Author: Carter

From 2018 to 2022, English urban councils saw almost double the level of electoral volatility. The median volatility climbed from 12.0 up to 22.5. But the number of competing parties didn’t actually grow. This difference only became clear after resolving a bug in how party categories were handled. In this context, volatility tracks how much vote share shifted between party groups, while fragmentation measures how many parties were truly competing with a realistic chance of winning. A council can experience dramatic swings in voter support without becoming more fragmented — for instance, when one dominant party falters and another picks…

Historically, crypto markets have been driven by a dominant narrative. Not today. In one corner, miners are trying to break free of four-year cycles. IREN is being recast as an AI infrastructure company, with analysts pointing to data centers and compute demand as the real growth engine. In another corner, BitMine is doing the exact opposite, pouring billions deeper into Ether (ETH) even as losses mount. The disconnect doesn’t stop there. Stablecoin balances have ballooned to over $300 billion, yet activity has dropped sharply. It reflects capital waiting, with no clear consensus on what comes next.Meanwhile, institutions are building a…

The majority of back-office IRS staff who were temporarily reassigned to handle frontline tax filing duties will continue in their new roles for the time being. In early February, the IRS assigned roughly 1,500 employees from IT and human resources departments to 120-day temporary positions assisting taxpayers. Most of these workers had no prior experience in taxpayer services and have spent several months undergoing training. The agency faced a 27% reduction in its workforce last year and failed to meet its hiring targets for the filing season. During a Friday morning conference call, Joseph Ziegler, the IRS chief of internal…

[3], a web-based vector compression technique, garnered significant attention at ICLR 2026. To me, it appeared strikingly similar: it shares substantial common ground with EDEN—a compression approach initially proposed as the 1-bit technique DRIVE at NeurIPS 2021 [1] and later extended to support any bit-width at ICML 2022 [2]. I co-authored EDEN alongside Ran Ben-Basat, Yaniv Ben-Itzhak, Gal Mendelson, Michael Mitzenmacher, and Shay Vargaftik. The TurboQuant publication introduces two versions: TurboQuant-mse and TurboQuant-prod. In our recent thorough evaluation [5], we demonstrate that TurboQuant-mse is actually a simplified variant of EDEN, and that EDEN’s approaches consistently deliver superior performance. How EDEN…

Microsoft has rolled out KB5083631, an optional cumulative update for Windows 11. This release delivers 34 changes, featuring a brand-new Xbox mode for PCs, better security and performance for batch files, and faster startup app launches. KB5083631 is a preview update designed for IT administrators to evaluate bug fixes, enhancements, and upcoming features ahead of next month’s Patch Tuesday general release. Unlike standard cumulative updates, optional monthly updates focus solely on quality improvements and do not address security vulnerabilities. With the April 2026 optional update, Microsoft has boosted the performance of apps registered under Settings > Apps > Startup when…

By Chandrakant Deshmukh, Senior Vice President – Architecture & IP Governance, Mastek Step into any enterprise IoT project today and you’ll encounter the same frustrating reality: the devices are in place, the data is streaming, yet the operational insights promised years ago remain frustratingly elusive. The issue is seldom the hardware, and almost never the network connection. It’s the underlying architecture – the choices about where data gets processed, how it travels, and what transformations it undergoes along the way. After nearly twenty years building data platforms for manufacturing, supply chain, and infrastructure clients, I’ve reached a clear conclusion: the…

Mistral AI has been steadily developing one of the most hands-on coding agent ecosystems around, and they’ve just rolled out their biggest infrastructure update to date. The Mistral team unveiled remote agents in Vibe, its coding agent platform, along with the public preview of Mistral Medium 3.5 — a new 128B dense model that now serves as the default in both Vibe and Le Chat, the company’s all-purpose assistant. What is Vibe, and Why Should You Care? For those who haven’t tried it yet, Mistral Vibe is a CLI (command-line interface) coding agent that takes over software tasks for you…

Terry Gerton I’d like to walk through two key developments with you today. First, there’s been a federal court decision that safeguards the Institute of Museum and Library Services. At the same time, the White House has put forward a 2027 budget proposal that would completely cut all funding for IMLS. From the ALA’s point of view, how do these two seemingly unrelated events connect? Sam Helmick We’ve had a fantastic win that really highlights the strength of coalition-building. Partnering with AFSCME to reverse the staff cuts and protect the Institute for Museum and Library Services, and to essentially put…

Cesar Cadenas/ZDNETFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.Just a few months back, at MWC, Motorola gave reporters like myself an early look at the upcoming Razr Fold — and then again at the official launch event in Los Angeles this week. This time around, though, the company pulled back the curtain on everything, and it really helped me see the full picture.I picked up additional details about the US pricing (which remains quite steep), when preorders and shipments begin, and several other fresh and noteworthy features of the Razr Fold. Taking all of this new information into…

Adam Breeden/ZDNETStay updated with ZDNET: Mark us as a preferred news source in Google.TV tech evolves rapidly, making it hard to pick the right model. The process can be simpler when focusing on key details.Currently, two leading display types stand out: Mini LED and OLED. These technologies function differently, each with distinct advantages and drawbacks.Also: Top-rated OLED televisionsIn an OLED (organic light-emitting diode) television, every pixel emits its own light when powered. Colors are produced through light passing through colored filters. Pixels not receiving power remain completely off, resulting in perfect black tones.Mini LED (sometimes labeled QLED or QNED by…