News Blog

The survey section where the percentages were taken out--the numbers just don't justify what Acronis said in its report.

(Credit: Acronis)

Acronis, a major vendor of backup software, released a report earlier this week stating that about 87 percent of computer users back up their data once every two or three months--way less frequently than recommended. This suggests that most of us live dangerously when it comes to backing up.

The survey was widely reported in the press, but it turns out the numbers didn't seem to go well with Acronis' report.

The percentages released to the media were taken from the question "How often do you back up your hard drive or files?" Results include: 48 percent for "once a week (or more)"; 55 percent for "2-3 times a month"; 81.5 percent for "once a month"; 86.8 percent for "every 2-3 months", 91.4 percent for "2-3 times a year", 94.6 percent for "once a year or less"; and 25.5 percent for "never."

It may be that I'm Asian and extra good with math, but I couldn't help but notice that when added up, the numbers total around 500 percent. Other ways to interpret the chart didn't justify the reported 87 percent, either. So maybe you're not as bad at backing up as some media reports told you you were.

Due to its science and technology assets, Massachusetts reigns supreme as the state in the best position to achieve economic growth. That's according to a new report by the Milken Institute that ranks states on their technology industries. The study claims that regions can use science and technology to propel high-wage jobs and viable industries.

This is the third time that Massachusetts has taken the top spot in the Milken rankings, a few months after the state's Senate signed a bill to invest $1 billion in high-tech research over the next 10 years. The first report by the Santa Monica, Calif.-based institute came out in 2002 and the second was released in 2004.

In the new report, second place goes to Maryland, with Colorado, California, and Washington right behind.

The researchers explored 77 areas of each state's economy and technology sector. Each indicator was a part of five major components: research and development inputs, risk capital and entrepreneurial infrastructure, human capital investment, technology and science workforce, and technology concentration and dynamism. The results were compiled into an interactive map to show the differences among the states.

Rounding out the bottom of the list were Louisiana, Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Mississippi. The study also noted that California's slip from second place to third place is because, "the state shows signs of faltering."

The lead author of the study, Ross Devol, said states that are investing in science and technology assets are the same states that have a vision and plan for retaining high economic growth. Researchers also said, compared to information from the 2004 report, regional competition for technology industries is on the rise, due to global competition from China and India.

The digital divide is apparently alive and well.

About 20 percent of all U.S. heads-of-household have never sent an e-mail, and about 20 million households, or 18 percent, are without Internet access, according to a study released earlier this week.

(Credit: Parks Associates)

Similar percentages of respondents also indicated that they had never looked up a Web site or information on the Internet, the survey found.

Age and education were significant factors cited in the study, which was conducted by researcher Parks Associates. Half of those who have never used e-mail are older than 65 and 56 percent had no formal education beyond a high school level, the telephone survey found.

"Nearly one out of three household heads has never used a computer to create a document," John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates, said in a statement. "These data underscore the significant digital divide between the connected majority and the homes in the unconnected minority that rarely, if ever, use a computer."

Just 7 percent of the 20 million households without Internet access indicated during the survey that they plan to subscribe to an Internet service within the next 12 months. However, the study noted a steady decline in the number of disconnected households when comparing findings with previous years; the 2006 survey found that 31 million households, or 29 percent, of all U.S. households were without Internet access.

"Internet connections have slowly increased in U.S. households, but getting the disconnected minority online will continue to be difficult," Barrett said in the statement. "Age and economics are important factors, but the heart of the challenge is deeper. Many people just don't see a reason to use computers and do not associate technology with the needs and demands of their daily lives."

If the outcome of this year's presidential race depended solely on the whims of computer industry workers, it appears that there'd be a draw.

Or at least that's what a survey of 600 employees in that space recently found. The questionnaire was conducted just before the early March primaries by the Computing Technology Industry Association, or CompTIA, a trade association that represents mostly smaller technology companies, and Rasmussen Reports, a public-opinion research organization.

In response to a question about who'd get their votes if the election were "today," both Democrat Barack Obama and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain received 29 percent of the vote. Hillary Clinton trailed behind them with 13 percent, according to results released Tuesday. (Here's CompTIA's PowerPoint presentation of the findings.)

Republican Mike Huckabee racked up 11 percent of the vote, and Internet sweetheart Ron Paul nabbed 9 percent. Another 9 percent of the survey respondents said they were undecided.

More broadly, 35 percent of the survey respondents identified themselves as Republican, 26 percent as Democrat, and 40 percent as "other." Broken down further, 39 percent identified themselves as conservative, 36 percent as moderate, 24 percent as liberal, and 2 percent as "not sure."

Update at 1:45 p.m. PST: The survey was conducted by phone and through a scientifically random distribution, CompTIA spokesman Mike Wendy said. Call recipients were asked first whether they were American, over the age of 18, and an information technology worker, and if they answered affirmatively to all three, the call proceeded. That process was repeated until 600 IT workers were reached.

The findings demonstrate that the high-tech workforce, which CompTIA says numbers about 12 million, is "clearly a large and well-off group of independent-minded voters, whose loyalty is up for grabs," said Roger Cochetti, the group's public-policy director.

Still, it would seem that the economic sector isn't necessarily representative of the American public. Obama, after all, did lose Silicon Valley to Clinton on Super Tuesday, though he has shaped up to be more of an Internet darling than his rival.

Rasmussen's own latest "presidential tracking poll" of 1,600 likely voters, regardless of employment sector, indicates a much tighter race on the Democratic side than the tech sector survey suggested. A Monday night survey found that Obama was favored by 45 percent of likely Democratic primary voters, while Clinton attracted 44 percent.

A roundup of other recent polls by Gallup, CNN, USA Today, and others, found that Obama averaged a 2 percent advantage, though Clinton was favored in some of the individual surveys.

An average of those polls also shows that less than a percentage point separates McCain from Obama or Clinton, based on separate polls pitting him against each of the Democrats.

For the record, men composed the largest chunk of survey respondents, at 77 percent, which may account to some degree for the lackluster Clinton vote. About three-fourths of the survey respondents were white, and nearly half were college graduates. About a third of them said they earn more than $100,000 annually, but otherwise, income levels were all over the map. About a fourth of the respondents said they had contributed to a presidential campaign.

The survey--the second of what CompTIA has billed as a series of surveys aimed at amplifying technology interests in this year's election cycle--didn't delve much into specific policy topics. But it did note that respondents ranked the economy, the war in Iraq, and immigration, respectively, as the top three most important issues for the next president.

A more detailed report dissecting specific policy issues that inform technology workers' votes is expected to be released later this month.

In the next several months Wikipedians, or the authors of the content found on Wikipedia will be the subject of a worldwide survey to find out about people's posting habits on the immensely popular online encyclopedia.

The Wikimedia foundation, which operates Wikipedia is employing Netherlands-based UNU-MERIT to conduct the research that aims to figure out not only who Wikipedians are, but how much they're contributing to the site. The survey is also designed to find out why people are coming to Wikipedia, and the identify the types of users who go from casual browsers to site contributors.

User identity goes farther than just browsing habits, though. The survey's creators are trying to unearth the real identities of Wikipedia authors, something that Wikipedia alternative Citizendium has already solved by requiring its users to use their real names as part of the editing process. In the past, user anonymity has been one of the key points of contention regarding responsibly and the efficacy of rule enforcement in Wikipedia's user community.

A portion of the survey results are to be released at this year's Wikimania, which takes place in late July, with a more conclusive report later this year.

We've already observed in New Hampshire this month that there's something to be said for tried-and-true techniques like handshaking and baby-kissing--as opposed to MySpace "friending"--in winning a presidential race.

Now there's some data to back up the premise that the Internet is playing a growing, but still not yet dominant, role in the drama-filled 2008 contest.

Specifically, more Americans are still "learning something" about this year's presidential campaigns by watching television news and--gasp--reading the daily newspaper than by surfing the Web, according to a new report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center. (The quadrennial survey, conducted during the last week of December, reached 1,430 adults.)

Still, the Internet could break out of underdog media status as time goes on.

The share of Americans who say they "regularly learn something" about the presidential contenders from the Internet jumped to 24 percent for this election cycle, nearly double the 13 percent figure when that question was asked during the 2004 race. In 2000, the level of use was even more miniscule, at 9 percent.

And for the 18-29 demographic, perhaps unsurprisingly, the numbers are vastly different: some 42 percent of respondents said they're learning about presidential campaigns online, which outnumbers all other news sources. Cable news networks came in second for that age group, at 35 percent.

Social-networking Web sites are also picking up some of the politically-interested set, but again, the user base is mostly composed of the 18-29 age range, of which about one-quarter professed to have gotten political information from the likes of MySpace and Facebook.

A word to the wise for office seekers with their own profile pages, though: Two-thirds of the 18- to 29-year-olds surveyed by Pew said they use social-networking sites, but only 8 percent said they'd "friended" a candidate.

Perhaps more popular than social-networking sites has been the advent of online video. Nearly one quarter of all the survey respondents, regardless of age, said they had seen something in video form about a campaign online--be it a commercial, speech, debate, or interview. The numbers were highest in the 18-29 and 30-39 age groups.

Besides the Internet, the only information source that gained a significant share of devotees between the 2000 and 2008 elections was National Public Radio, which saw its listenership climb from 12 to 18 percent.

All of the other news sources listed on the survey--ranging from morning TV shows to talk radio to news magazines--stayed fairly constant or even dipped a bit over those election cycles. Local television held the top spot as far as popularity goes, with 40 percent of the interviewees saying they get their political information there.

Who influences adoption of open source?

(Credit: Actuate)

Actuate's 2007 survey of enterprise adoption of open source is out, and the results point to a massive groundswell of open-source adoption. Actuate surveyed 602 senior IT executives and discovered a widespread interest in and use of open-source software.

This survey is particularly useful because it tracks attitudes and adoption patterns of open source across three different vertical markets: financial services, public sector, and telco. It's particularly focused on the United States, but also reveals data for the United Kingdom and Germany. (As with other surveys on the U.K., the Actuate survey shows the U.K. trailing other mature markets in open-source adoption.)

Here are some of the most interesting data from the research:

• Only one-fifth of respondents (20.9 percent) describe their organization's level of familiarity with open-source software as 'high,' with a further 43.8 percent rating it as 'moderate.' More than a quarter of respondents (29.1 percent) think their organization's level of familiarity with open source software is 'low.' To me, this says that the market for open source is wide open and can only grow as understanding of open source grows. (Interestingly, this level of familiarity is roughly the same across financial services, the public sector, and telco respondents.) (6)

... Read more

If only the Internet had been around to comfort Rear Window's Miss Lonelyhearts back in 1954.

A new poll shows that nearly 1 in 4 Americans say the Internet could be a stand-in for a significant other for a period of time. Among singles, the percentage was even higher: 31 percent. (One wonders how popular such responses as "reading a good book" or "playing with my cats" were to the question of substitutes.)

The poll examined people's attitudes about the Internet. Results of the online survey, conducted by Zogby International and 463 Communications, were released Wednesday.

The survey also found that there are people willing to have a device implanted in their brain--safely, of course--so they'd have ready access to the Internet. About 11 percent of respondents said so. But more men (17 percent) than women (7 percent) did. (Just think, you could impress many a date and your trivia team would win every week. Although when the suitably impressed person becomes a steady thing, the Internet might get jealous.)

Other tidbits from the results:

•  To help keep track of children's whereabouts, nearly 1 in 5 respondents said they would be willing to have a chip implanted in a child 13 or younger.

•  Among the 18- to 24-year-old set, 78 percent said they have a social-networking profile. More Democrats (32 percent) than Republicans (22 percent) said they have a presence on a social-networking site.

•  When it comes to spirituality, 10 percent said the Internet made them closer to God, but 6 percent said it made them more distant.

•  The self-esteem of Hollywood hotties is safe for now. Halle Berry, Scarlett Johansson and Patrick Dempsey are considered sexier than the iPhone, according to the poll. Respondents were asked who or what was sexier. Berry came in at 27 percent, Johansson had 17 percent and Dempsey got 14 percent. The iPhone tied with Derek Jeter at 6 percent. It doesn't appear that respondents were asked whether owning an iPhone--or simply wearing the iPhone hat--increases one's appeal. (This is just a guess: the people who consider the iPhone sexier than any of the people above probably believe that the Internet could be a substitute for a partner.)

The survey, conducted October 4 through 8, tallied the responses of 9,743 adults across the country. It has a margin of error plus or minus 1 percentage point.

A recent Read/WriteWeb post pointed me to a new Pew/Internet Survey that suggests that "teens" (defined in this study as 12- to 17-year-olds) may view contact by people they don't know as a "cost of doing business" in the online social network environment.

The Pew survey found that about a third of online teens had been contacted online by someone with no connection to them or their friends. Overall, studying all online teens, 7 percent of them had experienced stranger contact that made them feel scared or uncomfortable.

It is important to note that when you look at group of teens who had been contacted by a stranger, nearly of a quarter of them say they felt scared or uncomfortable. Girls were more likely to feel this way, 27 percent compared with 15 percent of boys.

What do these results mean for parents? Social networks are becoming the norm for kids and teens, and "networking" means meeting new people. The question is always how to help kids learn to safely negotiate the public contact that comes into our home through online exposure.