Nine To Noon

 

09:05 News and current affairs

09:30 Kiwi's AI start-up aims to take gruntwork out of online tasks

Seven years ago Yang Fan Yun was leaving school as New Zealand's top scholar - winning the Prime Minister's Award for Academic Excellence and entry into his pick of the globe's top universities: Stanford. He came out with a bachelor of computer science and a masters of engineering - and the highest GPA in Stanford's computer science department. That expertise has been channelled into a start-up that's just received US $5.6m dollars in seed funding, including from one of the world's biggest AI companies, Anthropic. Yang's created a tool called Composite that harnesses AI to predict and automate the work it can see needs doing on your browser - the idea is better integration that'll take care of the gruntwork. As Yang puts it, he wants to stop us being "digital factory workers stuck in Chrome tabs". He joins Kathryn from San Francisco to explain how it works.

09:40 Architects give old ideas new life in award-winning housing design

New Zealand is riddled with damp, cold - yet still expensive - houses. So whenever we see fresh, inventive solutions in this space, it's worth paying attention. This year's winners of the 2025 F. Gordon Wilson Fellowship for Affordable Housing aren't reinventing the wheel, they're giving traditional designs new life. Homes in Aotearoa have long embraced flexible, semi-outdoor living spaces, beginning with Māori and Pacific architecture and later expressed through verandas in early modern houses. Cynthia Yuan and Norman Wei are reintroducing those ideas through their Loose-Fit Futures housing model - showing that affordability and quality don't have to be at odds. They've already convinced Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects of the potential. Cynthia and Norman join Kathryn to explain how it works.

09:45 Australia: Albanese world tour, another Optus outage

Australia correspondent Bernard Keane joins Kathryn to talk about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrapping up a trip that included the UK, where he ruled out the country becoming a republic and hinted at a royal tour. Pressure is growing on the government over a second Optus outage at the weekend. And the Health Minister has admitted increased excise on tobacco has probably fueled the black market boom illicit cigarettes. 

Bernard Keane is political editor for Crikey.com.au

10:05 How a global network of judges rushed to rescue their Afghan counterparts

In January 2021, Qadria Yasini - a judge on Afghanistan's Supreme Court - left for work in Kabul with a colleague, Zakia Herawi. Three men waited until they were in their government-supplied car - and shot them dead. It terrified the small network of female judges in the country.  But it was nothing compared to what was to come just seven months later. When Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021 it happened so quickly they were left behind in the chaos to be hunted. Remarkably, it was a network of global female judges who stepped in to help them. The International Association of Women Judges - people like New Zealand's Dame Susan Glazebrook - worked to find and help evacuate the Afghan judges from Afghanistan. This incredible story has been told by British journalist Karen Bartlett in her book Escape from Kabul: A True Story of Sisterhood and Defiance.

10:35 Book review: Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York by Andrew Lownie

Dean Bedford reviews Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York by Andrew Lownie, published by Harper Collins.

10:45 Around the motu: Mike Tweed from the Whanganui Chronicle

Mike discusses the fallout after Māori ward candidates left out of local election voting booklets, the clean-up of a car cemetery in Raetihi and the local boat builder about to hit a building milestone.

11:05 Music with Ian Chapman: Songs to celebrate new humans

In recent weeks Ian Chapman has turned his attention to the colloquial term often given to the cycle of life: the ‘Hatched, matched and dispatched’. Having tackled ‘dispatched’ (songs for funerals) and ‘matched’ (songs for marriages and civil unions), he now turns his attention to ‘hatched’; that is, songs celebrating birth. From Stevie Wonder to Madonna and Lauryn Hill to David Bowie, today’s song selections demonstrate how the life-changing experiences of childbirth and parenthood can be captured in music that universally communicates the artists’ experience for themselves, their fans and beyond.

Ian Chapman is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Music at the University of Otago

11:20  How much do our pets understand? 

Kat Littlewood, a veterinary specialist in animal welfare, talks with Kathryn about how much animals understand. Whether it's dogs who prick up their ears when they hear the world "walk", or cats tuning in (or out) to certain sounds. Kat says animals understand patterns, tone and relationships more than "words". Text your questions for Kat to 2101 or email ninetonoon@rnz.co.nz    

11:45 Employment law: What are your rights when facing redundancy?

Employment law specialist Charles McGuinness joins Kathryn to talk about the rights and responsibilities of both employers and employees when going through the redundancy process.

Charles McGuinness is head of McGuinness Employment Law based in Wellington.