsweek, September 22, 2003, p.
44
"The advent of the CD in 1982 fueled global sales, exceeding $40
billion by the mid-1990s. But since then, U.S. revenue alone has shrunk
by a third. And the rise of file sharing, kicked off by Napster in
19999, is largely to blame...Apple has still generated 10 million
downloads at 99 cents a song...Technology is creating new markets for
music as well. The music giants are banking on an exploding U.S. market
for dialing up music on cell phones - in effect, you would use your
phone as a portable player. It's already a multibillion-dollar business
in Europe and Japan...Industry forecasters have projected that the
business will soar in the United States to $790 million in 2008 from $94
million this year...Since this spring, fans have purchased 360,000
ringtones by Warner Music star Sean Paul at about $2 each.
"E-mail Spam: How to Stop it from Stalking You", Consumer Reports,
August 2003, p. 12
"Between February and April alone, according to America Online (AOL),
the maximum number of messages that spammers had lobbed toward the
service's 35 million customers in a single day tripled, to 2.4 billion.
A typical day's volume averages about 1.5 billion...The service averages
7 million complaints daily about spam that reaches customers...Roughly
one-sixth of the customers the [largest cell phone carrier in Japan]
surveyed said they receive one to five cell phone spams daily...Spammers
can broadcast a million messages for as little as $500. If even a few
recipients buy what's advertised, the campaign most likely pays...When
the Federal Trade Commission recently examined spam forwarded by
consumers, it found that nearly two-thirds contained false information.
Last year, the FTC found that only about one-third of requests to be
taken off spammers' lists were honored."
Scott Granneman, "RFID Chips are Here," SecurityFocus.com,
June 26, 2003
"RFID tags are essentially microchips, the tinier the better. Some
are only 1/3 of a millimeter across. These chips act as transponders
(transmitters/responders), always listening for a radio signal sent by
transceivers, or RFID readers. When a transponder receives a certain radio
query, it responds by transmitting its unique ID code, perhaps a 128-bit
number, back to the transceiver. Most RFID tags don't have batteries (How
could they? They're 1/3 of a millimeter!). Instead, they are powered by
the radio signal that wakes them up and requests an answer...RFID chips
cost up to 50 cents, but prices are dropping. Once they get to 5 cents
each, it will be cost-efficient to put RFID tags in almost anything that
costs more than a dollar...Delta is testing RFID on some flights, tagging
40,000 customer bags in order to reduce baggage loss and make it easier to
route bags if customers change their flight plans. Three seaport
operators - who account for 70% of the world's port operations - agreed to
deploy RFID tags to track the 17,000 containers that arrive each day at US
ports. Currently, less than 2% are inspected. RFID tags will be used to
track the containers and the employees handling them. The United
States Department of Defense is moving into RFID in order to trace
military supply shipments. During the first Gulf War, the DOD made
mistakes in its supply allocation. To streamline operations, the U.S.
military has placed RFID tags on 270,000 cargo containers and tracks those
shipments throughout 40 countries.... Applied
Digital Solutions has designed an RFID tag - called the VeriChip - for
people. Only 11 mm long, it is designed to go under the skin, where it can
be read from four feet away. They sell it as a great way to keep track of
children, Alzheimer's patients in danger of wandering, and anyone else
with a medical disability."
James Stevenson, "Cut-and-paste oops costly for
TransAlta," Canadian Press, June 4, 2003
TransAlta Corp said yesterday a "clerical error" was a
costly one for the power producer -- $24 million US to be exact. The
Calgary-based company said a spreadsheet goof by an employee last April
caused the company to pay higher than intended rates to ship power in New
York. CEO Steve Snyder told a conference call yesterday a
"cut-and-paste" foul-up in an Excel spreadsheet on a bid to New
York's power grid operator led TransAlta to secure 15 times the capacity
of power lines at 10 times the price. The costly human error couldn't be
reversed by the grid operator and while TransAlta has since tried to
recoup the mammoth losses, it was left with a $24-million US lesson.
"The Exterminator," Lycos.com, May 26, 2003
"Computer bugs have been around since malfunctions in a 1945
[Harvard] Mark II were blamed (facetiously) on a moth trapped in a relay.
Nowadays the term refers to programming flaws--commands that don't
accomplish the desired result because computers have a habit of following
the letter rather than the spirit of the instructions handed to them. The
cost to customers of these flaws is necessarily a nebulous figure, but for
what it's worth a National Institute of Standards & Technology report
puts it at $38 billion a year. Evaluating only the cost of intrusions by
hackers, who exploit flaws in computer security, Gartner Group comes up
with $5.4 billion a year..."Software quality is about removing or
preventing defects. The sooner any defect is caught, the better--ideally,
they are simply never coded," says Gates. Building clean code is
getting more daunting, especially for Microsoft . The Windows operating
system has 50 million lines of code (a line averages 60 characters) and
grows 20% with every release. It's put together by 7,200 people, comes in
34 languages and has to support 190,000 devices--different models of
digital cameras, printers, handhelds and so on."
Gregory D. Abowd, "Smart Homes or Homes that Smart?",
Beyond the Desktop, March/April 2003
"Jupiter Research predicts that 28 million US households will have
a home network by 2006...paralleling this increase in the number of
interconnected data-centric devices is a corresponding increase in the
complexity of the home audio/visual 'network.'"
Robert J. Samuelson, "Show Kids the Money?", Newsweek,
February 10, 2003, p. 61
"In 2002 all 12- to 19-year olds spent $172 billion...an average
of $92 a week for 16- to 17-year olds. An estimated 47 percent of
these teens have cell phones...A century ago many children - certainly
those over 11 or 12 - had jobs. On farms, many worked as much as
s...By 1890, 17 states imposed age limits on hiring; three were as
low as 10 and none higher than 14...about 40 percent of 16- to 19-year
olds are in the labor force...In 1920, 16 percent of 17-year- olds were
high-school graduates; by 1960 that was 63 percent."
Janet Kornblum, "Spam Continues to Increase,"
Newsfactor.com, January 13, 2002
"The number of spam messages sent increased nearly 300 percent
from 2001 to 2002 -- from 14,078,511 to 55,683,103, according to e-mail
filtering company Brightmail. If you think you're getting more spam than
ever, you're right. Spam has dramatically increased in the past year. And
next year will be even worse. One new report says that by July, the volume
of spam sent to business e-mail addresses will exceed the amount of
regular e-mail."
N'Gai Croal, "He's Got Games", Newsweek, Dec. 29, 2003 / Jan. 5,
2004, p. 101
"Over the past 19 years...Electronic Arts has become the world's
largest independent videogame publisher, with 4,400 employees worldwide
generating some $2.5 billion in annual revenue...Madden NFL Football (30
million units sold), The Sims (28 million) and Harry Potter (20
million)..."
N'Gai Croal, "Sims Family Values," Newsweek, November 25,
2002, pp. 48-9
"Last year $6.35 billion worth of video- and computer games were
sold at retail. An additional $196 million came from subscription
fees to online games, a number that is expected to grow to $1.4 billion
over the next five years...for many people it's more fun to outwit,
outplay and outlast a fellow human being than a computer....The Sims,
which was released in 2000, is already the best-selling PC game
ever...Electronic Arts has racked up worldwide sales of nearly 20 million
for The Sims and its expansion packs...45 percent of the players are
women, and more than a third are over 24...online games are succeeding not
just as an outlet for competition but as a forum for social
interaction...the most widely played online action game is the
first-person shooter Counter-Strike...Every night, without fail, there are
100,000 or more people online playing Counter-Strike."
"Put Yourself Here," Newsweek, November 25, 2002, p. 60
"70 percent of American travelers are doing travel research
online, and more than half of them book reservations on the Web, too,
spending $22.6 billion in 2002."
Keith Naughton and Joan Raymond, "Click Here for a New Sedan!
(Not Yet, Alas)," Newsweek, November 11, 2002, p. E12
"Those who actually buy a car online...account for a scant 4.1
percent of the U.S. auto market...Nearly two thirds of car buyers now
begin shopping with the click of a mouse, up from just one quarter four
years ago...The average Internet car shoppers visit seven sites and cruise
the Web for two months before buying. They tend to be younger, more
affluent and more distrustful of dealers."
John Horn, "Point and Bet," Newsweek, October 28, 2002, p.
50
"In a typical month, surfers plunk down $640,000. Because
players make more bets per hour than they would at Caesar's Palace, they
literally lose money to the house twice as fast...Every week about 2
million players ante up at more than 1,800 virtual casinos...$3.5 billion
will be lost on Internet bets this year, about three times the revenue of
porn sites."
Alan Schwarz, "Take Me Out to the Web Site!", Newsweek,
October 14, 2002, pp. 38F-38H
"High-speed broadband connections, which Jupiter [a research
organization] estimates are in 15.5 million homes now...afford viewers
three-by-three inch screens...MLB [Major League Baseball] this season
Webcast 10 pennant-race games live in their entirety, the first of which
attracted 30,000 viewers in 64 countries...So far, radio has turned out to
be MLB.com's big seller - 750,000 subscribers, compared with video's
27,000...Real[Networks] currently has 750,000 customers paying $9.95 a
month for access..."
Brad Stone, "Is the Boss Watching?", Newsweek, September
30, 2002, p. 38L
"...workers spend an average of 8.3 hours a week - more than one
entire workday - peeking at non-work-related sites. One of every
four employees reports 'feeling addicted to, or compulsive in' using the
Internet. The numbers suggest nearly twice the non-work-related
usage as last year's survey, a trend that seems to be jolting the
country's corporate elite. More than half of the Fortune 500, as
well as roughly 17,000 companies, now run EIM [employee Internet
management] software, including Cisco, McDonalds and Pepsi."
Steven Levy, "Time for an Instant Fix," Newsweek,
September 30, 2002, p. 38X
"AOL has about 150 million registered users...more than 2 billion
instant messages (IMs) [are] sent daily...with about 12 million office
users a month."
N'Gai Croal, "The War of the Super-Handhelds", Newsweek, September
29, 2003, p. E30
"Even as [Nintendo's] share of the U.S. console market fell from 90
percent to 15 percent over the past decade...Nintendo has sold 150
million units worldwide since their 1989 debut, leaving it sitting atop
what research firm DFC Intelligence calculates is a $2.7 billion
portable-gaming market."
Steven Levy, "Living in the Blog-osphere," Newsweek,
August 26, 2002, p. 42
"...a new blogger [joins] the crowd every 40 seconds...Most
estimates peg the current number at a half a million Weblogs."
Steven Levy, "Can 8.0 Save the Chat Room?", Newsweek,
August 19, 2002, p. 45
"...with 34 million members the service [AOL] has a unique
critical mass." Microsoft has 7 million users.
Brad Stone and Jennifer Lin, "Spamming the World,"
Newsweek, August 19, 2002, p. 43
"Spam...accounts for 30 to 50 percent of all e-mail traffic on the
Net...when [one bulk e-mailer] started spamming in 1999, she could send
out 100,000 e-mails and get 25 responses. Today, she has to send out
a million messages to get the same response (a .0025 percent hit
rate)."
Jerry Adler, "The EBay Way of Life," Newsweek, June 17,
2002, pp. 50-57
"Each day, about half a million items are sold on eBay...nearly 50
million people around the world [use eBay]."
"EBay users exchanged some $9.3 billion worth of goods in 18,000
categories [in nearly 170 million transactions last year]...Admittedly,
this is only about 4 percent of Wal-Mart's $220 billion in sales last year
- but Wal-Mart deploys a worldwide network of warehouses, more than 3,000
stores and 1.3 million workers. EBay got by with no stores, fewer
than 3,000 employees and without taking legal or physical possession of
[anything]...revenues from listing fees and advertising last year amounted
to $749 million."
11 million items are for sale at any given time. EBay has 8.2
million unique visitors worldwide. EBay receives 200,000 queries
[not all are fraud-related] per month; 70 percent are answered within 24
hours. One one-hundredth of 1 percent of all eBay listings result in
a confirmed case of fraud...an estimated 900 fraudulent items on the site
each day.
"Some psychologists think eBay's particular format lends itself to
an obsessiveness that borders on the unhealthy."
"...as many as 200,000 [businesses]...exist entirely on
eBay."
Steven Levy, "How to Play the eBay Game," Newsweek, June
17, 2002, p. 58
"First, there are no bargains on eBay. By definition.
You 'win' the competition by paying more than other people are willing to
spend. You're not stumbling across some hidden gem in a yard sale;
you're bumping elbows with millions of other scroungers, including people
who know more than you do about the item for sale."
Louise Kehoe, "Drowning in a Deluge of Data," Financial
Times, p. 8, June 12, 2002
"About 24 exabytes of unique information has been produced by the
human race, according to a two-year-old study from the School of
Information Management and Systems at the University of California,
Berkeley, while study leader Hal Varian has noted the possibility of an
acceleration of data growth in a recent update."
Charles Hoedt, "Locals Look Good in Software," St.
Petersburg Times (Russia) Online, June 11, 2002
"Russian software exports this year will almost double from last
year, and total $300 million....India is expected to export $8 billion in
software this year."
Peter J. Howe, "Broadband Talks to Address New
Strategies," Boston Globe p. C1, June 10, 2002
"...approximately 70 percent of consumers [are] currently able to
connect."
Steven Levy and Brad Stone, "The Wi-Fi Wave," Newsweek,
June 10, 2002, p. 38
"Two million use it [Wi-Fi, or Wireless Fidelity] now."
There are currently 3,000 public hot spots.
Rick Kuhn, "Impact of inadequate software testing on US
Economy," June 5, 2002 (summary of a RTI survey published by NIST
)
"NIST engaged the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) to assess the
cost to the U.S. economy of inadequate software testing infrastructure.
Inadequate testing is defined as failure to identify and remove software
bugs in real time. Over half of software bugs are currently not found
until downstream in the development process leading to significant
economic costs. RTI identified a set of quality attributes and used them
to construct metrics for estimating the cost of an inadequate testing
infrastructure. Two in depth case studies were conducted. In the
manufacturing sector, transportation equipment industries were analyzed.
Data were collected from software developers (CAD/CAM/CAE and product data
management vendors) and from users (primarily automotive and aerospace
companies). In the service sector, financial services were analyzed with
data collected again from software developers (routers and switches,
financial electronic data interchange, and clearinghouse) and from users
(banks and credit unions). ...the annual cost to these two major industry
groups from inadequate software infrastructure is estimated to be $5.85
billion. Similarities across industries with respect to software
development and use and, in particular, software testing labor costs
allowed a projection of the cost to the entire U.S. economy. Using the
per-employee impacts for the two case studies, an extrapolation to other
manufacturing and service industries yields an approximate estimate of
$59.5 billion as the annual cost to the nation of inadequate software
testing infrastructure."
AP News, June 5, 2002
"Fifty-four percent of U.S. schools rely on students to provide
technical support for their computer systems, according to a report titled
"Are We There Yet?" (http://www.nsbf.org/thereyet/index.htm),
released yesterday by the National School Boards Foundation. In 43% of the
811 districts surveyed, students troubleshoot for hardware, software and
other problems, and 39% of the districts, students are tasked with setting
up equipment and wiring. Nearly as many districts also report that
students perform technical maintenance."
N'Gai Croal, "Now, 01 Vérité," Newsweek, June 3, 2002, p. 43
"In 2001, consumers snapped up $9.4 billion worth of game software
and hardware - up 43 percent from the previous year - led by Sony's
world-beating PlayStation 2."
"Still Waiting for the Revolution: A Conversation with Alan Kay,"
Perspectives on Business Innovation No. 8, June 2002
"In an interview with Kate Kane, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
co-founder Alan Kay explains that the so-called revolution in the computer
industry is actually a gradual, evolutionary process because of the nature
of innovation."
Anne Ju, "In Search of the Green PC," Medill News Service,
May 30, 2002
"The National Safety Council (NSC) estimates that 315 million
computers will be trashed in 2004, up from 20 million in 1998, in addition
to an estimated 130 million cell phones by 2005; only 11 percent of the 20
million computers thrown out in 1998 were recycled, according to an NSC
study. These products contain dangerous chemicals and metals that can leak
toxins into the environment when put into landfills."
"Conference Looks at Africa's IT," Agence France Presse,
May 29, 2002
"The United Nations' Economic Commission for Africa says there is
about one Internet user for every 250 people in Africa--4 million in
total--most of whom are in South Africa. This compares with a worldwide
average of one Internet user for every 35 people."
Emily Benedek, "Web Attack in the Workplace," Newsweek,
May 13, 2002, p. 40J
"The Code Red virus alone infected more than 300,000 workplace
computers in 14 hours and cost more than $2.6 billion worldwide.
InformationWeek Research estimates the cost of security-related downtime
to U.S. businesses in the past 12 months at $273 billion. Worldwide,
the tally was $1.39 trillion.
"Mom-and-Pop.com," Newsweek, May 13, 2002, p. 40P
Percentage of small- and medium-size businesses that report using the
Internet for:
Researching markets, competition - 79%
Advertising, promoting products - 51
Long-distance collaboration - 44
Providing after-sales services to clients - 32
Communicating with government offices - 27
Selling directly to other companies - 27
Managing financial accounts - 26
Selling directly to consumers - 26
Managing orders and invoices - 23
Retail Web sites in 2000 and 2001 featuring:
2000 2001
Automated e-mail service: 81%
91%
Detailed product information: 50
88
Advanced searches:
59 73
Percentage of Internet users who (most of the time) trust sites run by:
Small businesses - 59%
Charities and other nonprofit organizations - 46
Financial companies - 45
The federal government - 40
Health-care companies - 34
Web sites offering buying advice - 29
Large corporations - 29
Web sites selling products, services - 26
If they could have only one medium of entertainment, the following
percentage of children [ages 8-17] would choose:
Boys Girls
Internet:
38 28
Television:
34 17
Telephone:
12 31
Radio:
12 17
Percentage of Web users who value a site based on its having:
Easy navigation - 80%
Trustworthy information - 80
Identifiable sources of information - 68
Frequent updates - 65
A familiar owner - 32
Richard Florida, "The Rise of the Creative Class,"
Optimize p. 28, May 2002
"[Richard Florida, co-director of Carnegie Mellon University's
Software Industry Center, estimates that] 38 million Americans--roughly 30
percent of the U.S. workforce--comprise a "Creative Class" that
is growing in leaps and bounds."
"Economic Bust, Patent Boom," May 2002
"According to MIT's Technology Review (TR), a "patent or
perish" mentality continued in high-tech sectors even during the
recent economic downturn. TR's annual Patent Scorecard tracks the U.S.
patenting activity of 150 top companies in eight high-tech sectors. The IT
and telecommunications industries were particularly active. TR's Erika
Jonietz reports that "Semiconductor companies saw an average increase
of 21.4 percent in the number of patents issued from 2000 to 2001.
Similarly, patenting grew 20.4 percent in the telecom industry, and in
computing 11.6 percent." In addition, the semiconductor,
telecommunication, and computing industries saw the highest numbers of new
patent applications filed in 2000. For the ninth year in a row, IBM led
the list of patentees, receiving 3,454 in 2001. It also earned more than
$1.5 billion from licensing income."
David Lieberman, "Piracy Pillages Music Industry," USA
Today p. 1B, April 8, 2002
"About 17% of all s wired to the Internet at home, work or
school say they've downloaded music...Some 43% say it should be legal, 46%
say illegal, with 11% undecided. People are also split — 48% in
favor and 42% against — on whether record companies should use
technology limiting buyers' copying of new CDs to a few copies...Music
executives blame digital copying for most of a collapse in sales. Last
year they sold 10.3% fewer albums and singles than in 2000. Meanwhile,
seizures of counterfeit, pirate or bootleg labels soared nearly 504% in
2001 to 22.2 million, according to new data from the Recording Industry
Association of America. Sales this year are worse. Total units are
down another 12% vs. the first three months of 2001."
"More Kids Say Internet Is the Medium They Can’t Live Without,"
StatisticalResearch.com, April 5, 2002
(thanks to Dick Halpern)
"Given a choice of six media, one-third (33%) of children aged 8
to 17 told KN/SRI that the Web would be the medium they would want to have
if they couldn’t have any others. Television was picked by 26% of kids;
telephone by 21%; and radio by 15%. For the top three media, results
were dramatically different among girls and boys. Twice as many boys (34%
versus 17%) chose TV as their must-have medium, while telephone was more
than twice as popular (31% versus 12%) among girls. The Internet placed
first with 38% of boys and 28% of girls."
Robert J. Samuelson, "Debunking the Digital Divide,"
Newsweek, March 25, 2002, p. 37
"In 1997 only 37 percent of people in families with incomes from
$15,000 to $24,999 used computers at home or at work. By September
2001, that proportion was 47 percent. Over the same period, usage
among families with incomes exceeding $75,000 rose more modestly, from 81
percent to 88 percent. Among all racial and ethnic groups, computer
use is rising. Here are the numbers for 2001 compared with similar
rates for 1997: Asian-Americans, 71 percent (58 percent in 1997); whites,
70 percent (58 percent); blacks, 56 percent (44 percent); Hispanics, 49
percent (38 percent)."
"By 2000, public schools had roughly one computer for every four
students. Almost all schools were connected to the Internet, as were
about three quarters of classrooms. Some students get computer sills
that they might miss. Among 10- to 17-year old students from homes
with less than $15,000 of income, about half use computers only at school,
reports the Census Bureau."
Peter McGrath, "3G, Phone Home!" Newsweek, March 18, 2002,
p. 38H
"Last year SMS [Short Message Service] was a savior for European
wireless carriers. It accounted for about 15 percent of total
telecom revenues. And it did so on 2G phones."
Lorraine Ali and David Gates, "Looking Grim at the Grammys,"
Newsweek, March 11, 2002, pp. 61-2
"Only 5 percent of major-label [music] releases make a
profit...Last year blank CDs outsold prerecorded ones. Two out of
five music consumers own a CD burner. About the same number say they
downloaded rather than paid for most of the music they listened to last
year...Over the past 10 years, [the music] business has become scarily
monolithic. Just five corporations now control more than 80 percent
of the $14.3 billion-a-year industry...they own...often the print and
broadcast media and the online services that publicize and disseminate
them...If your 'local' top 40 radio station...isn't owned by Clear Channel
(which has nearly 1,200 stations in the United States), it's probably
owned by Viacom."
"Broadband Outpaces Dial-Up," TVTechnology.com, March 7,
2002
"...broadband surfers logged 1.19 billion hours, or 51 percent of
the 2.3 billion hours spent online during January. Last year broadband
users spent 727 million hours online in the same month, for 38 percent of
the total. Total time spent online by broadband surfers increased by 64
percent over last year to 1.19 billion hours, while time using narrowband
decreased three percent from 1.18 billion to 1.14 billion. The
unique audience accessing the Internet via high-speed connections also
continues to rise. Almost 21.9 million surfers at-home accessed the
Internet via broadband connection in January, an increase of 67 percent,
representing 21 percent of the total online population at-home. The
at-work broadband population jumped 42 percent to 25.5 million office
workers, compared to 18 million the year prior, reaching 63 percent of the
Internet office population."
Julia King, "Mainframe Skills, Pay at a Premium,"
Computerworld Vol. 36, No. 10, P. 1, March 4, 2002
"A recent Meta Group survey found 55 percent of employees skilled
in mainframe technologies at more than 300 companies are over 50 years of
age."
Rob Fixmer, "Broadband Homeland," eWeek Vol. 19, No. 9, P.
41, March 4, 2002
"A little over 10 percent of U.S. households had broadband
connections as of Jan. 1, a penetration rate that makes the United States
the seventh most wired country in the world."
Michael Schrage, "Wal-Mart Trumps Moore's Law," Technology
Review, March, 2002, vol. 105, no. 2, p. 21"Productivity
growth accelerated in 1995 because Wal-Mart's success forced competitors
to improve their [IT] operations.... In 1987, Wal-Mart had just nine
percent market share but was 40 percent more productive than its
competitors. By the mid-1990s, its share had grown to 27 percent while its
productivity advantage had widened to 48 percent. Competitors reacted by
adopting many of Wal-Mart's innovations, including ... economies of
scale in warehouse logistics and purchasing, electronic data interchange
and wireless bar code scanning ... Consider Wal-Mart's $4 billion-plus
investment in its 'Retail Link' supply chain system. ... [This]
expenditure has likely influenced at least $40 billion worth of supplier
investment in systems and software. Of course, those supply chain
innovations are also eventually emulated by competitors, further
amplifying the multiplier effect."
Mark Martin, "Surcharge Suggested for Scrap Electronics,"
San Francisco Chronicle p. B1, February 27, 2002
"6,000 computers and televisions...become obsolete every day in
California...Romero's bill, SB1619, also calls for a goal that 75 percent
of all discarded computers be recycled by 2010. The figure at present is
only about 15 percent."
John Markoff, "Technology's Toxic Trash Is Sent to Poor Nations,"
New York Times p. C1, February 25, 2002
"Electronic waste is being sent to third-world countries for
recycling, where poor regulations threaten the environment and people's
health Fifty percent to 80 percent of obsolete electronics from the United
States is shipped to India, Pakistan, China, and other developing nations.
The report concentrates on the Guiyu region of Guangdong, China, where
electronic gear is recycled: The operation has polluted the groundwater
while children are often employed as laborers."
Francesco Guerrera and Clive Cookson, "Seeking to Bridge the
Science Gap," Financial Times p. 10, February 25, 2002
"EU as a whole [should] increase its R&D spending as a
percentage of gross national product from 1.9 percent. The United States
currently spends 2.6 percent of its gross national product on
R&D."
Tim McDonald, "When Will AI Get Down to Business?",
NewsFactor Network, February 25, 2002
"Gartner has reported that investment in AI for customer service
systems could increase from US$100 million in 2001 to $1 billion in 2005...HNC
Software in San Diego, California...claims its product improves [credit
card] fraud detection rates by 30 percent to 70 percent and significantly
lowers "false positives"...And the New York State Department of
Social Services uses an AI technique called "expert rules" to
help make unbiased and consistent decisions regarding clients referred to
it for vocational rehabilitation. The department reported increased
productivity
as a result of the technology. Case assessment increased by 70,000 per
year, and the dropout rate declined by more than 80 percent."
Dan Lee, "Tech Transformation: Once Dependent on Agriculture,
Ireland Has Carved a High-Tech Niche," Siliconvalley.com, February
23, 2002
"Ireland's technology economy is maturing, despite the economic
downturn plaguing the technology sector worldwide. The country attracted
many leading technology companies, including Intel, Oracle, Microsoft, Sun
Microsystems, and Hewlett-Packard, to set up their European operations
centers there because of the low-cost, English-speaking workforce. Ireland
also boasted the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe. As a result, 60
percent of European packaged software and about one-third of European PCs
hail from Ireland, and the unemployment rate has dropped to half of many
European neighbors' rates."
Noam Levey, "Two California Bills Address Recycling of
Electronic Discards," SiliconValley.com, February 21, 2002
"Statistics show that California households are stockpiling 6
million obsolete computers and televisions."
Saumya Roy, "Broadband: On the Fast Track?", Medill News
Service, February 21, 2002
"...almost 80 percent of American homes have access to at least
one form of broadband connection, while half of those have a choice of
three or more providers. Still, the study found that only 11 percent of
households were likely to sign up that year."
Frank Hayes, "Girls Warm Up to IT," Computerworld Vol. 36,
No. 8, P. 62, February 18, 2002
"Women currently account for only 25 percent of the IT workforce,
while Colorado School of Mines' Tracy Camp notes that the number of female
computer science undergraduates has fallen from 37 percent in 1999 to 20
percent in 2000. But IM may be for girls what computer games are for boys.
A Girl Scouts survey of young women between 13 and 18 finds that IM is
important, and is getting more of them on the Net. Two-thirds of the
respondents report that they go online several times a day, seven days a
week."
CNN, February 6, 2002
"As of September 2001, 143 million Americans, or about 54 percent
of the population, were using the Internet, and new users were adopting
the technology at a rate of more than two million per month. The report
says 90 percent, or 47.4 million, of children between the ages of 5 and 17
now use computers at home and at school. Seventy-five percent of 14- to
17-year-olds and 65 percent of 10- to 13-year-olds use the Internet.
Households with children younger than 18 are more likely to access the
Internet than households with no children."
Michele Kessler, "Security-conscious groups ban Wi-Fi,"
USA Today, January 28, 2002
"Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California banned all
wireless networks, including the most prevalent, Wi-Fi, from its grounds
due to "security vulnerabilities," directors said in a
newsletter. Other entities that handle sensitive data are implementing or
considering similar bans. And airlines are coming under fire for using
Wi-Fi in curbside baggage check-in systems. The fear: Computer
hackers can intercept data traveling through the air if Wi-Fi networks
aren't properly safeguarded. Wi-Fi defenders say Wi-Fi is secure when
properly installed. The problem: Only about 10% of users install even
basic safeguards, security experts say."
Wall Street Journal, January 20, 2002
"Henrico County, Va. school officials are recalling all 11,000
laptop computers that it distributed to its high school students in order
to retrofit them with security software that will prevent students from
using the devices for accessing or changing their grades --
abuses that reportedly have occurred since the machines were handed out
last fall."
Jay Lyman, "Virus-Busters: Worms, Flaws More Than Doubled in
2001," NewsFactor Network, January 11, 2002
"In 2001, both computer security incidents and vulnerabilities
more than doubled, according to the CERT Coordination Center. The research
center reported 52,658 security incidents in 2001, compared to 21,756 in
2000. For 2002, CERT predicts security incidents will surpass 100,000.
Similarly, CERT recorded 2,437 security vulnerabilities in 2001, compared
to 1,090 in 2000. A greater number of PCs and a growing Internet are
responsible for the higher numbers, says CERT Internet security analyst
Chad Dougherty."
Mike Musgrove, "Tech-Support Seekers Turn to the Web,"
Washington Post, p. E1, December 28, 2001
"Microsoft says its tech support site received 200 million hits
this year compared to just 4 million calls."
Janet Kornblum, "After 10 Years on the Web, Impact Keeps
Unfolding," USA Today, p. 3D, December 27, 2001
"...American Web users totaled 113.7 million in October,
accounting for 62 percent of the U.S. population."
Bret Begun, "The Click Clique," Newsweek, December 10, 2001, p.
64
"According to data from Northbrook, Ill., firm Teenage Research
Unlimited, 37 percent of teens have cell phones; 78 percent go on-line at
home. Ninety percent say the Net is "cool"; 84 percent say the
same thing about partying."
Desa Philadelphia, "Can You Print it for Me?", Global
Business Magazine Vol. 158, No. 27, P. B10, December 2001
"Between 1995 and 2000, paper use increased 12 percent while there
were almost 5 percent more computers at workplaces. In their book,
"The Myth of the Paperless Office," Abigail Sellen and Richard
Harper found that paper consumption generally leaps 40 percent when an
office first implements email."
Howard Millman, "Beyond Sight," InfoWorld Vol. 23, No. 32,
P. 32, August 6, 2001
"...there are almost 11 million people on federal disability
rolls, almost twice that of 10 years ago."
Robert Marquand, "China Tames Wild, Wild Web," Christian
Science Monitor, p. 1, August 2, 2001
"About 8,000 Internet cafes have been shut down by the government
in the past several months, either because they were not registered or
because authorities failed to keep users from viewing objectionable sites.
Through the continuous issuance of regulations, chat-room monitors, and
the "The Great Firewall of China," which monitors overseas
access and blocks certain Web sites, China has been able to restrict use
of the Internet. At the same time, the amount of people using it has
increased from 2 million in 1998 to 23 million today."
Paulo Rebelo, "Casting a Wider Net in Brazil," Wired News,
July 30, 2001
"Only about 11.1 million out of over 160 million Brazilians are
currently online, but both governmental and non-governmental organizations
are planning to change that through initiatives. The Brazilian government
will set up Internet terminals at post offices within every major city, an
effort that Brazilian Planning Minister Martus Tavares says will cost $400
million."
Donna Howell, "Companies Quicker to Patch Up Security Weak
Spots," Investor's Business Daily, p. A4, July 13, 2001
"Security holes emerge in even the most popular software programs
on a frequent basis...20 or so vulnerabilities [are] exposed every week."
Brian Acohido, "Net Rivals Gird for Latest Battle," USA
Today p. 3B, July 9, 2001
"3.5 million software developers... know Visual Basic...the Java
language...has a base of 2.5 million
developers."
Stephen Shankland, "Study: Web, E-mail Monitoring
Spreads," CNet, July 8, 2001
"About 27 percent of employees around the world (100 million)
constantly have their email and Internet activities monitored to
employers; about $140 million worth of...[online surveillance] software is
sold each year worldwide...As many as 14 million U.S. workers are
continuously monitored, the study finds."
Dick Kelsey, "Most U.S. Workers Comfy with Technology -
Study," Newsbites, July 5, 2001
"Most U.S. workers feel at ease with technology, according to a
new Society of Financial Service Professionals survey of 1,130 members.
Some 92 percent reported being comfortable with technology and equipment
at the office. Using technology increases knowledge in the workplace, said
87 percent of participants, while 80 percent said technology develops job
skills. However, many workers admitted to using technology for personal
uses: only 37 percent said spending time at work looking for a job online
is "highly unethical," and 41 percent said they have engaged in
personal Internet surfing or online shopping at work. Similarly, a similar
percentage reported using corporate email for personal reasons or playing
games on the computer."
Scarlet Pruitt, "Gartner: No Rest for the Work E-Mail
Addict," IDG News Service, July 2, 2001
"Over half of U.S. workers check their email six or more times
each day, according to a new survey from Gartner, while 34 percent of
workers said they check their email constantly. Moreover, 23 percent of
workers read business-related email during the weekend, and 42 percent
check email while they are on vacation. The Gartner survey reports that
the average worker needs 49 minutes each day to check email. However,
barely a quarter, 27 percent, of this email is truly important for
business, Gartner reports, with 37 percent rated as "occupational
spam," short and usually unnecessary messages between
co-workers."
Kim Girard, "Borg is Back," Business 2.0 Vol. 6, No. 13,
P. 77, June 26, 2001
"At present, women comprise only 9 percent of all computer
engineers in the nation and 26 percent of all computer scientists."
Stephen Shankland and Joe Wilcox, "Why Microsoft is Wary of
Open Source," CNet, June 18, 2001
"International Data (IDC) reports that Linux represented 27
percent of new server operating licenses for 2000, compared to Microsoft's
41 percent."
Roberta Holland, "Visual Basic.Net: Is it Too Complex?",
eWeek Online, June 15, 2001
"Microsoft is introducing a revision to the Visual Basic
programming language, which has some 3.3 million users, to take advantage
of its .Net Web services model. However, developers that have seen the
Visual Basic.Net beta versions complain about the fundamental differences
in the new release, such as altered data types and keywords, saying the
company has abandoned its original intent to make Visual Basic a simple
programming language for Windows. Other programmers say developers will
not have much trouble once they get used to the changes. Rival software
companies such as Borland and Sun hope that frustrated developers will
migrate to their languages instead. Borland's Delphi language has a user
base of 1 million programmers."
David M. Ewalt, "Just How Many Linux Users are There?",
InformationWeek Online, June 13, 2001
"Gartner, in a survey of 724 IT professionals, found that 8.6
percent of server shipments in the United States in the third quarter ran
Linux. However, Linux advocates dispute that low number, and other
research firms are backing them up. International Data (IDC) has estimated
Linux's server market share at 27 percent, and AllNetResearch says it is
39 percent. "I suspect that an awful lot of servers--and home
computers--get counted as Windows machines because that is how they were
sold, even if they now run Linux," contends Robin Miller on the open
source Web site Newsforge.com. In many cases, say advocates, Linux users
download the software and install it only after purchasing a server."
Donna Howell, "Web Visits are DOA with DoS," Investor's
Business Daily, page A6, June 13, 2001
"The report found that 4,000 DoS [denial of service] attacks had
occurred in a period of one week in February. The Yankee Group says the
costs associated with DoS attacks--security, lost sales, depreciated stock
value--cost businesses over $1 billion. Part of the problem is the
availability of sophisticated tools that let hackers perpetrate these
crimes with ease. At Exodus Communications, which estimates it suffers
from between 200 and 300 hacking attempts daily, officials are looking at
new solutions, such as those developed by Asta Networks and Mazu Networks.
Exodus chief security officer Bill Hancock estimates that there are 20
such companies trying to carve out a slice of the emerging market for DoS-fighting
solutions."
Phil LoPiccolo, "The Next Big Thing," Computer Graphics
World, Vol. 24, No. 6, P. 4, June 2001
"
William J. Broad, "Bell Labs: A Bit Abstract and Always
Curious," New York Times, May 30, 2001, p. C4
"Bell Labs, a subsidiary of Lucent Technologies, remains a key
player in the development of new technology despite the turmoil
surrounding its parent company, experts say. Only IBM files more patents
per day than Bell Labs, which has a daily average of four patent
filings."
Diana Bass, "Slow Start Foreseen for Office XP Sales,"
Bloomberg, May 29, 2001
"Currently, Giga Information Group analyst Ken Smiley says, Office
97 runs on the majority of corporate systems, with 40 percent using Office
2000, and from 5 percent to 10 percent using Office 95."
"Your Boss Knows You're Reading This," Reuters, May 29,
2001
"A recent survey of more than 1,000 U.S. businesses showed that
nearly 78 percent monitored employees' Web, email, voice mail, and other
communications--more than twice as many businesses that said they did so
than in a survey five years ago."
Lou Hirsh, "The Next Environmental Crisis: Techno-Trash,"
E-Commerce Times, May 29, 2001
"The Environmental Protection Agency says electronics now accounts
for 220 million tons of U.S. waste, much of it containing poisonous
metals...large companies such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard have set up
recycling programs that people can use for a fee--usually about $30...Many
groups are pointing to new legislation passed by the European Parliament
that requires computer manufacturers to reclaim their products, equaling
up to 13 pounds of equipment reclaimed per person, per year."
Gary H. Anthes, "Making IT Accessible," Computerworld Vol.
35, No. 22, P. 56, May 28, 2001
"The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the United States has 60
million disabled individuals, 70% of whom say they are underemployed or
without employment at all because of that disability. Disabled individuals
confront a particular challenge in IT-related positions, as computers and
other hardware can often be difficult or even impossible to use...At the
Department of Education, which has as many as 400 disabled employees, IT
adaptations include ergonomic keyboards, voice-based Caller ID, and
Braille embossers and translators, and Craig B. Luigart, the department's
CIO, says the cost of such adaptations is low, often adding no more than
1% to the price. Microsoft's new Office XP program features a host of
accessibility tools, including voice-recognition software and a tool that
can describe for blind users how the formatting of their document actually
appears."
Stephanie Wilkinson, "From the Dustbin, Cobol Rises,"
eWeek Vol. 18, No. 21, P. 58, May 28, 2001
"The IT industry is suffering an acute lack of programmers who
know Cobol, the 40-year-old language in which much of the world's business
data is written. Gartner Group reports that 200 billion lines of Cobol
code existed as of last year, with an expected growth of 5 billion lines
of code per year for the next four years. At the same time, Gartner
reports, as of last year there were only 90,000 Cobol programmers in North
America, and that number will fall as those programmers retire or pass
away. As Gartner reports that Cobol houses 60% of the global code base and
85% of global business data, the decline in programmers could soon present
a severe problem to firms in nearly every sector...However, Payson [the
president of the Senior Staff Job Information Search] says his company's
database has some 2,500 Cobol programmers, and he believes that as many as
10,000 retired but still employable Cobol programmers currently live in
the United States."
John Schwartz, "Computer Vandals Clog Antivandalism Web Site,"
New York Times p. C5, May 24, 2001
"A new report from the University of California at San Diego
reveals that there are 4,000 DDoS attacks around the world each
week."
Peter Galli, "Linux Looks Good on Server," eWeek vol. 18,
no. 20, p. 1, May 21, 2001
"Tests on IBM's DB2 7.2 Linux 2.4.3 database server demonstrate
that it beats Microsoft's SQL Server 2000 running Windows 2000...In the
desktop market, however, Linux companies are finding it a hard sell to
investors because they have yet to come up with a breakthrough product and
have captured no more than 2 percent of the market. Eazel recently closed
its shop after it could not find further funding for its work on a
Linux-based graphical user interface. Corel's Linux arm is also
struggling, and the company is now in negotiations to sell the unit for
only $1.5 million."
NewsScan Daily, May 21, 2001
"Software piracy grew in 2000 for the first time in more than five
years, according to the Business Software Alliance, which estimates that
37% of all software programs used by businesses worldwide are illegal
copies. The Asia-Pacific region -- where more than half of all software in
use last year was stolen -- tops the list in terms of dollars (an
estimated $4 billion) lost to piracy. Meanwhile, Eastern Europe has the
highest piracy rate, with 63% of its software illegally copied in 2000. In
the U.S., 24% of programs are pirated copies."
Mitch Wagner, "Handhelds Nudge PCs," InternetWeek no. 861,
p. 1, May 14, 2001
"Sears...supplied 15,000 handheld computers from Symbol
Technologies to stockroom staff and sales clerks...Compaq says sales of
its color iPaq have reached 100,000 a month, compared to expectations of
7,000 units."
Charles Babcock, "Visual Basic on the Decline?",
Interactive Week vol. 8, no. 19, p. 11, May 14, 2001
"...of programmers with multiple-language skill, the number who
know Microsoft Visual Basic has fallen from 62 percent last March to 46
percent in March 2001...many programmers are already looking for other
options. Java is one; another is Borland's Delphi environment, which
Borland estimates has 1 million programmers already. Borland's new Delphi
6.0 release is targeted at programmers interested in the Web-based
applications sector as it supports XML, SOAP, and other Web-based
programming languages and protocols."
"Freshmen Women's Confidence with Computers is Half that of
Men's,"
CRA Bulletin, May 7, 2001
"The annual freshman survey conducted by UCLAs Higher Education
Research Institute showed increasing familiarity of entering students with
computers. 78.5% of freshman entering college in 2000 were regularly using
computers in the year prior to college entrance, compared to 68.4% in 1999
and 27.3% in 1985. There was not much gender difference in computer use
reported by those entering college in 2000: 77.8% of women and 79.5% of
men. There was, however, continuing gender difference in confidence
levels: 23.3% of females rated their computer skills as "above
average" or "within the top 10%" whereas 46.4% of males did
so. This confidence gap between men and women is the largest in the
history of the survey. 1.4% of females and 6.5% of males entering college
in 2000 expected to major in computer science."
Elisa Hae-Jung Song, MD, and Jane E. Anderson, MD, "How violent
video games may violate children's health," Commercial Alert, May
2001 (thanks to Dick Halpern)
"...video games have rapidly become the largest segment of the
entertainment industry, taking in $6.3 to $8.8 billion in 1998, compared
with $5.2 billion in Hollywood box office receipts. Video games, which now
can be played at home on a computer or a television set, account for 30%
of the toy market in America. With 181 million computer games sold in
1998, each home has, on average, two video games...
About 90% of United States households with children have rented or own
a video or computer game, 49% of children have a video game player or
computer on which to play the games in their own bedroom, and 46% of
children would choose, in preference to any other form of media, to take a
video game player or computer to a desert island...
According to a 1993 survey of 357 seventh- and eighth-grade students,
boys spent more time playing video games than girls. While 60% of girls
clocked an average of two hours a week playing video games, 90% of boys
played for more than four hours a week. Boys and girls also differed in
where they liked to play: 50% of boys spent time in arcades, compared with
20% of girls. Only 2% of preferred games had educational themes, while
about half had violent themes. A 1996 survey of 1,000 fourth- to
eighth-grade students confirmed that boys spent more hours each week than
girls playing video games, with game playing decreasing as grade level
increased. Children of all ages preferred games with violent content; boys
preferred human violence, girls, fantasy violence. A study of 227 college
students showed that 97% of students played games. Again, girls spent less
time than boys in this activity. The survey also investigated respondents'
earlier use of games: Students reported that the time they spent playing
games gradually decreased from the junior high years (five and one half
hours a week) to college (about two hours a week). Figures on earlier use
of games may not be reliable, however, because they were based on
long-term recall...In a 1999 study, most parents were not able to name
their child's favorite game, or named an incorrect game. In 70% of these
incorrect matches, the child described their favorite game as violent...On
average, according to another study, parents recognized only nine of the
49 most popular video games...
In a study from British Columbia, only 22% of teens said that their
parents had set rules for playing video games. This compares with 39% of
teens who had rules for television viewing...Only 15% were subject to
restrictions on the type of game they played...
...sales of games rated extremely violent...have jumped from 53% of all
sales in 1985 to 82% in 1988. Analysis of a sample of the 33 Sega and
Nintendo games that were most popular in 1995 showed that nearly 80%
featured aggressiveness or violence; in 21% of the games, the aggression
or violence was directed toward women. In nearly 50% of the games
examined, violence or aggression was directed against other characters,
and the violence generally was very graphic. Another survey found that
violence was a theme in 40 of the 47 top-rated Nintendo video games."
"The Pulse"; Newsweek, April 2, 2001, p. 65
"Today 145 million Americans play computer and video games. It's
not just kids and boys: 69% of high-frequency players are over 18, and 49%
are female."
"Survey: Denmark Most Wired; Men go for Cars, Porn,"
Reuters, March 26, 2001
"Denmark boasts a home Internet penetration rate of 54 percent,
making the country the world's most Internet-enabled nation, followed by
the United States at 50.9 percent, Singapore at 47.4 percent, Taiwan at 40
percent, and South Korea at 37.3 percent, according to a study of a dozen
countries by NetValue. Home Internet rates in China and Spain are below 18
percent. The study determined that Yahoo.com and msn.com were popular Web
sites in 10 of the 12 countries studied, which included the United
Kingdom, France, Mexico, and Hong Kong. Nearly three in four citizens of
Denmark use email, while 50 percent of South Korean Internet users play
online games. In the United States, men account for 52 percent of the
online population, while in Mexico the number is 66 percent. Web sites
pertaining to cars, sports, and are favorites among men in the
dozen countries, while women prefer women-oriented Web sites and sites
about fashion, beauty, or electronic greeting cards."
Ann McFeattters, "Women Marrying less and later, having fewer
children, returning to work sooner," Pittsburgh Post Gazette, March
15, 2001, p. A-6"Fifty-seven percent of women workers use a
computer in their jobs, compared with only 44 percent of men. At home, 70
percent of women use a computer, compared with 72 percent of men. The
home-use gap of the mid-1980s of about 20 percentage points has now
closed."
Aaron Pressman, "Business Gets the Message," Industry
Standard vol. 4, no. 8, p. 58, February 26, 2001
"Media Metrix reports that 53 million U.S. households sent an
instant message in January, with another 11 million using the technology
from work--no universal standard for instant messaging exists."
Nevin Cohen, "Russian Internet Landscape Still Bleak,"
eMarketer, February 21, 2001
"Russia's lack of telecommunications infrastructure and stark
economic prospects threaten to limit Internet penetration in that country
to the single digits until at least 2004, according to eMarketer
predictions. Those estimates also tag the number of current Russian
Internet users at only 2.9 million in a nation of roughly 122 million
s. ROMIR Consulting, Moscow, says 48 percent of users access the Web
from work and only 36 percent communicate via the Internet...few [people]
hold credit cards and ISP access can cost anywhere from $120 to $1,500 per
month."
Laura Carr, "Still a Man's World?", Industry Standard vol.
4, no. 1, p. 80, January 8, 2001
"The survey of almost 2,600 newsletter subscribers found that
women in the Internet industry earn a median base salary of $60,500,
compared with $80,000 for their male counterparts. Meanwhile, women
receive a median bonus of $7,000, which is less than half of the $15,000
median bonus awarded to men. With this bonus disparity factored in, the
gender wage gap is even more evident in median total cash compensation,
which is $66,000 for women and $91,000 for men. The Standard's findings
echo figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that suggest women
who work full-time and are more than 25 years old earn 26 percent less
than men. Still, women responding to The Standard survey worked 9.7 hours
a day on average, while men worked 10.3 hours. In addition, slightly more
than half of women worked at least one weekend per month, compared with 61
percent of men. These factors still do not account for the gender wage
gap, which is even wider than the wage discrepancies noted along lines of
race and age."
Phil Hochmuth, "Linux Against the Odds," Network World
vol. 18, no. 1, p. 75, January 1, 2001
"In 1999 Linux beat Novell NetWare and all other versions of Unix
in terms of shipments, claiming 24.6 percent of the server OS market. Only
Microsoft's Windows NT surpassed Linux, with 38.1 percent of the market.
IBM, Compaq, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, and SAP all offer products and
services that support Linux."
Ariane Sains, "Sweden's Digital Debate,"
Europe no. 402,
p. 8, December 2000
"Sweden is sometimes considered one of the most wired nations,
with computer and Internet penetration rates of 60 percent and mobile
phone penetration rates of 70 percent...Union leaders fear that
blue-collar workers without online access at work or home are being
excluded from online training programs and cannot participate in online
democracy. Banking is a problem; institutions are cutting costs by closing
branch offices, particularly in rural areas, and are suggesting Internet
services as a replacement...Just 8 percent of those between the ages of 65
and 74 say they have access to computers, according to government
statistics, and what access they do have is frequently at public
locations, which makes it hard to use the encrypted software that some
services need."
"High-Tech Outlays Seen Rising 50 Percent by 2004,"
Reuters, November 21, 2000
"Spending on information and communication technology (ICT)
worldwide climbed to more than $2.1 trillion in 1999, accounting for 6.6
percent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP), according to a World
Information Technology and Services Alliance study released on Tuesday. By
2004, worldwide ICT spending is expected to grow another 50 percent, the
study says. The United States continued to lead global ICT spending last
year with $762 billion, which represented nearly 9 percent of the U.S.
GDP. Japan came in second with $362 billion in ICT spending, followed by
Germany with $139 billion."
Toni Kistner, "IT Strides Seen as Double-Edged Sword,"
Network World vol. 17, no. 46, p. 29, November 13, 2000
"Technological advances, contrary to popular belief, are actually
increasing the number of workers on the road each day as the number of
mobile workers grows far faster than the number of remote workers,
according to a recent IT Forecaster report from International Data (IDC)...Mobile
workers are increasing their ranks 3.5 times faster than remote workers,
says IDC. Mobile and remote workers, as defined by the report, spend at
least 20 percent of their working hours outside of the office, while
remote workers must work from home at least four days a month. Mobile
workers are outstripping remote workers because of advances such as
longer-lasting notebook batteries and the proliferation of devices such as
personal digital assistants, cell phones, and two-way pagers, observers
say. In addition, the number of remote workers is growing more slowly than
anticipated because of the slow deployment of broadband services, security
concerns, reluctance among employers as well as workers, and the expense
of remote infrastructure development. However, International Telework
Association and Council President John Edwards objects to IDC's findings.
Technology is not bringing more people onto the roads, but simply allows
workers to make more productive use of their time while traveling, Edwards
says. Furthermore, Edwards disagrees with the report's distinction between
mobile and remote workers, arguing that mobile workers are a type of
remote worker."
Jennifer Tanaka, "An Extreme Reaction," Newsweek, September 25, 2000, p. 75
"Americans spent $424 million on educational CD-ROMS for their
children last year."
"Contrary to popular belief, not all gamers are teenage boys. In fact,
13% are over 50, and 43% are women. Overall, more than half of all
Americans play videogames."
"Solving the Paradox," Economist vol. 356, no. 8189, p.
11, September 23, 2000
"The United States has enjoyed a surge in labor productivity since
the mid 1990s, about the time when computers reached a 50 percent
penetration rate. From 1975 through 1995 the average yearly growth in
labor productivity in the business sector was 1.4 percent, but the figure
has since jumped to 2.9 percent. And for the second quarter of 2000 the
figure is up 5.2 percent. The information technology producing industries
have been the greatest beneficiaries of the new economy, having seen
productivity climb an average of 24 percent a year in the 1990s...With
labor productivity and per capita growth projected over the long-term at
an annual 2.5 percent, the impact of IT would be as big as electricity.
For IT to be bigger than electricity, cars, and telephones, productivity
growth would have to reach 3 percent to 4 percent over the next
decade."
Aravind Adiga, "High-Tech Productivity Boom Rolls On,"
Financial Times, September 1, 2000, p. 4
"The report found that the annual productivity growth rate for
non-farm workers reached 3 percent in 1999, a significant increase from
the 1.3 percent growth rate that existed from 1974 to 1995. The report
cites technological advances such as computer-aided design programs as a
main reason for the increases in productivity. Also, NAM [National
Association of Manufacturers] reports that the annual compensation growth
rate in 1999 was 3.6 percent, a 2.5 percent rise from the annual rate
between 1974 and 1995. Salaries were up as well, with the average
private-sector worker making $42,000, while the average manufacturing
employee made $49,000. The report counters claims that international trade
has hurt U.S. workers, finding that trade was responsible for creating 25
percent of new private-sector jobs in the 1990s."
Carrie Johnson, "High-Tech Salaries Keep Powering Ahead,"
Washington Post, p. E8, August 31, 2000
"[A] survey found that the average salary of Web workers has risen
8.5 percent from 1999 to $82,000 per year. The average salary for online
executives has increased from $295,800 to $323,300. Moreover, the survey
reports more companies are offering signing bonuses this year--nearly 70
percent, a 10-percent gain over last year--while 30 percent of the firms
surveyed said they provided performance bonuses to current employees.
Analysts with Buck Consultants believe the increases reflect the demand
for new employees and the shortage of qualified workers and will continue
to grow until that conflict is resolved."
John Yaukey, "Discarded Computers Loom as Environmental
Problem," USA Today, August 29, 2000, p. 6B
"Computers contain toxic substances such as lead, cadmium,
mercury, and chromium that seep into the groundwater when computers are
thrown into landfills. Only 11 percent of the 20 million computers that
outlived their usefulness last year were recycled. In five years, 350
million computers will have become obsolete and about 55 million are
likely to reach landfills, says the National Safety Council...In addition,
while 97 percent of computer parts can be recycled for use in other
computers or as scrap metal, qualified recyclers deal primarily with
companies and are not widely known among consumers...The high-tech
industry is also taking some responsibility, with companies such as IBM
working to design computers that can be recycled more easily."
Ken Popovich, "PC Sales Drift to Doldrums," eWeek Vol. 17,
No. 34, P. 43, August 21, 2000
"Most information technology market observers foresee a slump for
PC sales...Dell Computer is coping with the uncertain future of the
computer industry by focusing on notebook PC sales, which now account for
30 percent of its revenue...Gateway's non-PC income has grown from little
more than 10 percent of its total income to 40 percent, and its goal is 45
percent by the end of 2000."
Ted Plafker, "China Closes First Locally Based Dissident Web
Site," Washington Post, August 9, 2000, p. A21
"The number of Internet users in China has almost doubled since
last year to 16.9 million."
Sally Whittle, "Wild about Wireless?", Industry Standard
vol. 3, no. 29, p. 124, August 7, 2000
"Forrester says only 6.1 million people in Europe use Web phones
to access the Internet. And some companies such as Deutsche Telekom are
feeling the pinch of consumers' lack of interest in Web phones. The
company's cell phone division, T-Mobile, announced in July that less than
1 percent of its 13 million cellular customers purchased its new Web
phone, which debuted commercially six months ago. Other wireless providers
have admitted similar disappointing sales...French Web bank First-e has
acquired only 100 users since it began offering service six months ago,
but had originally anticipated attracting 100,000 mobile users."
Claudia Kalb and Karen Springen, "Is Your Cell Really
Safe?" Newsweek, August 7, 2000, p. 63
"A whopping 100 million Americans now use mobile phones, and tens
of thousands of new customers wire up every day."
"There will be as many as 1.6 billion cell phone users worldwide
by 2005."
Lisa Hoffman, "Computer Culture Appears to be Leaving Women
Behind," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 12, 2000. p. A-13.
"...statistics provided by the Department of Education ... show that
girls account for only 17 percent of computer science 'advanced placement'
tests taken by high school youths. In colleges, women earn just 28 percent
of computer science undergraduate degrees, a sizable drop from
pre-Internet 1984, when they earned 37 percent."
Adam Thierer, "Is the 'Digital Divide' a Virtual
Reality?", Consumer's Research, vol. 83, no. 7, p. 16, July 2000
"The current market for personal computers and Internet access
should reveal that there is no digital divide. The continued decline in
computer prices is evidence that some Americans will not be left behind.
PC Data says the average cost of a new PC has fallen from $1,434 in 1997
to $916 last year...From a historical perspective, Internet access is on
pace to reach more than 50 percent of American homes faster than
television (18 years), radio (28 years), VCRs (12 years), electrical
service (52 years), and telephones (70 years). The Internet, which has
been available as a commercial service for less than 10 years, will be in
more than 50 percent of American households by 2001, according to
Forrester Research."
Lane Hartill, "E-Mail Attitudes: Talk to the Mouse,"
Christian Science Monitor, p. 12, June 19, 2000
"The survey, which polled over 1,000 employees, found that 80
percent of respondents believe email has essentially supplanted
traditional mail, while 49 percent said email has replaced phone calls. In
addition, 79 percent of respondents keep a separate email account for
personal messages, citing concerns about monitoring by employers.
Meanwhile, a separate study from Stanford University indicates that email
is taking a toll on users' social lives, finding that Internet users tend
to devote less time to social events and personal phone calls."
Ronna Abramson, "Digital Divide may Narrow by 2005,"
TheStandard.com, June 15, 2000
"The study finds that only 15 percent of American households with
annual incomes under $15,000 currently have access to the Internet...As of
last year, only 30 percent of African American households and 33 percent
of Hispanic households had Internet access."
Spencer E. Ante, "Info Wars," Business Week No. 3684, p.
EB107, June 5, 2000
"Last year, there were more than 8,200 cases involving patents,
copyrights, and other intellectual property brought under federal law.
Over the past five years, patent, copyright, and other intellectual
property cases have occurred 10 times faster than other cases. As fears
grew concerning the Web as a tool for stealing the work of innovators and
artists, patents were lengthened to 20 years, and copyrights were
lengthened to 70 years after an artist dies."
"The Microsoft-Free Office,"
ACM TechNews Volume 2, Issue 64, June 5, 2000
"Windows accounted for 94.6 percent of the OS market last year,
according to International Data. In addition, even the software giant's
rivals admit that running a business without Microsoft Office, which
includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, is nearly impossible. Companies
essentially have no alternatives when it comes to word processing and
spreadsheets, with Office holding over 90 percent of the Windows market
for desktop suites."
Elisa Batista, "Latinos Prefer Mainstream Portals," WIRED
News, June 2, 2000 (thanks to Neil McAllister)
"A new study shows more than half of the 2,017 Hispanics surveyed,
including those who mainly speak Spanish, preferred surfing on English
sites, according to Cheskin Research, a market research firm in Redwood
Shores, California. ... Projected in five years to be the largest ethnic
minority group in the United States, Hispanics already have a purchasing
power of over $425 billion per year. And despite the media spotlight
constantly glaring on the "digital divide," Hispanics are
snapping up computers and going online at a faster rate than any other
group. Cheskin Research found that PC ownership increased at a rate of 68
percent since 1998 for Hispanics, compared to only 43 percent for the
general population. Now 42 percent of the estimated 32.5 million Latinos
in the United States own PCs at home."
"Value of E-Mail? About $9,000 Per Worker",
ACM TechNews Volume 2, Number 61, May 26, 2000
"[A] report determined that email does improve employee
productivity by an average of 326 hours annually. Using a complex formula
to convert the hours to a dollar value, Ferris Research reported that
companies gain approximately $9,000 net per employee annually, or about a
15 percent gain in productivity."
Marianne McGee, "It's Official: IT Adds Up",
InformationWeek
(04/17/00) No. 782, p. 42.
Information technology has directly contributed to the rise in
productivity across all U.S. industries in recent years, economists
say. Just a few years ago economists questioned the effects of
technology on productivity. However, last month the Federal Reserve
issued a report saying the use of technology and the production of IT
goods since the mid 1990s has accounted for about $50 billion in
productivity output every year, contributing about two-thirds of the
$70 billion annual productivity gain over the same period. Eighty
percent of companies that record worker productivity say productivity
is at a record high, according to an InformationWeek Research
survey. Most InformationWeek respondents credit not only technology,
but also management policy with some of the productivity
gains. Companies are realizing productivity gains by improving their
business processes, for example, by eliminating the barriers between
different business areas. Among the top technologies that contribute
to productivity are collaborative software tools, newer PCs, increased
network bandwidth, mobile computing devices, and wireless devices. In
addition to worker output, IT is improving customer service, range of
offerings, response time, product quality, and customization of
products and services, says Eric Brynjolfsson, professor at the Center
for eBusiness at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Many companies are
counting on e-business to further increase productivity, and experts
predict that the Internet will drive the next wave of productivity.
Lisa Guernsey, "You've Got Inappropriate Mail",
New York Times, 04/05/00, p. C1. excerpted in:
Technews,
Volume 2, Issue 39: Wednesday, April 5, 2000
"The number of companies monitoring employee email has increased from
27 percent in 1999 to an estimated 38.2 percent in 2000 due to
a combination of more advanced monitoring software and
employers' concerns about the volume of network traffic,
widespread employee use of corporate equipment for personal
business, and the circulation of offensive or obscene email
messages."
Cliff Edwards, "World PC Sales up in 1999," ABCNews.com,
January 24, 2000
"Despite concerns about the Y2K bug, personal
computer sales surged 22 percent worldwide last year, fed in part by the
surging domestic market for Dell computers. Data released today by
two research firms shows that Dell Computer surpassed rival Compaq
Computer in annual sales for the first time and IBM slipped in both
worldwide and U.S. sales. Dell, based in Round Rock, Texas, sold
7.02 million PCs for the year, grabbing a 16 percent share of the U.S.
market, up from 12.7 percent in 1998, according to research firm
Dataquest, a unit of Gartner Group. Compaq, based in Houston, sold
6.86 million computers, giving it a 15.7 percent market share, Dataquest
said. Compaq’s share a year earlier was 16.1 percent...Compaq continues
to hold a commanding lead for global sales, with Compaq maintaining a 13
percent share of the international market to Dell’s 10
percent...Dell’s strategy of direct sales has reduced costs and proved
to be more efficient than store sales. Dell provides made-to-order
computers and is generating more than $30 million in sales a day...Market
growth slowed by just 2 percentage points in the quarter because of
Y2K...Among the biggest losers in 1999 in market share were IBM Corp.,
which both studies found had slipped to fifth place domestically and third
worldwide as it pulled its Aptiva line out of traditional brick-and-mortar
stores. NEC Corp. also lost worldwide market share, slipping out of
the top five worldwide computer sellers in the IDC study. It pulled the
plug on the money-losing Packard Bell line that once was synonymous with
home computers. Direct seller Gateway, with its more than 200
Gateway Country stores, was in the No. 3 spot domestically. Its sales rose
32 percent to boost its percentage of the U.S. market to 9.1 percent, up
from 8.4 percent in 1998. Hewlett-Packard’s share rose to 8.7
percent from 7.5 percent to give it fourth place. Apple Computer finished
sixth domestically and seventh worldwide amid strong sales of its curvy
iMacs and iBook laptops."
THE WHITE HOUSE, Office of the Press Secretary, January 21, 2000, INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR THE 21ST
CENTURY,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/New/html/20000121_2.html
"During the past seven years, computers, high-speed communication systems,
and computer software have become more powerful and more useful to people
at home and work. Nearly half of all American households now use the Internet,
with more than 700 new households being connected every hour. More than half
of U.S. classrooms are connected to the Internet today, compared to less
than three percent in 1993. IT allows Americans to shop, do homework, and
get health care advice online, and it has enabled businesses of all sizes
to join the international economy. Since 1995, more than a third of all U.S.
economic growth has resulted from IT enterprises. Today, more than 13 million
Americans hold IT-related jobs, and the rate of growth is six times as fast
as overall job growth."
Mary Deibel, "High-Tech Homing Devices Worry Privacy Advocates,"
Scripps Howard News Service, January 1, 2000
"Meantime, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
says that its Web site and computer imaging technology have played a large
part in raising the recovery rate for children to 90 percent, up from 66
percent in 1989."
Sonia Livingstone, "Have the Media Ruined Childhood?", Interactions,
Nov+Dec 1999. p. 37-41.
"In the United Kingdom, 63 percent of children have a TV set of their own....
Of British children ages 6 to 17, 72 percent have a room they do not have
to share with a sibling; 68 percent have their own music installation, 34
percent have an electronic games controller hooked up to the TV, 21 percent
have a video and 12 percent have a PC.... Only one child in 100 can be classed
as a real `screen addict,' a child that spends a worrying 7 hours or more
watching TV or playing computer games.... They do watch a lot of TV, on average
for two and a half hours a day, but they prefer playing with their friends....
One in three children continues watching TV after [9pm when the programs
containing violence or start]. Some 28 percent of this group is between
6 and 8 years old."
Robert Harks, "Hot Shots", Interactions, Nov+Dec 1999. p. 53.
"Around the world, more than 2,700 photographs are taken every second....
Vacation pictures take up 80 percent."
Seppo Kari, "From Ears to Eyes", Interactions, Nov+Dec 1999. p. 66.
"Virtually 100 percent of Finnish young people aged 14 to 21 have mobile
phones. What's more, research shows that half of their use is for SMS calls,
short messages of up to 160 characters that can be typed on the keypad....
The average Finnish teenager swaps about a hundred SMS messages monthly and
the volume is growing."
Carolyn Ramsey-Catan, "Daddy, Won't You Buy Me a Mobile?", Interactions,
Nov+Dec 1999. p. 70.
"In the United States, 40 percent of all purchases are made by or influenced
by children."
N'Gai Croal and Stephen Totilo, "Who's Got Game?", Newsweek. Sep 6, 1999.
p. 58
"Last year the videogame industry raked in $6.3 billion (between software
and hardware), just shy of the record $6.9 billion movies earned at the box
office.... One out of every six U.S. households owns a [Sony] PlayStation.
In fact, Sony's game division contributed 40 percent of the parent company's
overall profits last year, more than movies, TV, music, or consumer
electronics.... As recently as 1993 Sega had 50 percent of the market...
Today Sega's market share is less than 1 percent."
"I Prefer My Stars To Be Interactive", Newsweek. Aug 30, 1999. p. 10
"This year, for the first time, videogames will outperform the domestic box
office of movies. Some selected titles with estimated production costs and
gross:
Movie Videogame
"GoldenEye" "GoldenEye" (Nintendo)
Development Cost $60 million $4 million
Domestic Gross $106 million $230 million
"Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" "Legend of Zelda (Nintendo)
Development Cost $33 million $6 million
Domestic Gross $201 million $205 million
"Wild Wild West" "Tomb Raider 1, 2, and 3" (Eidos)
Development Cost $160 million $6 million
Domestic Gross $111 million $192 million
Kaisa Vaananen-Vainio-Mattila and Satu Ruuska, "Designing Mobile Phones
and Communicators for Consumers' Needs at Nokia", Interactions, Sep/Oct,
1999. p. 24
"Mobile phones are rapidly be | |
