britain

Google, Amazon, Starbucks face tax scrutiny in U.K.

If a firm can generate billions of dollars in sales and only pay minimal tax rates, is it fair?

Reuters reports that executives from Google, Amazon, and Starbucks will be queried today by the U.K.'s Public Accounts Committee.

The questions that will arise are whether these firms are conducting themselves fairly in light of the current economic climate, and whether the amount of tax paid in the U.K. by each company is acceptable when they make millions abroad -- or use legal maneuvering to pay as little as possible when the taxman comes knocking.

The Public Accounts … Read more

Phew! Britain has anti-alien weapons

I've become a bit of a worrier of late.

Not because I worry about the coming election, Windows 8, or things that seem to move in my fridge.

No, it's the idea that with man proving he can leap in from outer space, outer-spaceans might try to do the same.

I am sure that our government will want to reassure us. I know that President Obama has told NASA to call him the minute aliens land.

But how can we possibly defend against outerworld beings? We don't seem terribly good at defeating inter-world ones.

Thankfully, I bring … Read more

British PM joins Twitter, draws immediate heavy fire

British Prime Minister David Cameron has joined Twitter, following in the footsteps of dozens of other global leaders.

Verified account holder @David_Cameron joined the microblogging site on Saturday, a day before his Conservative political party starts its annual conference in Birmingham, U.K.

During the weekend, the prime minister amassed more than 88,000 followers at the time of writing on his newly-created personal account.

Twitter U.K. announced the joining of the country's leader on its blog, noting that his signing up makes him the 370th member of the U.K. Parliament on the site -- or more … Read more

Can the Brits put handcuffs on online porn?

Perhaps you have noticed over the years that when you walk into a bookstore, the copies of Playboy are covered in opaque plastic.

This is so that the eyes and minds of the young and sensitive won't be coarsened by the sight of a partially clad human body.

Well, in Britain, quite a few influential souls are trying to so the same with the Internet.

There is a growing movement -- championed by one of liberty's great pillars, the Daily Mail -- to make online porn opt-in, rather than simply available at the twitch of a mouse.

The Prime Minister himself, … Read more

Aboard the ship that launched a thousand ocean liners

BRISTOL, England--Imagine being a wealthy traveler in the early 1840s and thinking about whether to buy a ticket aboard the brand-new SS Great Britain, an iron-hull giant of an ocean liner. It promised a speedy crossing from the U.K. to New York, but to your skeptical eyes, it probably also promised a speedy split in half and an agonizing drowning on the high seas.

That was the dynamic that awaited Isambard Kingdom Brunel's great new ship when it was launched in 1843 by England's Prince Albert. Brunel, a famous engineer responsible for, among other things, the Great … Read more

Segways banned from U.K. sidewalks

Segway fans are trundling mad today, following a magistrate's ruling that the two-wheeled wobblers can't be ridden on the sidewalk in the U.K.

The ruling (PDF) concluded a test case that saw an unemployed factory worker, Phillip Coates (pictured right), fined 75 pounds ($120) for riding a Segway on a sidewalk in Barnsley. Coates was also slapped with a bill for 265 pounds ($424) in costs.

The case hinged on whether a Segway could be described as "a mechanically propelled vehicle intended or adapted for use on roads." The judge in the case decided they … Read more

U.K. rebuilding EDSAC computer from 1949

Turning up their noses at modern handheld devices, British researchers are rebuilding a 60-year-old, room-size computer that used 5-foot-long tubes of mercury as memory.

The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) was first built at Cambridge University. It's recognized as the world's first practical electronic stored-program computer, and unlike earlier program-controlled computers, none of its wiring or switches had to be changed to perform a new calculation.

Programs were fed into the machine on a punched tape. The first was run on May 6, 1949, computing a set of square numbers.

As a general-purpose research tool, EDSAC was … Read more

Bloodhound SSC car faster than a speeding bullet

Bloodhound SSC is a bona fide rocket car and Britain's latest attempt to break the world land speed record. Crave UK got up close and personal with the jet-powered non-flier at England's Gadget Show Live, where Rich Trenholm met Nick Chapman from the project's Web team.

Click here to watch a video of Crave UK's interview with Chapman.

Susan Boyle falters, clutches stomach, and sings on

After exposing so much reality, who could be surprised that she began with a false note?

Susan Boyle, the singer who entered the world's consciousness and was given a very large apartment there, all because of YouTube, stepped onstage for her second performance in "Britain's Got Talent" to expectations that exceeded anything she could possibly deliver.

Her hair was darker (though still pleasantly wild), her eyebrows still brooding, and her dress a little more expensive.

Her voice, though, faltered under the lights of a billion eyeballs.

The first notes of "Memory" from the musical &… Read more

Susan Boyle won't have longevity, says judge

Is YouTube fame instant, but hellishly short?

Or can the remarkable talent of Susan Boyle transcend the quick fix provided by the Web?

As far as "Britain's Got Talent" judge Amanda Holden is concerned, the Boyle phenomenon will not enjoy the time-travel of, say, Boyle's Law.

On the eve of Boyle's semifinal performance on Sunday, Holden told the News of the World: "She'll be an instant international superstar--but I don't think she'll have longevity."

Saying that she was unsure whether Boyle would even perform well in the semifinals, Holden added: &… Read more