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10 Apr 2025

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Donald Trump's 10% US tariff on NZ looks set to remain, officials clarifying - Nicola Willis
The Finance Minister says diplomats are working "at pace" to figure out the situation.

After months of user complaints, Anthropic debuts new $200/month AI plan
Two-tiered "Claude Max" expands rate limits and offers traffic priority to subscribers.

New optimal coffee-making method according to science
Scientists have found how to make stronger coffee with the same amount of beans through the pour-over method.

Christopher Luxon talks to world leaders as Donald Trump pauses tariffs
The Prime Minister says he will speak to world leaders today about working together to maintain free trade.

Watch live: Christopher Luxon talks world trade as Donald Trump pauses tariffs
The Prime Minister says he will speak to world leaders today about working together to maintain free trade.

AMD debuts cheaper Ryzen 8000 HX chips for gaming laptops as tariffs rage
No one wants to spend more than they have to right now…meaning that it might have been an opportune time for AMD to debut its latest Ryzen 8000 Core HX mobile processors for gaming notebooks, which lack some of the features of the Ryzen 9000 series. Essentially, the new Ryzen 8000 HX series, known as Dragon Range Refresh, is quite similar to the “Dragon Range” Ryzen 7000 HX series that AMD launched in January 2023, and should sit below the Ryzen 9 9955HX and Ryzen 9 9850HX AMD launched in conjunction with the Ryzen 9955HX3D this past January. All three of those latter chips used AMD’s Zen 5 architecture. AMD’s Ryzen 8000HX lineup.AMD Both AMD’s Ryzen 7000 HX and the refreshed Ryzen 8000 HX parts both use the older Zen 4 architecture, however, and there’s no NPU, either. In fact, both the older Ryzen 7000 parts and the latest Ryzen 8000 HX series both feature processors with up to 16 cores and 32 threads and can be used in laptops with 45 to 75 watts of thermal design power, or TDP. (The default is 55W.) Both families use AMD’s TSMC’s 5nm process. One of the more significant changes AMD made has been to phase out the six-core Ryzen 5 7645HX for an 8-core Ryzen 7 8745HX. The 8000HX Series is a refresh of the 7000HX Series with a few key differences in clock speeds and firmware, an AMD representative said in an email. “However, the 8000HX Series is intended to be paired with newer, more powerful discrete GPUs, and offers users more options for those looking to get into systems with the latest graphics,” he added. AMD’s Ryzen 8000 HX series do include integrated graphics, though the Ryzen 610M inside the 8945HX and its two RDNA 2 graphics cores aren’t enough to serve as a gaming GPU, of course. Laptop makers will want to add a discrete GPU for that. AMD’s new Ryzen 8000 HX chips will use DDR5 SODIMM memory and have 28 lanes of PCI Express 5.0 available. Further reading: The best gaming laptops we’ve tested This story was updated at 1:21 PM with additional comment from AMD.

Why are bond yields soaring??
It's strange enough for bond yields to rise during a market panic. It's even stranger when they start spiking like they are right now

OpenAI helps spammers plaster 80,000 sites with messages that bypassed filters
Company didn't notice its chatbot was being abused for (at least) 4 months.

Six youths who escaped two Auckland remand centres found
Three of the six were found on Wednesday afternoon, with the remaining three located by Thursday morning.

Winston Peters declines Benjamin Doyle's invitation to speak directly
The NZ First leader is refusing to give up the fight after asking questions about Green MP Benjamin Doyle.

Access to space systems 'critical on the modern battlefield'
The Defence Minister has outlined an unprecedented half a billion dollars for space operations, as part of a new high-tech military push.

Try Microsoft’s tech tutor, Copilot Vision for Windows, right now
Microsoft has begun rolling out a test of Copilot Vision on PCs, a new feature that gives Windows the ability to “see” what you’re looking at on your PC and suggest some next steps you can take. Copilot Vision debuted (sort of) last December as a Windows-centric version of Copilot Vision for Edge, which was quite underwhelming. But at the company’s 50th anniversary party, Microsoft showed off how a Windows-native Copilot Vision could walk you through complex apps like Adobe Photoshop, then visually show you what to do next. I thought the demo had enough potential to select it as the best Copilot demo Microsoft showed during the event. Copilot Vision isn’t always on. You’ll need to first click the small “binoculars” icon within Copilot to launch Vision, then specifically enable Copilot Vision for the application you want help with. I have a number of questions about Copilot Vision for Windows. How deeply does it know what to do? What can it see? Can it understand what it sees well enough to be useful? I’d say a key test would be its ability to walk me through a task on an unfamiliar piece of software—some on-screen handholding could be extremely helpful, if Vision got it right. But there will be those (me included!) who probably don’t want any help with more private matters like, say, personal finances. A Microsoft example of Copilot Vision for Windows.Microsoft You have a chance to try Copilot Vision out for yourself, as Microsoft has started rolling it out for wider testing. Microsoft says you’ll need to be enrolled in one of its Windows Insider programs, but it doesn’t matter which one. However, it’s being rolled out via the Microsoft Store rather than through Windows Update. If you go to the Store app and download the latest Copilot update, you might get it. (Officially, you’ll need version 1.25034.133.0 or higher.) “The above-mentioned features are gradually rolling out so not all Insiders will get the update right away,” Microsoft said in a blog post. Copilot Vision will debut on US PCs first. As of press time, it has yet to land on the first Insider PC I checked, a Copilot+ laptop. When you update Copilot to get Vision, you’ll also get a new Copilot capability with it: desktop file search. Although you might be able to find a file via File Explorer, you should now also be able to query Copilot with questions like “Where is my resume?” and Copilot should find it and link to it. Microsoft also encourages you to try more sophisticated searches, such as finding the trip-planning document you worked on last week. The new Copilot search supports most file types and can read .DOCX, .XLSX, .PPTX, .TXT, .PDF, and .JSON files The more sophisticated search option mirrors what Microsoft is doing elsewhere within Windows—specifically semantic search, which is one of Microsoft’s new Windows 11 features debuting this month.