Planet Business

Image of the week: Tidal Thames
Never mind the collective brains of the corporate world perched in the vertiginous offices of Canary Wharf – the real genius present in this photograph are the engineering minds that built the 32-year-old Thames Barrier, the flood defence system on the River Thames, a section of which is pictured here. The barrier has come in handy so far this year, closing a record number of times to reduce the risk to the capital from tidal surges.

However, a civil engineer who was part of the project management team that completed the barrier, Dr Richard Bloore, has said a new river defence should be planned urgently, as this one wasn’t designed to factor in global warming, having been built in response to floods that happened in 1953. Photograph: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

In numbers: Less than no interest
0
The current deposit interest rate set by the European Central Bank. (Its key lending rate to which mortgage rates are linked is 0.25 per cent.)
<0
The International Monetary Fund says the ECB should consider introducing a deposit interest rate that is "mildly negative" – in other words, less than zero.
3.7%
Percentage growth rate for the global economy forecast by the IMF, but it has identified deflation in the euro zone as the key risk and expects economic growth in the region to come in at a more measly 1 per cent.

The lexicon: Pheme
University researchers across Europe are developing a new computer system that they say will be able to judge between truth and fiction on social media, and they have named it Pheme after the Greek mythological figure known for scandalous rumour.

The creators say Pheme can instantly work out whether or not someone is being true or false and might have proved useful to police during the 2011 London Riots, when it was claimed that animals had been released from London Zoo and that department stores were on fire.

A final version of the system, which is being developed with the aid of a European Union grant, is likely to be completed within 18 months. And then everyone will be completely honest on Twitter forever more.

Getting to know: The Abba jumpsuit
In one of the more depressing postscripts to music history, a new book about Abba claims the band's sequinned jumpsuits, glittering hotpants, silver knee-high boots and other, ahem, striking wardrobe pieces were chosen so that the cost of the outfits could be deducted against tax. Several countries, including Sweden apparently, have tax codes that specify that clothes that are very definitely costumes and not "streetwear" are tax-deductible.

The semantic haziness involved here has nevertheless led to everyone from television presenters to barristers trying to persuade tax authorities that the clothes they require for their job should qualify, on the basis that they wouldn't personally choose to wear them on the street. Also, when you think about it, this part of the tax code explains so much about popular culture.

The list: Reasons to spend billions on WhatsApp
Facebook's acquisition of mobile-messaging application start-up WhatsApp for $16 billion, plus another $3 billion in stock, has had everyone doubting its corporate sanity and/or the concept of a billion dollars. So what possible reasons could chief executive Mark Zuckerberg have for doing this deal?
1 It's actually a bargain: WhatsApp, which is used by more than 450 million people, has been described as a stealth global telco.
2 It's a developing world play: Zuckerberg says WhatsApp will add to its efforts on Internet.org, what it calls its initiative to "make basic internet services affordable for everyone".
3 Other people's money:Facebook is flush with investors' funding. Surely they won't mind too much if its management spend some of it.
4 If you can't beat them, buy them: Facebook is likely to have seen WhatsApp's popularity as a threat to its own.
5 It's all a big misunderstanding: Zuckerberg actually meant to spend $16 billion on a "massaging" service, as a typo in a BBC News text alert reported the story.