- Surfing the Internet is the most popular activity to do instead of paper writing, according to a
recent survey of 190 self-confessed undergraduate procrastinators. The second annual College
Procrastination Study was conducted by Questia Media Inc., a controversial Internet research
service. (See UCEA May 2001 cover story, "New Online Service Makes Writing Research
Papers Easier, But Divides Academic Librarians.") The survey found that 17% of those
polled whiled away their deadlines online, 13% procrastinated by sleeping, and 11% of
procrastinators said they wasted time actually thinking of ways to get out of doing the paper.
Surprisingly, 71% of those polled carried a grade point average of 3.0 or higher. Of all
declared majors, students with business or marketing majors tended to procrastinate the most
(15%) - http://www.questia.com, (E-NEWS FROM UCEA - No 50, 21 May 02)

- An international team of academic and research institutions set a new record for Internet
performance by transferring 625 megabytes of data across more than 7,608 miles of network
in 13 seconds. The rate of 401 Mbps achieved in transferring data from Fairbanks, Alaska to
Amsterdam in the Netherlands was over 8,000 times greater than the fastest dial-up modem.
The Internet2 speed record is an ongoing competition judged on a combination of how much
bandwidth and distance are covered using standard Internet (TCP/IP) protocols -
http://www.internet2.edu/html/i2lsr.shtml (Syllabus News, Resources, Trends, 14 May 02)

- Market research from IDC Technologies, indicates that, for the third year running, notebook
PCs increased their share of the PC market compared to desktop systems. In the first quarter
of 2002 notebooks were 23.8% of worldwide PC shipments, up from 21.8% in the fourth
quarter of 2001 and 22.3% in the first quarter of 2001. Companies that sell both notebooks
and desktops typically profit more from notebooks because they can charge a premium for
portability, according to IDC. Still, it will take time for notebooks to reach 50% of all PC
shipments. IDC predicts that, with the return of corporate buyers to the market, the
percentage of notebooks sold will rise to about 25% by 2005 and as much as 30% by 2006 -
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-898370.html (CNET, 3 May 02