Here’s a mod that’s really a protest in disguise. It scatters 235 Flock automated licence-plate cameras through GTA 5’s Los Santos, modelled on the real ones spreading fast across US cities, then pays you $600 in-game cash for every one you blast off its pole. Flock’s rollout has drawn serious flak stateside over misreads and the potential for abuse, sparking a “deflock” movement that runs from cancelled council contracts to bin bags over lenses. Turning that fight into a shooting gallery inside gaming’s sharpest satire of American life is a neat bit of commentary. And before you write it off as a purely American worry, automated plate-reading tech has a habit of turning up here too, just quietly.

Got a drawer of dead devices? Samsung’s annual free e-waste recycling programme is back and bigger for 2026, adding Wellington alongside its Auckland events. Six drive-through collection days run across October and November, and you can drop off eligible electronics from any brand, not just Samsung, no charge. As a sweetener, drop off qualifying e-waste and you’ll get a $100 Samsung e-voucher towards your next purchase. It’s run with Echo, the country’s largest e-waste recycler, so the gear is processed properly rather than shipped to landfill. Last year’s collection pulled in over 76,000kg. The dates:

• Sat 3 Oct – Smales Farm, Takapuna, Auckland
• Sat 17 Oct – First Presbyterian Church, Papakura, Auckland
• Sat 31 Oct – Eden Park (Gate M), Kingsland, Auckland
• Sat 7 Nov – QV House, Petone, Lower Hutt
• Sat 14 Nov – North Harbour Stadium, Albany, Auckland
• Sat 28 Nov – Hnry Stadium, Pipitea, Wellington

All events run 9am to 3pm.

Every act that ends up on a big stage had to play a small one first, and a second round of the Spark Arena Community Events Fund is backing exactly those rooms. $60,000 is heading to three all-ages venues that give young Aucklanders somewhere to rehearse, record and perform: Big Fan in Morningside, Shore Junction in Takapuna, and Henderson’s Zeal, one of the few genuinely alcohol-free live spaces in the city. The money goes on professional gear, studio and stage infrastructure, and the programmes that put it in rangatahi hands. It follows a first round that split $100,000 across five CBD venues. Not flashy, but all-ages spaces are the grassroots of the whole ecosystem, and keeping them properly kitted out is how the next generation of NZ music actually gets made.

The New Zealand Choral Federation, backed by orchestras and bands nationwide, is calling on the National Library and Internal Affairs to pause proposed changes to the Music Hire Service until the people who use it are actually consulted. The service holds the country’s largest performance-music collection, more than 5,500 orchestral sets and 3,500 choral sets, and for amateur and community ensembles the ability to hire rather than buy full score sets is often the difference between performing a work and not. The Library says music hire will continue in some form and no cuts are proposed, but the sector says it has been given no detail on who would run a replacement, what it would cost, or how access to the collection would be preserved. Also on the block is the specialist Music Librarian role, and critics warn that losing that expertise means losing decades of institutional knowledge that can’t be easily rebuilt. The collection dates back to a 1987 Radio New Zealand donation and has been maintained for nearly 40 years.

Microsoft’s September 2026 Patch Tuesday addresses 964 CVEs, including 104 rated Critical and 860 rated Important, making it the company’s largest Patch Tuesday release on record.

Auckland Philharmonia’s Music Director Giordano Bellincampi will step down at the end of the 2027 season, taking up the honorary title of Music Director Laureate on the way out. The Italian-Danish conductor’s 12-year run is the longest anyone has held the role, and 2027 will be a proper farewell lap, built around his signature repertoire and a run of standout soloists before he leads the orchestra as Music Director for the last time in late November. His legacy runs deeper than the programme, though. On his watch the Auckland Phil shifted from a pool of freelance professionals to a salaried ensemble, a change that puts it in genuinely respected international company. The 2027 season launches in October, and the search for his successor is already underway.

Epson has shifted its New Zealand base into larger premises, with a new office and experience centre at 25 College Hill in Freemans Bay, Auckland. The bit that matters for locals is the showroom: a bigger space to see Epson’s projectors, printers and other kit demoed live, with specialists on hand for product and application sessions. It’s part of a wider A/NZ expansion that also adds sites in Adelaide and Brisbane, plus fresh hires across sales and service. Not exactly headline drama, but if you’ve been weighing up an Epson projector, there’s now somewhere to go and eyeball one before you buy.

The country’s premier composition honour, the SOUNZ Contemporary Award | Te Tohu Auaha, has its four 2026 finalists, and the field leans right into the experimental. Reigning winner Ihlara McIndoe returns with “curio”, a piece imagining the act of holding your own heart in a specimen jar. Dylan Lardelli’s “Light Lines”, his first work for string trio, takes its cue from a Heraclitus fragment. Michael Norris and Nicholas Denton Protsack go long with “Partial Forms”, an hour of cello and live electronics tracing the landscapes and soundscapes of Aotearoa and Canada. Samuel Holloway makes his finalist debut with “Soft Logic”, written for pianist Stephen De Pledge. The winner is announced alongside the Silver Scrolls on 14 October.

The finalists for the 2026 APRA Silver Scroll | Kaitito Kaiaka are out, and the peer-voted songwriting honour lands in a milestone year: APRA’s centenary, with winners crowned at Auckland’s Aotea Centre on 14 October. The Top Five sets past winners against first-timers. Troy Kingi is back with “Afters”, co-written with M? off his Night Lords album, up against Aldous Harding’s “One Stop”, a first-ever finalist nod for Deva Mahal, and newcomer Fazed on a Pony. The history-maker is LEAO’s “LALELEI”, the first song written and performed entirely in gagana Samoa to reach the top five. Alongside the Scroll, the te reo M?ori Maioha award and a brand-new Kapa Haka Songwriting Award round out a field that keeps stretching what Aotearoa songwriting sounds like.