20 and has now sold a cumulative 26 million
units globally, according to Nintendo.
According to the NPD Group, during the first
11 months of 2020, Nintendo Switch sold 6.92
million units in the U.S. It has been the best-
selling console in units sold for 24 consecutive
months, a record.
— Zoom
All video conferencing software from Microsoft
Teams to WebEx thrived during the abrupt shift
of tens of millions of people to remote working
and schooling during pandemic. But only one
became a verb.
Zoom Video Communications was a relatively
unheralded company before the pandemic hit,
but its ease of use let to wide adoption during
the pandemic. There were some growing
pains, including lax security that lead to “Zoom
bombing” breaches early on. The company
revamped its security and remains one of the
popular platforms to host remote meetings
and classes.
— Ransomware purveyors
The ransomware scourge — in which criminals
hold data hostage by scrambling it until victims
pay up — reached epic dimensions in 2020,
dovetailing terribly with the COVID-19 plague.
In Germany, a patient turned away from the
emergency room of a hospital whose IT system
was paralyzed by an attack died on the way to
another hospital.
In the U.S., the number of attacks on healthcare
facilities was on track to nearly double from 50
in 2019. Attacks on state and local governments
were up about 50% to more than 150. Even