Wireless set to explode

Yogesh Gupta, CTO at Computer Associates International, predicts "explosive" growth for wireless Internet access.

PC World reports that Gupta told this week`s WiFi Planet Conference and Expo in Baltimore that in the not-too-distant future, car manufacturers will be able to diagnose and fix most problems through a wireless software upgrade sent to cars parked in their owners` driveways.

"Everything is going to be connected - it`s going to be wireless," he told a crowd of about 100 people. "I believe this whole thing is just going to explode."

Two US cellphone service providers say subscribers are using their phones to connect to the Internet more than ever this year, but Net-related revenue still remains low.

CNet reports Verizon Wireless and Sprint are each expected to earn about $1 billion this year from customers downloading games and ringtones, using wireless broadband connections and instant messaging. The report says while that`s a significant improvement over last year, the usage is still below what was predicted when such products and services were introduced.

A US survey shows that efforts by companies working to improve their security have resulted in fewer incidents of unauthorised computer use and a decline in damages from security incidents.

ZDNet says the Computer Security Institute`s survey of security professionals at nearly 500 companies was conducted in cooperation with the FBI.

Respondents said denial-of-service (DoS) attacks were the most costly type of information threat. The report says a shift from intellectual property theft to increasing numbers of DoS attacks may indicate that companies are improving internal-network defences.

All indications are that 2004 could be a record year for chip sales, says Geek.com.

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation is reporting record sales for May 2004, Intel is expecting to make at least $8 billion due to huge demand and high average selling prices, AMD is making substantial profits after raising CPU prices, and Texas Instruments is expecting to bring in over $3 billion in revenue for the second quarter of this year.

Geek.com says 2000 was an excellent year for chipmakers in terms of revenue, profits and volumes of chip sales, but 2004 may go down as an even better year for the semiconductor industry.