New deals to lure Auckland renters: 'There are lots of options'
Auckland landlords are offering $500 grocery vouchers or a free week's rent but would-be tenants are being told to hold off for more. 
© 2025 RadioNZ 5:45am This free tool cuts through Steam Sales and finds the hidden gems
Almost 19,000 new games were posted to Steam last year. That’s a lot to comb through, even if combing through Steam games is your job. When the Steam Spring Sale hit, I was looking for something new to check out… but basically paralyzed by the discounts for thousands of PC games. I needed a little help—and I found it with an online tool.
It’s called We Love Every Game, more specifically its Steam Sale browsing tool. It’s made by Totally Human Media, a Boston-based company that also has some interesting long-form articles on the subject. But the Steam Sale tool is what you should check out if you’re trying to sift through the mountains of discounts on Steam right now.
We Love Every Game
The tool is deceptively simple. Just select one or more genres from nine categories, then press the button. You’ll get an endless scroll of recommendations, each with a bit of video, some screenshots, and a paragraph of description text. There’s a link to Steam that shows the price, the current discount, and the review rating from players.
The tool doesn’t need you to log into Steam to see it, so it doesn’t use your personal library or play history to generate recommendations. Which, for my purposes, is a good thing—I want it to show me lots of games I haven’t seen before. The tool also seems to be weighted to select games that have above 80 percent positive reviews and with deeper discounts, bypassing a lot of titles that only shave a dollar or two off their base prices just so they can be included in the “sale.”
We Love Every Game
It’s an incredibly straightforward and useful way to browse. Though it’s not doing much that you couldn’t do with Steam’s built-in tools, the focus on nine broad categories opens it up a lot, as does the inclusion of many older games (as in more than five years old) that you might’ve missed.
Give the We Love Every Game sale tool a try if you’re looking for something fresh to check out. I’ve already found Shoulders of Giants (a combat action game where you’re both a little alien frog guy and the robot they’re riding around on), Nerd Survivors (a Vampire Survivors-style game where you can shoot fidget spinner boomerangs), and Stories: The Path of Destinies (a gorgeous action-RPG from almost a decade ago).
© 2025 PC World 5:35am  
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Elecom’s world-first Na-ion power bank has 10x more charging cycles than Li-ion
Japanese company Elecom has unveiled the world’s first power bank using sodium-ion battery technology, according to the company’s official press release. The sodium-ion power bank consists of 3 battery cells of 3,000mAh each, for a total capacity of 9,000mAh. It comes with USB-A and USB-C ports, with a maximum output of 45 watts.
Compared to the ubiquitous lithium-ion batteries we all know and use, sodium-ion batteries offer several advantages.
Advantages of sodium-ion batteries
For starters, sodium-ion batteries are considered to be more environmentally friendly, as the main substance used—sodium chloride—is much more prevalent and easier to acquire than lithium. Furthermore, sodium tends to be safer as it isn’t as reactive as lithium.
Sodium-ion batteries also tolerate lower temperatures better. According to Elecom, the new power bank tech can be used in temperatures as low as -35 degrees up to 50 degrees Celsius (or -31 to 122 Fahrenheit).
However, the main advantage rests in the charging cycles. According to Elecom, a sodium-ion power bank can go through up to 5,000 charging cycles before experiencing a significant reduction in total charging capacity. This is remarkable when you compare it to lithium-ion batteries, which only keep around 80 percent of their total charging capacity after around 500 complete charging cycles.
Disadvantages of sodium-ion batteries
If sodium-ion batteries fall short compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries, it’s in size and weight.
Elecom’s newly announced power bank weighs a hefty 350 grams (0.77 pounds) and measures 106 x 87 x 31mm (4.17 x 3.42 x 1.22 inches). Comparable lithium-ion power banks with 10,000mAh capacity weigh around 150 grams (0.33 pounds) less and are more compact.
In addition, Elecom’s new sodium-ion power bank retails for 9,980 yen (~$67 USD) in their official online shop, which is understandably more expensive than its lithium-ion counterparts because it doesn’t yet benefit from economies of scale and production efficiencies. The technology is simply too new right now.
But lithium-ion batteries have come a long way since they were first made in the 1970s, so who knows how good sodium-ion batteries can be with some more R&D in the coming years? This first one is already pretty promising, so the future is looking bright.
© 2025 PC World 5:35am 
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