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7 Feb 2025

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Consents granted for 264 homes in rent-to-own project in Morningside
A construction project by KiwiSaver fund manager Simplicity has the necessary resource consents to build 264 homes in Morningside.

Mouse plague causes havoc for critically endangered Alborn skink
Only 30 of the lizards remain.

Chrome’s Incognito mode no longer saves copied stuff to clipboard history
It’s been a few years since Microsoft started making changes to Chromium, the open-source engine that powers most web browsers today, including Chrome and Edge. One of the more recent changes grants more privacy to end users in Incognito and InPrivate modes. Turns out, Windows 10 and 11 no longer save content to the clipboard history when you copy stuff while in private browsing mode. Whatever inappropriate thing you’re copying, rest assured that it won’t end up in your clipboard history for others to spot. This change was actually implemented by Microsoft back in 2024 and rolled out by Google later that year — but it wasn’t documented by either company, reports Windows Latest. Normally, when you copy something in a Chromium-based browser, it gets stored in Windows’s Clipboard History (which you can access with the Windows key + V shortcut). If you have Clipboard Sync enabled, that history will sync across all your cloud-synced devices. You probably don’t want that happening when browsing in private, yeah? Well, now you don’t have to worry. This change has been live for a few months now and is effective on Windows 10, Windows 11, macOS, and iOS. Copy away! Just make sure you’re Incognito/InPrivate. Further reading: These tiny Chrome security updates make it better

Hurricanes leave it late to appoint Super Rugby captain
The Hurricanes are yet to name a captain, one week out from the start of the new season.

The growing reputation of a Taranaki-style food festival
It’s well known for its dairy farms and massive cheese factories, but a transplanted New Yorker is working to build Taranaki’s national reputation as a culinary sweet spot.

Why are some schools having teacher only days on Friday?
It’s about attendance levels and the reality that people will go away for the weekend regardless of whether school is on or not.

How to spark the 'amazing flywheel of learning' in disengaged students
A study of thousands of US teenagers found they were both bored at school and stressed out by it, at the same time.

Waiheke housing: New rules for digital nomads could push us out - residents
Some are worried 'digital nomads' could invade their island paradise under the government's new rules.

More Maori nurses urgently needed - NSO kaiwhakahaere
Kerri Nuku also called for the embracing of tikanga to make Maori patients and nurses more comfortable.

Tangi for Dame Iritana Tawhiwhirangi: 'Stay strong together'
Dame Iritana Tawhiwhirangi, a founder and champion of the kohanga reo movement, is to be laid to rest this morning at Rahui marae in Tikitiki near East Cape.

Community 'devastated' after fire rips through Roxburgh Town Hall
A total of eight crews of firefighters fought the blaze in the middle of the central Otago town, which destroyed the Roxburgh Town Hall, including its 128-year-old cinema.

Bill Gates: ‘Intel lost its way’
Bill Gates was once the embodiment of the computer industry. Though the co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft retired over a decade ago to pursue full-time philanthropy, people still listen when he talks — and in a recent interview, he talked about Intel. Intel is having a rough time of late. The chipmaker’s stock is practically in freefall. It’s had high-profile failures for its most powerful CPUs, and rivals AMD and especially Nvidia are kicking its silicon butt in the AI arms race. In December, the company’s CEO Pat Gelsinger stepped down after working for Intel on-and-off for decades. Yeah, it’s bad. Intel is also one of Microsoft’s most important partners, so it’s no surprise that the company’s woes came up in an interview with the Associated Press. “I am stunned that Intel basically lost its way,” Gates said. “They missed the AI chip revolution, and with their fabrication capabilities, they don’t even use standards that people like Nvidia and Qualcomm find easy. I thought Pat Gelsinger was very brave to say, ‘No, I am going to fix the design side, I am going to fix the fab side.’ I was hoping for his sake, for the country’s sake, that he would be successful. I hope Intel recovers, but it looks pretty tough for them at this stage.” It’s a bleak snippet in an otherwise positive interview, and it doesn’t offer any realistic paths for Intel to make up ground. The company’s most recent desktop and laptop chips have been met with more acclaim, and its new discrete GPUs are positioned to thrive in a budget space that has been woefully underserved for the last few years. But you can’t make hundreds of billions in profit selling cards to cash-strapped PC gamers… and with Nvidia still standing strong even after taking a hard knock from the DeepSeek news, that’s definitely the measure of success for modern chipmakers. Don’t take this for hyperbole. Intel isn’t in danger of an imminent collapse. But after dominating the market for both consumers and enterprises for decades, the company simply isn’t the powerhouse it was a few years ago. The most recent development is that the stock price got a welcome shot in the arm following rumors of an acquisition, something that would have been unthinkable not so long ago.