Teknovis

A friend brought Amazon‘s latest announcement to my attention today – Prime Air! I think it is really impressive, although I am not sure if Amazon’s goods are particularly suitable. My Amazon orders tend to be bulky, relatively heavy for air lifting, and fragile!

Several people have questioned if this is a hoax, but I think it is believable!

Tags: Amazon

There is currently a proposal in the US to change the law regarding patents, as described in Finally, a bill to end patent trolling.

I think that it would be brilliant if this came into law!

I watched this interesting video about the past and future of Adobe‘s Photoshop – Thomas Knoll: The Story of Photoshop.

The discussion on Adobe’s move to subscription based pricing is particularly interesting. I must admit that I would not buy software under that licensing model!

Tags: Adobe, Photoshop

I heard about Raise Your IQ a few months ago, but I never got around to blogging about it. I must admit that I know very little about it, and I would normally be quick to dismiss such a concept. However, what caught my attention was the number of well known entities that are behind this, including NUI Maynooth and Enterprise Ireland.

I hope to give it a try coming into the winter months. I will be sure to write about my experiences here :)

Tags: Enterprise Ireland, NUIM

I previously wrote about Ask Patents in Ask Patents. It appears that it has just had its first victory, and it was against Microsoft! For more details see Victory Lap for Ask Patents.

I wonder if this is a once off victory, or the start of many victories!

Tags: Microsoft

Some Friday afternoon humour… I discovered Stu’s Views this week! If you have ever worked with any legal people then you might find this frighteningly true!

Enjoy!

This evening I read that Doug Engelbart, the inventor of the mouse, died. See Computer mouse inventor Doug Engelbart dies at 88.

I had never heard of him before today, and it never dawned on me to think about how the mouse that we all use every day came into existence!

So thank you Mr. Engelbart for your invention, and may you rest in peace.

(On a side note, the associated 10 inventors who didn’t get mega-rich from their inventions article is also an interesting read.)

I came across this fascinating map showing mobile phone types today – Mobile Devices + Twitter Use.

Tags: Mobile Phone, Twitter

I heard of an interesting situation in a small Irish technology company recently. The company is successful, and it generates a small profit. In previous years some of this profit was redistributed to employees in the form of a bonus.

However, this year management decided to do a cost-benefit analysis on these bonuses. It was not a surprise that they found it was very bad value, due to the punitive income tax rates in Ireland. See Bruton criticises high income tax rates for an explanation, and bear in mind that this does not consider employer’s PRSI. There is roughly 4€ of benefit to the employee for every 10€ spent by the company.

So instead the management allowed employees to choose from a list of alternative incentives that would not incur a tax liability. Some of these incentives included:

• Additional annual leave
• Additional investment in informal employee education and training
  • Travel and accommodation for attending foreign trade shows and conferences
  • Purchasing of new hardware relating to the business (smart phones, tablets, laptops)
• Improved office facilities
  • Free food
  • The creation of a recreational zone
• Donations to charities of the employees’ choosing

There were more, but I cannot remember them all now.

Unsurprisingly, not even one person choose to receive a bonus! So now the government is not going to get even a single cent of income tax from the potential bonus pool. Furthermore, this means that the company’s total income tax bill this year will be the lowest in many years.

So what is the moral of this story? There are two!

Firstly, there are many rewards that employers can offer employees that have a one-to-one cost-benefit balance. It is just a matter of thinking creatively!

Secondly, that by continually increasing income tax rates the government is taking a larger percentage of a smaller amount of money!

Tags: Ireland, Tax

I came across this word cloud depicting the most common passwords a while ago (click image to see larger version):

Common Passwords (Copyright Unknown)

Unfortunately, I cannot remember the source :(