Reuters reports that, according to according to a survey released today, “[t]rust in business plummeted worldwide last year, as the global economic crisis sent financial institutions pleading for government support, leaving average people to question industry's ability to bring prosperity. Some 62 percent of informed adults aged 25 to 64 told the Edelman Trust Barometer that they trusted businesses less than they had a year ago, with respondents in the United States and Western Europe more suspicious than those in emerging economies. The biggest drops came in Ireland, where 83 percent of respondents said they had lost trust in business; in Japan, where 79 percent grew more wary; and in the United States, where 77 percent became more suspicious.”
Internetnews.com reveals that “[i]n their never-ending war with antivirus vendors and other malware fighters, cybercriminals have come up with a new twist to evade detection – putting up malicious sites for one day or less on average. Antivirus vendor AVG Research found that in the last quarter of 2008, about 60 percent of new sites linked to malware were up for less than one day. The average number of such new Web sites put up daily grew from between 100,000 and 200,000 to between 200,000 and 300,000, AVG said. Using short-lived Web sites and pages makes it more difficult to track and stop malware authors, Roger Thompson, chief research officer at AVG, told InternetNews.com. The most common use for these short-lived sites is to deliver fake antispyware, also known as scareware. Users are told their computer is infected and they need to download a ‘cleaner,’ when in fact that ‘cleaner’ is the infecting payload.”
According to a different article, Internetnews.com points out that “[i]t was only a matter of time before the academics got involved in the debate around U.S. broadband and communications policy. And today, they warned that a lot more needs to happen to get the nation back on track. ‘I often wonder what the fate would be of a CEO who doesn't set goals for the corporation he or she leads. But there are no goals for broadband penetration in America,’ Amit Schejter, an assistant professor at Penn State University, said during remarks today here at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank. For months, public-interest groups in Washington have been lining up IT and telecom policy agendas in anticipation of the new administration, with many seeking to push for greater funding for greater access to broadband. Today, more than a dozen scholars from major research universities added their voices to the chorus. Schejter was on-hand to introduce ‘And Communications for All,’ a collection of policy essays by 16 scholars from 11 research universities, covering topics ranging from broadband deployment to media reform.”
Internetnews.com also reports that “Microsoft posted the first Release Candidate (RC1) for its Internet Explorer 8 browser. […] ‘Release Candidate’ status means the product is done and now Microsoft is looking for showstopper bugs. The product is otherwise feature and functionality complete. In announcing the RC, IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch said the product is effectively ‘complete and done.’ Developers can expect the final IE8 release ‘to behave as the release candidate does,’ so it's ready for application testing. Hachamovitch seemed to indicate there would not be a second release candidate for IE, just the final code.”
CNetNews.com has an interesting post by Matt Asay discussing which technology companies have enough “cash to survive the downturn.”