According to a new brief by Forrester Research B.V., the IT technology gap between Europe and the US will grow by 4.5 percent this year. Based on GDP growth projection, historical spending trends, and proprietary research into industry confidence, Forrester's yearly ICT benchmark predicts a decline of 0.4 percent in real terms in Europe's ICT spending. Senior Analyst Charles Homs said, "By 2004, ICT will only form 6.9 percent of the European economy, compared with 9.6 percent for the US. While Germany will remain the largest European economy for the next three years, its ICT industry won't follow suit.

Of interest to those dealing with household transportation and automobile ownership, useful facts about the nation's cars, trucks, vans, and motorcycles are now available from the Department of Transportation's 2001 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS). Of the nation's 204 million vehicles in 2001, only 24 million (or 12 percent) were SUVs. They are greatly outnumbered by the 37 million pick-up trucks on the road (18 percent of vehicles).

Though the Super Bowl is over, it would appear from a new study by Ipsos-ASI, as reported by David Brandt, that advertisers got their money’s worth! While most of the research and polling around Super Bowl advertising is focused on which ads viewers liked or were well produced, this study examined whether Super Bowl ads work better than ads in other major football games and were more memorable to consumers.