Infotech Lead America: Skype has launched International Technology Upgrade Week (ITUW), an initiative by Norton by Symantec and TomTom.
The global initiative is expected to encourage consumers to regularly download free software updates to their computers, smartphones and tablets and other portable devices, like GPS units.
The prime focus of International Technology Upgrade Week is to directly address consumers’ concerns and educate them on the value of keeping their software up to date, especially when many updates are free.
A recent survey of American, British and German consumers revealed that 40 percent of adults don’t always update software on their computers when initially prompted to do so.
In each country, approximately one quarter of those surveyed said they don’t clearly understand what software updates do and an equal percentage of consumers don’t understand the benefits of updating regularly.
According to the survey, while three quarters of adults received notifications on their computers telling them to update their software, more than half said they needed to see a prompt between two and five times before downloading and installing an update.
“Only by regularly upgrading, are consumers able to enjoy the benefits of improved voice and video calling quality, longer mobile battery life and bug fixes, in addition to new features that we regularly add across our product portfolio, like Photo Sharing on mobile, or Group Video Calling and Group Screen Sharing on a computer,” said Linda Summers, director of Product Marketing at Skype.
Norton security software recently blocked more than 5.5 billion malicious attacks in 2011, an increase of 81 percent over the previous year.
TomTom’s in-car location and navigation products may experience out of date maps or get stuck in traffic by not regularly updating the software. All TomTom portable navigation devices are enabled to receive free daily map changes. These updates enable drivers to keep the TomTom map on their device up-to-date with immediate changes in their area, such as changed speed limits, new street names, blocked roads and new traffic directions.
