He’s an undischarged bankrupt working for his wife’s pool business. Richard Lascelles is also a lay advocate, appearing in court on Thursday to represent his wife, Daneen, in her own bankruptcy case. Read...

After months of build-up, YouTube TV’s new Sports and genre plans feel underwhelming. YouTube started hyping up these plans in December, promising cheaper bundles with fewer channels you don’t care about. Sports fans, for instance, can get a package without news or entertainment channels, while sports haters can finally stop subsidizing expensive channels like ESPN. But while the new plans could save you some money, they’re not much different from other skinny bundles that DirecTV and Fubo offer already. In some cases, they might even be worse. False start First, a disclaimer: You probably can’t sign up for YouTube TV’s new plans yet. While they technically launched last week, YouTube says it’s “rolling these plans out slowly to ensure the best possible experience.” They may not be broadly available for several weeks. In the meantime, YouTube TV is still withholding some basic information. While it’s promising more than 10 genre plans in total, so far it’s only announced five of them: Sports Plan ($65/mo.): Local broadcast channels and national sports channels such as ESPN, FS1/FS2, TBS/TNT, NBC (including regional NBC Sports in select markets), Golf, NFL Network, and NBA TV, with ESPN Unlimited to be added in the fall. Sports + News Plan ($72/mo.): The above plan, plus CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, CSPAN, and business news channels. Entertainment Plan ($55/mo.): Local broadcast channels and general entertainment channels such as Hallmark, Comedy Central, HGTV, and Bravo. News + Entertainment + Family Plan ($70/mo.): Basically everything except sports, including kids channels such as Disney and Nickelodeon. Sports + News + Entertainment ($78 per month): Nearly the full YouTube TV package, but without kids channels. YouTube TV’s base plan, with more channels than any of the above options, remains available for $83 per month. Note that YouTube hasn’t released full channel lists for most of these packages (though Deadline got a channel list for the Sports package). It’s also unclear whether we’ll see any additional genre packages, or if the remaining five-plus options will just be different combinations of the Sports, News, Entertainment, and Family plans that YouTube has announced already. How YouTube TV’s Sports package compares Even with incomplete information, we can start to compare YouTube TV’s genre plans with the competition. The Sports plan, for instance, will be the cheapest way to combine local broadcasts and national sports channels if that’s all you want from a live TV service. At $65 per month, it’s $5 per month cheaper than DirecTV’s MySports plan, which launched last year, and $18 per month cheaper than YouTube TV’s standard plan. YouTube’s case gets stronger in the handful of markets that carry regional NBC Sports Networks. They’re included with YouTube TV’s Sports plan, but not DirecTV’s MySports package. (YouTube’s plans don’t include any other regional sports networks, while DirecTV offers a $20 per month MyHome Team add-on in select markets.) But if you want cable news, DirecTV’s MySports plan has an edge at $70 per month, versus $72 per month for YouTube TV’s Sports + News option. It also includes MLB Network and NHL TV, which YouTube’s bundle lacks. Jared Newman / Foundry (Click to enlarge or view on Google Sheets) YouTube TV’s Sports + News + Entertainment plan is interesting, in that it cuts out kids channels such as Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and Cartoon Network. It’s only $5 per month cheaper than YouTube TV’s standard package, but that’s better than nothing for channels you might never watch. Those who want more price flexibility could look to Fubo Sports instead. At $56 per month, it’s cheaper than YouTube TV’s Sports plan, but it does not include NBC, TNT, TBS, or any regional sports channels. These bundles aren’t the only way to slice and dice sports coverage. You could also opt for some combination of ESPN Unlimited, Fox One, Peacock for NBC, Paramount+ for CBS, and HBO Max for TNT/TBS. But if you’re going to pay for all of those at the same time, you’re better off picking a bundle that includes all of their corresponding TV channels. YouTube TV’s non-sports plans YouTube TV’s other genre plans are a bit different from what DirecTV offers, at least from what we’ve seen so far. The $55 per month Entertainment plan, for instance, caters to folks who have no interest in sports but don’t want to give up local broadcast stations or general entertainment channels. Same goes for the $70 per month News + Entertainment + Family Plan. No other streaming TV packages like these exist on the market today. But as more kids tune into Netflix and YouTube, and as cable’s entertainment channels become bereft of original programming, the appeal may be limited. With its new genre plans, YouTube TV missed an opportunity to start bundling streaming services alongside traditional cable channels. That’s what DirecTV is doing with its $35 per month MyEntertainment package, which offers many of the same channels as YouTube’s Entertainment plan along with Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max. And while DirecTV’s MyEntertainment doesn’t carry local channels, you can combine it with DirecTV MyNews for $75 per month total. That gets you local channels, cable news, entertainment, and a trio of streaming services. It’s a more compelling package than any of YouTube’s non-sports offerings. Slice and dice Given YouTube TV’s status as the largest live TV streaming service—one that might become bigger than major companies soon—I thought its bargaining power would result in packages that are clearly better than the competition. The reality is more nuanced. The new YouTube TV genre plans can save you money, but you’ll still have to carefully consider the alternatives and choose wisely. Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter for more streaming TV advice. Read...

Axis finds intelligent video moving beyond security as firms use cameras for analytics, cloud adoption rises, and unified platforms gain favour. Read...

TL;DR: Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business brings AI features, faster performance, and real collaboration tools for a one-time $99.97 payment (MSRP $249.99). Subscriptions make sense for streaming — less so for writing a document. That’s the appeal of Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business for $99.97: modern productivity software without permanent monthly rent. This is Microsoft’s most up-to-date standalone suite, and it shows. Word now offers AI-powered suggestions and distraction-free Focus Mode, Excel handles large datasets faster with dynamic arrays and AI insights, and PowerPoint lets you record presentations with voice, video, and captions built in — ideal for remote work or school. Outlook also gets smarter with improved accessibility checks and search, while the refreshed Fluent design makes every app feel consistent, whether you’re on Mac or PC. Unlike web-only alternatives, everything installs locally. That means full offline access and faster performance. You get real collaboration tools too — co-authoring, comments, version history, and Teams integration — but without tying your productivity to an ongoing subscription. The result is familiar apps, modern features, and long-term ownership (with no ongoing fees). Get lifetime access to Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business for $99.97 (MSRP $249.99) for a little while longer. Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business for Mac or PC Lifetime LicenseSee Deal StackSocial prices subject to change. Read...

As e-invoicing mandates loom across Australia and New Zealand, businesses must upgrade now or risk losing lucrative government contracts. Read...

Businesses on Wellington`s South Coast are doing it tough since the failure of the Moa Point wastewater plant. Read...

For all its supposed intelligence, “AI” seems to make a lot of stupid mistakes—for example, scanning and summarizing emails marked “confidential” in Microsoft Outlook. That’s the latest issue with Microsoft’s Copilot assistant, according to a bug report from Microsoft itself. Copilot Chat in Microsoft 365 accounts is able to read and summarize emails in the Sent and Drafts folders of Outlook, even if they’re marked confidential… a mark that’s specifically designed to keep automated tools out. BleepingComputer summarizes the issue labeled “CW1226324” and says that a fix is being rolled out to affected accounts. There’s no timeline for when the fix will be available for all users. (Unfortunately, the full report isn’t available for viewing by the general public—you need Microsoft 365 admin privileges just to see it.) The problem is, as you might guess, alarming. The confidential feature in Outlook is often used for things like business contracts, legal correspondence, government or police investigations, and personal medical information. It’s the kind of stuff you absolutely do not want scanned by a large language model, and definitely not sucked up into its training data, as is so often the case. Microsoft isn’t saying how many users are affected, but it is saying that “the scope of impact may change” as it investigates the problem. How comforting. That’ll really get people to start using Copilot, right? Read...

Commerce Commission says repeated unsolicited sales calls were “completely unacceptable” and amounted to unconscionable conduct. Read...

It kind of feels like the last six months of my job has just been telling you about all the different ways the “AI” industry is making life suck. And I’m just a guy who writes about computers! I barely even touch on its environmental impact or mental health issues. But I digress. Here’s the latest way in which the “AI” industry is making life suck for all of us: “AI” data centers are gobbling up all the hard drives. Yes, hard drives. Spinning disks that hold ones and zeroes. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a PC on a shelf that defaulted to hard drive storage—they’re really only relevant for consumers who have to store multiple terabytes of data. But “AI” models need to hold lots of data, too, which is why Western Digital is now out of hard drives for the rest of the year. “We’re pretty much sold out for calendar year 2026,” said CEO Irving Tan in the company’s latest earnings report. In context, that means sold out of production capacity for 2026, as the company earmarks its output for various customers. You can still find WD drives on digital storefronts and store shelves, at least for now. But it seems the company is following in the footsteps of memory and flash storage producers by prioritizing industrial supply over regular consumers. Here’s a long quote from Tan: “As AI capabilities expand, cloud continues to grow as well, and both are driving the search and demand for higher density storage solutions. In this new era where AI and cloud dominate, Western Digital has taken a customer-focused approach to managing this strong demand by working closely with our hyperscale customers, ensuring that we deliver reliable, high-capacity drives at scale to give them the best performance and total cost of ownership.” If you can’t parse the corporate speak, that means “we’re selling a lot of really big hard drives to data centers.” According to the data elsewhere in the report, just under 90 percent of Western Digital’s business is now supplying drives to cloud storage, with only 5 percent of revenue coming from consumers. It seems all too easy—almost inevitable—that WD could just exit the consumer market entirely. Memory producer Micron did just that, axing its Crucial brand of consumer RAM and storage, though the company insists it’s still selling RAM to PC manufacturers. Tom’s Hardware reports that hard drive prices are already jumping, up by almost 50 percent in the last five months. That’s not the nightmare spiral that RAM has seen, but it’s not a good thing, either. As I said, hard drives aren’t really a concern if you’re only buying a standard laptop or desktop. But for consumers who have a deep appetite for data, like those who roll their own network-attached storage (NAS) for home servers or streaming setups, or those who just prefer to keep their massive Steam libraries downloaded locally, hard drives are still very relevant. And they’re going to get a lot faster soon, if still nowhere near as speedy or efficient as flash storage. I wonder if we’ll ever be able to buy those fancy future devices on Amazon. Read...

The business committee will discuss whether to `take this investigation forward` when they meet next Tuesday, Byrne says. Read...