NZCity NewsLinks -

All Links

28 Feb 2025

Search

The 89-year-old power lifter who can raise her own body weight
Avila Allsop made the decision to take up powerlifting at the age of 86.

Firefighters brace for wind shift as battle against Waipoua forest fire enters third day
While 50 percent of the blaze is now contained, the fire is estimated to be about 96 hectares.

Two legs v four: New Central Otago race pits runners against riders
A Central Otago race is pitting two legs against four as runners and horse-riders tackle a 40 kilometre course across the Maniototo.

Attempts to extradite officials not on Luxon's agenda in Hanoi
Two Vietnamese officials are suspected of indecently assaulting two women at a Wellington restaurant last year.

Five years on from New Zealand's first Covid-19 case - have we changed?
Five years after that first case most people on the streets of Tamaki Makaurau say they remember where they were when they first heard the news.

Changes are underway for the media industry, but it's a messy process
Media oversight and regulation is described as messy, and screen productions desperately need help.

If your mouse wheel only scrolls in two directions, you’re missing out
No doubt you use your mouse’s scroll wheel to scroll up and down in browser windows and in programs like Microsoft Word – perhaps without even realizing it. If you’re a gamer, you may even find it to be the quickest way to swap items or weapons. But if you’re just scrolling on your y-axis, you’re really missing out! Both gaming and general-use mice also come with four-directional scroll wheels now and getting one can really revolutionize your work or play. Here’s why… Speed up workflow When it comes to productivity, setting up the tools you need for an efficient workflow is a no-brainer. Most people will do that with a mouse that has two-directional scrolling, but a mouse with four-directional scrolling, like this $20 one, gives you more options to personalize that workflow. To illustrate that point, with a normal two-directional mouse you’re likely to see disruptions to your workflow if you’re, say, scrolling up/down but need to use your keyboard for commands like Ctrl + Shift to move horizontally through app windows or spreadsheets, since you will have to pause and switch between peripherals. But with four scrolling directions in your mouse wheel, you won’t be burdened by that problem. In fact, the two additional scroll directions may well be enough for you to avoid having to use a hybrid setup altogether. Another advantage is you get finer pointer control. That’s especially beneficial for creative professionals like graphic designers that need pinpoint accuracy. Mentioned in this article… Turtle Beach Kone II Read our review Best Prices Today: $59.99 at Amazon The other way a mouse with a four-directional scroll wheel can improve productivity is by giving you quicker access to your shortcuts. If you don’t want or need horizonal scrolling, you can simply assign shortcuts there that will speed up your workflow. Common commands like cut and paste, or redo and undo are top choices and can save you the hassle of laboriously clicking and selecting commands from menus, reaching for keyboard shortcuts, or searching through cluttered taskbars. Better ergonomics “Give your wrist a break,” could be the official motto of mice with four-directional scroll wheels. That’s because by being able to scroll horizontally with just your finger you don’t have to move your mouse from side to side as much, thereby saving your wrist from excess tension and strain. If you’re prone to wrist issues that can affect your ability to work, like carpal tunnel syndrome, this functionality could be just the break you need to put some comfort back into your workday. Logitech’s MX Ergo is notable for its ergonomic design, which includes a four-directional scroll wheel. It also comes with a trackball for even easier cursor control. More flexibility in gaming Four-directional scroll wheels are useful for gaming too, which is why so many gaming mice have them. Some of my favorite models include the Turtle Beach Kone II, Logitech G502X, and the Razer Basilisk V3. These are all top-performing gaming mice with accurate and quick sensors, and their four-directional scroll wheels add to their versatility. The Logitech G502XDominic Bayley How gamers choose to put the extra scroll functionality to use really comes down to the type of games they’re playing and their individual preferences. Again, some gamers will find value in applying the horizontal scrolling functionality, whereas others will see the big advantage in assigning extra commands there. Further reading: Best gaming mice I’ve already mentioned how a scroll wheel can be used to switch weapons, but some other ways players use four-directional scroll wheels to enhance their gaming include: Easier inventory management: You won’t need to use right and left arrow keys for scrolling through inventories in games like MMOs or RPGs when you can effortlessly scroll left or right with your mouse wheel. Quick access to macros: Launching macros via your mouse wheel is a lot faster than via your keyboard. With a four-directional mouse wheel you can launch macros with one or more functions and save the other functions for changing weapons or executing other useful commands. Lean-left or lean-right functionality: The extra functionality in four-directional scroll wheels comes in handy in some first-person shooters where you need to lean left or right or peer around corners. Adjust in-game settings: The extra functionality can also give you quick access to game settings like your volume or brightness without having to exit your game and enter the game menu. One more thing… You will have to configure your four-directional scroll wheel to get the most out of it. That’s easily done in your gaming mouse’s companion software app. And, just like a regular mouse, the commands you assign can be stored and saved in profiles, so you can tailor your commands to suit the different games you play.

Job market begins showing signs of recovery, according to advertising data
Seek says after six months of consistently falling job ads the rate of decline has slowed down.

Government struggles with lack of visibility of big projects ahead of Budget 2025
The government has over $140 billion of projects being planned or built, and while cost pressures are put at just one billion, Treasury is not sure about the figure.

Auckland Eyesores: The car park splitting a town centre for decades
Aside from the weekly markets and graffiti park, the otherwise unused land breaks up the retail “journey”.

Rawiri Waititi performs at Te Matatini, says haka is form of 'political expression'
"Maori are very political people," Waititi who performed at Te Matatini on Thursday with new group Te Taumata o Apanui, said.

Sports streaming is too expensive, and the streamers know it
It’s taken a couple years, but regional sports networks are starting to realize they charge too much to stream local games. NESN 360, which offers live streams of the Boston Red Sox and Bruins, just dropped its annual price from $330 to $240, while also throwing in four Red Sox tickets. Main Street Sports Group, which operates regional FanDuel Sports Network channels, has hinted at lower prices as well, and in some markets, local games stream for free or are available over-the-air with an antenna. What you’re witnessing are the first tweaks to a misguided sports streaming strategy, one that assumes high direct-to-consumer prices will discourage cord-cutting while offsetting the revenue losses linked to the decline of cable TV. That strategy hasn’t been working for regional sports networks, and it’s not going to work for the likes of ESPN and Fox, which plan to launch their own expensive streaming services later this year. A broken model The regional sports model—and live sports in general—used to be extremely lucrative. Sports networks earned per-subscriber fees from every cable customer, so they made money even from folks who never watched sports. That model’s been unraveling as more folks cancel their cable and satellite subscriptions. Most live TV streaming services don’t offer regional sports networks because they don’t bring in enough viewers to justify the cost, and those that do—namely DirecTV Stream and Fubo—relegate regional sports to more expensive tiers. Even on the cable side, Comcast has stopped offering regional sports in its base packages to keep prices down. Meanwhile, a growing proportion of cord-cutters are realizing they don’t need pay TV bundles at all. These trends have put regional sports networks in a bind. They don’t want to offer anything that would risk the easy money that still comes from cable, but they also can’t ignore their declining customer base and the growing proportion of viewers who’ve moved away from pay TV. The failed solution To address this dilemma, most regional sports networks have opted to charge excessive rates for standalone streaming. FanDuel Sports Network, for instance, only costs between $3 to $8 per month as part of a cable bundle, yet it costs $20 per month on its own. NESN’s carriage fee was a little over $5 per month as of 2021, yet NESN 360 costs $30 per month. The thinking goes that if standalone streaming is expensive enough, it’ll reach a new generation of cable-free superfans without actively encouraging more cord-cutting. Too bad the strategy isn’t working. When FanDuel Sports Network’s streaming service launched in 2022 (under the name Bally Sports+), its owners hoped it would eventually reach 4.4 million subscribers. The actual subscriber count today is only around a half-million, and now it projects to reach a less-ambitious 2.8 million subscribers by 2027. Meanwhile, the channel has lost 22 million pay TV subscribers over the past four years, and by 2027 its owners expect to lose 6 million more. The truth is that there just aren’t aren’t enough people willing to pay $20 to $30 per month for regional sports, nor are there enough people willing to keep expensive pay TV packages just to watch those channels. Like a lot of streamers, the regional sports networks have underestimated peoples’ ability to tune out. Lowering the paywall All this brings us to the news that NESN 360 is cutting the price of annual plans, from $330 to $240. The service’s monthly plan still costs $30, but the annual option will make a lot more sense for year-round Boston sports fans, especially with Red Sox tickets thrown in. Speaking to Mollie Cahillane at Sports Business Journal, NESN president David Wisnia acknowledged that it was asking too much. “Inflation is high,” he said. “There’s a saturation limit in terms of DTC [direct-to-consumer] right now, and we wanted to get into people’s homes and make it as available as we can, while balancing the financials of it and making sure it still makes sense for us.” NESN isn’t alone in changing its tune. Last month, Main Street Sports Group CEO David Preschlack told CNBC’s Alexander Sherman that the company is considering price cuts for FanDuel Sports Network as well. “We have the ability to go lower, and we’re going to test different price points, absolutely,” he said. Meanwhile, some teams are already embracing a philosophy of long-term reach over short-term subscription revenues. In Utah, a subscription to watch local Jazz games still costs $20 per month, but you can also watch for free with an antenna or your can stream individual games for $5 each. Jazz owner Ryan Smith told Sherman he’d never go back to the old model. “The more people watch, the more people come to games, the more we sell in concessions, the more money we bring in with sponsorships,” Smith said. Omens for ESPN and Fox The strategy of charging high standalone rates for sports streaming isn’t just going to be troublesome for regional sports networks. This year, both ESPN and Fox plan to launch their own standalone services. ESPN’s is rumored to cost between $25 and $30 per month, and Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch has told investors that it will intentionally charge a high price, so as not to cannibalize its pay TV business. “We don’t want, and we have no intention of, turning a traditional distribution customer into our direct-to-consumer customer,” Murdoch said. “So, our subscriber expectations will be modest, and we’re going to price the service accordingly.” Good luck with that. If sports fans are balking at $30 per month to watch their favorite teams every day or two, why would casual sports fans pay similar prices for a smattering of nationally televised games they might not even care about? Moreover, what’s even the point of offering a service whose price is intentionally unappealing? Regional sports networks are already failing at the same strategy, and the national sports networks will be next. What’s the solution? Sports streamers still have to pay astronomical costs for live sports rights, and those costs aren’t coming down anytime soon. That means direct-to-consumer streaming probably won’t get much cheaper on its own. What we’ll likely see instead is more attractive and flexible bundling. Disney and Max are already finding success bundling their non-sports streaming services together at a discount, and Disney could pursue something similar for ESPN with Fox’s streaming service. Perhaps they could also offer regional sports add-ons at lower-than-standalone rates. Instead of making everyone pay for sports, they can offer fairer pricing by putting lots of sports in one place. Sports networks have spent far too long trying to prop up traditional TV packages with little to show for it. They’d be wise to start building something better to replace it. Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter for more streaming TV insights.