Security
Internetnews.com, 12/24/03: 2003 'Worst Year Ever' for Viruses, Worms
By Sharon Gaudin
In no other year have computer viruses and worms wreaked so much havoc and caused so much damage as in this past year, according to security analysts.
And the stakes are only getting higher as we go forward.
''This has been the worst ever,'' says Ken Dunham, director of malicious code at Reston, Va.-based iDefense Inc. ''Without a doubt, malicious code came to a massive head in 2003... we saw a huge impact of malicious code on infrastructure. We had seen worms cause some disruption before, but mostly they'd been an annoyance. Now infrastructure is being impacted.''
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Optimism
The New York Times, 12/26/03: A Stirring of Hope Amid Pessimism
By JOHN MARKOFF
MENLO PARK, Calif., Dec. 26 - After peaking at $17 billion in 2000, venture capital investments in Silicon Valley collapsed in 2001 and 2002, and the market still shows no sign of a real recovery any time soon.
The collapse was a rude awakening for a generation of venture capitalists who came of age in the 1990's and had not known a downturn until the dot-com flameout.
Now experienced venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road, home to the valley's leading venture firms, routinely talk about the possibility that business will not thrive again for years. They say that the valley's investors have to work their way through the more than 8,000 investments in companies that are not profitable but have not yet gone public, been acquired or gone out of business. Some pessimists peg the time for revival as being close to the end of the decade.
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Internetnews.com, 12/24/03: IT Spending Rounds a 'Turning Point'
By Colin Haley
Thanks to the public and retail sectors, overall IT spending is continuing its slow rebound, according to a new survey from consultants Wendover and Global Insight.
The Wendover-Global Insight IT Spending Index, which measures the intentions of IT decision-makers to invest in near-term capital projects, rose 19 percent to 49.5 in October. The jump comes after the Index rose 10 percent from the second quarter to the third quarter.
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PowerPoint
eWeek, 12/27/03: Ex-Talking Head Makes PowerPoint Art
David Byrne, an accomplished composer, photographer and lead singer of Talking Heads, has evolved—some would say devolved—into an unlikely artistic medium: PowerPoint.
Best known for vocals in "Psycho Killer" and "Burning Down the House," Byrne originally intended to spoof the ubiquitous software as a dumbed-down form of expression between communication-addled business executives.
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