Author: Perry

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNETGet more in-depth ZDNET tech coverage: Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome and Chromium browsers.I’m currently in the final stages of putting my kit together for a 100km walk across northwestern Spain, and one thing that I’m definitely going to need is a universal charger (I live in the UK, so the sockets are different in Europe). I’ll need something that’ll handle charging my phone, power bank, headlamp, iPad, satellite messenger, Apple Watch Ultra 3, and other bits and pieces. Also: I replaced my MacBook charger with this compact wall unit – and wish I’d done it soonerIt needs to…

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If National Insurance was charged on landlords’ rental income that would have dire consequences for personal landlords operating in their own names. That is according to the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association (IMLA), which warned that it would create a two-tier system that would widen the gulf between individual and corporate property owners. The proposal, floated as part of pre-Budget speculation, could push many landlords’ effective tax rates to unsustainable levels. IMLA’s research shows that 58% of higher-rate taxpayers letting properties in their own name would face total tax and NI bills exceeding their entire rental profit and would be paying…

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21 October, 2025 11 min read Share Copy Link Copied How much of your business’s selling price do you retain as profit? If you raised prices or cut costs, how would these adjustments affect your margin? And do you know how your margin compares to your markup? Whether you’ve been in business for years or you’re setting your first pricing strategy, you need to know how to calculate profit margin. While the formula is straightforward, margin has many nuances. For your reference, we provide a margin calculator that can do the math for you, or help you to check your…

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While the world's leading artificial intelligence companies race to build ever-larger models, betting billions that scale alone will unlock artificial general intelligence, a researcher at one of the industry's most secretive and valuable startups delivered a pointed challenge to that orthodoxy this week: The path forward isn't about training bigger — it's about learning better."I believe that the first superintelligence will be a superhuman learner," Rafael Rafailov, a reinforcement learning researcher at Thinking Machines Lab, told an audience at TED AI San Francisco on Tuesday. "It will be able to very efficiently figure out and adapt, propose its own theories,…

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The Mayor of London can now override planning decisions on developments of more than 50 homes, in signs Sadiq Khan is taking more drastic actions to boost housebuilding. City Hall can also become the decision-maker in developments of 1,000sqm or more on green belt land. The proportion of homes that need to be ‘affordable’ have been cut to 20%, down from 35%. It was already publicly known the Greater London Authority was weighing up whether to make that change, which it’s claimed could cut six months from the planning process. Faraz Baber, chief operating officer at planning consultancy Lanpro, said:…

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21 October, 2025 11 min read Share Copy Link Copied Whether you’re evaluating a potential purchase or analysing an existing asset, you need to know how to measure the return on investment (ROI). Are you considering an investment but need confirmation that the gains outweigh the costs by a certain ratio? Have your business partners requested profitability insights prior to making a major acquisition? In this article, we’ll cover the essentials of ROI, including how to calculate it and maximise it. We’ll also provide an ROI calculator that can do the math for you or validate your numbers. By the end…

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