Do the big technology companies dodge tax?

A very big issue at the moment is that of the big technology companies such as Apple and Google not paying enough in tax.

But what is the cause of this debate?

The companies themselves seem to think they are following the law perfectly and are just doing what makes the most sense for their businesses.

The governement seem to be saying that they are unlawfully avoiding paying taxes.

But are the government just blaming them to try and get voters on their side?

The recession has made finances tight for ordinary people and its very easy to point the finger at big business as teh cause of this.

A really interesting article from the BBC who spoke to Eric Schmidt over the issuye can be found here

Source: BBC news

XBox one announcement

The announcement of the new XBox one is currently streaming live on the guardian website

Take a look here if you are interested

Source: The guardian

Box

BBC news have made a really interesting article about the CEO of cloud storage firm Box.

The article can be found here

Source: BBC news

MOOCs

Massive Open Online Courses

"MOOCs are a new and exciting way of learning which are open to all and best of all they are completely free. All you need is an internet connection and a positive attitude. The initiative will bring learning to life and remove the barriers to education for people across the world – no matter what stage of life they are at."

Quote from this article

The internet has massive potential for anybody, with a bit of initiative, to educate themselves and the universities are doing their best to provide as high quality information as possible.

The best part is that it is free for everyone. People who would never of had the opportunity to learn about something that interests them now have a free and easily available means to do so.

I envisage that in the future these will be used by all different types of people. 

Adults wanting to learn new skills for work or just to satisfy their curiosity

 Bright young people wanting to learn more than they are taught in schools and students wanting to learn about other areas not just their own course.

Source: University of Sheffield

Euler's solution for the bridges of Königsberg problem

This links back to the earlier blog post: The bridges of Königsberg

From the diagram it seems like this may be possible. However, after a few attempts using trial and error of different routes you keep ending up having to use an edge more than once.

Graph theory allows the problem to be simplified down to:

The famous mathematician Leonhard Euler came up with necessary and sufficient conditions for a graph to be Eulerian: starting at any vertex you can cross every edge and end up back where you started
(Or, equivalently, the graph can be drawn without having to take the pen off the paper)

Or semi-Eulerian: starting at one vertex you can walk along every edge but end in a different place to where you started.

For a graph to be Eulerian every vertex must have even degree (the number of edges coming out of that vertex).

Using the simplified graph version of the bridges of Königsberg problem we can see that degrees of the vertices are:

a 3

b 5

c 3

d 3

So it is clearly not possible to walk across every edge (bridge) exactly once beginning and ending in the same place or different places.

A natural question is to ask how many edges need to be added to make the graph Eulerian?

Hint: every edge must start and finish at a vertex

5/8/13

Today, the 8th of May 2013, when written in the American way of writing dates, 5/8/13, makes up 3 of the numbers from the Fibonacci sequel

3D printed cars

3D printing is a very exciting technology for the very near future.

We saw a few days ago the first 3D printed gun being fired and now a slightly less lethal application of the technology has been announced: 3D printed cars.

What is even more exciting is that these cars could be more fuel efficient than current cars. Also they will be made using much less parts and could hit the road in only two years!

Source: Stratasys

The IT crowd returns!

It has been confirmed that one of my favourite television shows ever will be returning for a one off special.

The IT crowd is returning for a 40 minute special finale accoridng to this article.

http://observationdeck.io9.com/the-it-crowd-is-returning-for-one-last-episode-493981019

All the first 4 series are available are on 4od if you want to catch up or try it for the first time it is definitely worth watching.

The internet of things

More and more physical objects are being fitted with sensors that can send data from their environment to other computers to be analysed which can then initiate a response. 

This new technology is called the Internet of things.

The possibilities of this new technology is huge and in the future could impact all our daily lives.

A more in depth article on the internet of things can be found here.

Another really interesting article about more of the possibilities the Internet of Things promises, and also some of the privacy concerns that come with these smart new devices can be found here

Source:McKinsey and company
http://www.dw.de/

Internet outlaws

The guardian have posted an interesting article about how internet activist groups like anonymous get started, what kind of people are involved and the kind of punishments they face for hacking into sites on the internet.

The article can be found here

Source: The guardian