The business executive pleaded guilty to receiving commercial sexual services from an underage girl. Read...

Most of Auckland’s 21 local boards are ready to get on with business - they’ve completed inaugurations and sworn in leaders for the next three years. Read...

Lending increased nearly 5 percent, with home lending rising at nearly three times the growth in business loans. Read...

After installing one of the several Windows updates that were released on October 14th or later, many Windows users have reported being asked to reset their systems via BitLocker Recovery, which requires you to have a BitLocker recovery key. If you don’t have that key, you won’t be able to access your PC and will lose all your data. According to a statement from Microsoft (via Windows Latest), the issue affects Windows 11 versions 25H2 and 24H2 as well as Windows 10 version 22H2. Strangely, the statement is only visible to users with Microsoft 365 Business or Windows 11 Enterprise licenses: “Affected devices might boot into the BitLocker recovery screen, requiring users to enter the recovery key once. After the key is entered and the device restarts, it will boot normally without any further BitLocker prompts. This issue primarily appears to affect Intel-based devices that support Connected Standby, a feature that enables the device to stay connected to the network while in a low power state.” If you encounter this BitLocker recovery bug and don’t have access to your BitLocker recovery key, you risk losing all the data on your computer. In that case, you’ll have to hope that you can get your BitLocker recovery key through your Microsoft account. Learn more about that in our article on backing up your data and BitLocker recovery keys. Microsoft says that a fix is already being rolled out, and business users may need to manually deploy the fix across their organizations. Read...

The husband and wife owners of a decades-old business say they are determined to pursue a businessman and former nightclub owner over a disputed bill. Read...

There are lots of rivalries in the PC space. You’ve got AMD versus Nvidia, air versus liquid cooling, even PC versus Mac. But if there’s one thing everyone can agree on? Printers suck. That iconic Office Space scene still hits hard all these decades later because it’s so true. We all hate printers and for good reason. They don’t work as well as they should, the software feels ancient and lacking, the ink runs dry too quickly, the cartridges are too expensive, the papers jam, the business models are predatory and anti-competitive… But hold up! I have some genuinely good news. I actually found a printer that isn’t so bad: the HP LaserJet M110w Wireless Black & White Printer, which surprised me given HP’s reputation in printers. See this printer on Amazon My biggest printer gripes I think we all have a story about a printer becoming our nemesis. Maybe you needed to get something printed off for school or work and the printer decided that now is the time to jam up, or run dry on ink, or fail to connect to the Wi-Fi network. Just setting up a printer can be a real pain, not to mention the Windows XP-style interfaces, the drivers that need to be installed, the clunky on-device controls, or the other number of hoops that need to be jumped. Setting up printers has historically left me clawing at my eyes in frustration at least once during each process. Mark Pickavance Speaking of clunky on-device controls, don’t get me started on the anything-but-intuitive screens and displays. Their crushingly poor refresh rates make every animated menu transition take an eternity, and sub-menu after sub-menu makes navigation as much a chore as whatever work I was trying so desperately to complete. And even when everything seems to be working OK, I go to print and the printer says it’s printing… but it doesn’t. So I cancel the print job…. and it just sits there, stuck in the output queue. What a nightmare. There isn’t a single other piece of technology I own that forces an entire PC reboot just to get it doing what it’s supposed to do. I’m getting so riled up just from reliving all this as I type this up! Mark Pickavance Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for how infrequently I actually need to use a printer. As e-signing and PDF editing have gotten easier, printing has sort of drifted off to the side… which makes it that much more annoying when I do need to print and the ink is dry, the printing head needs cleaning, the tray jams, or whatever. Enter my new favorite HP printer After decades of lackluster performance, obfuscating errors, excruciating setup processes, and spiraling ink costs, I’ve finally found a printer I don’t hate. It hasn’t bothered me once in the months I’ve had it. It connects quickly, doesn’t take long to start up, and so far I’m quite indifferent about its presence in my home and office. Jon Martindale / Foundry The printer in question is the HP LaserJet M110w Wireless Black & White Printer. It’s simple, it’s straightforward, and it just works. In 2025, that shouldn’t be much of an achievement… but it is! And for that I blame myself just as much as every printer that came before it. Keep it simple, stupid In the past, the printers I bought needed to be all-in-one jacks. I wanted a scanner for work contracts, color printing and gloss paper support for family photos, and fast black-and-white printing for work and school documents. Although past printer designs were undoubtedly awful, one reason this new HP design is so great is that it keeps it simple. The M110w is a monochrome printer—no color printing, no fancy paper support. It only has one paper feed, it doesn’t scan, it doesn’t fax (lol), it doesn’t copy. I use it for D&D character sheets and the odd professional document that still requires a hand signature. Jon Martindale / Foundry And the M110w is a LaserJet, meaning it uses toner instead of ink. Unlike ink, toner doesn’t dry out or clog up printing heads, and toner isn’t super expensive. Plus, it prints fast with higher precision and doesn’t smudge. It’s also the first printer I’ve ever owned that finally feels like it has embraced some modern design philosophies around user interaction and experience. That alone is ungodly refreshing. HP LaserJet M110w Wireless Black-and-White Printer Best Prices Today: $169 at Amazon For example, HP’s app-based setup wasn’t awful. It was already a step up over inputting my Wi-Fi pasword into my previous printer, which only had three buttons to interact with an on-screen keyboard. (That was one of the worst digital experiences I’ve ever had with anything!) So, credit where it’s due: HP’s printing app isn’t bad. I had it set up in less than 15 minutes and printing in under 20. Ultimately, this is all I really need from a printer: work when I need you to, otherwise get out of my way. Don’t frustrate me or cause unnecessary delays that make me late to hand in a report. Please. I can’t believe I don’t hate this printer One reason why I can enjoy a printer like this in 2025 is because of how obsolete so many other printer functions are now. I no longer need to print color glossy photos of my family because there are a million photo printing services that are quality, fast, and affordable. I don’t need a scanner anymore because my phone can double as a scanner easily enough. PDF editing software is so much better in 2025 that I can e-sign just about anything, too. A printer that only prints is perfect now that everything else is handled elsewhere. Jon Martindale / Foundry It’s been a few months now and the HP LaserJet M110w Wireless Black & White Printer been error-free for the most part, plus I’ve printed over 50 pages without running out of toner. When I eventually need to replace it, the cartridge will only be $50. (I’ve spent more than that on a single set of ink cartridges that were already dry by the next time I used them.) Yeah, I don’t hate it. I might even like it. Dear printer, please stay the way you are. If you can provide hassle-free printing for a few more years, maybe I’ll give you a graceful retirement instead of going medieval on you with a baseball bat. Get this printer on Amazon Read...

If you’ve been tracking AMD’s market share in the PC CPU market, you know that it’s continually climbed over the past year or so. Chief executive Dr. Lisa Su told Wall Street that she expects that trend to continue, even after the company’s desktop CPU business reached record highs during the third quarter of 2025. AMD’s Client and Gaming segment of the business sold $4 billion worth of processors, CPUs, and semi-custom chips for the console business during the third quarter, but was slightly surpassed by a record $4.3 billion from the data center. Given the ravenous appetite for AI, its efforts in the data center dominated the company’s third-quarter 2025 earnings call — analysts didn’t ask a single question specifically about its PC business. That’s somewhat surprising, given AMD’s continued success in the PC market. The company’s client business, made up of its CPU sales, recorded a record $2.8 billion. “Our PC processor business is performing exceptionally well, with record quarterly sales as the strong demand environment and breadth of our leadership Ryzen portfolio accelerates growth,” Su told analysts in a transcript provided by Investing.com. “Desktop CPU sales reached an all-time high, with record channel sell-in and sell-out led by robust demand for our Ryzen 9000 processors, which deliver unmatched performance across gaming, productivity, and content creation applications.” AMD’s desktop CPU share has gained almost 10 percentage points since last year, and Su said she expects that trend to continue. “Looking ahead, we see significant opportunity to continue growing our client business faster than the overall PC market, based on the strength of our Ryzen portfolio, broader platform coverage, and expanded go-to-market investments,” she said. Interestingly, Ryzen notebooks even “increased sharply” during the quarter, Su said. That’s surprising, given that Intel has maintained the typical 80-20 split between AMD and Intel, especially in the notebook business. If the chipmaker is cutting into that, Intel will face a significant attack on multiple fronts. AMD said less about its efforts in the GPU business, though it noted that revenue and channel sell-out grew significantly, driven by the Radeon 9000. The company’s FSR4 technology, which uses upscaling and AI frame generation within the RX 9000 generation to improve frame rates, now supports more than 85 games. AMD also saw a boost from its semi-custom business as Microsoft and Sony ramp up console production for the holiday sales season. That’s a double-edged sword, as the company’s outlook includes a decline in “strong double digits” in gaming revenue, presumably reflecting a lull after the holiday console sales boom. AMD’s second-quarter revenue increased 36 percent year over year to $9.2 billion, with net income up 31 percent to $1.243 billion. Read...

Celonis launches enhanced AI-driven platform with digital twins to boost business process efficiency and support adaptable enterprise operations. Read...

The fast food giant`s bid to build a restaurant at Mt Iron was declined, so it has now applied to build a 450-square-metre restaurant in the Three Parks business area. Read...

A Northland farming couple have used family knowledge to build their farm into a successful business and are doing their bit to protect the land. Read...