Technology

Two in-form teams vying for European qualification meet at St. James' Park.

Xfinity used to lead in Pueblo, but Quantum Fiber is now king of the hill. Check out CNET's top recommendations for ISPs in this Colorado city.

Next week, we have Samsung's first Galaxy Unpacked event of 2025, but before we can get there, we've seen a week filled with tech announcements.

Leaks for the Samsung event were a dime a dozen, but we also saw the long-awaited Nintendo Switch 2 announcement, game-breaking Windows 11 updates, and kept up to date with the latest TikTok ban news.

Here's our recap of the week's biggest tech news in case you missed it. What a speedy overview.

When you're done, feel free to check out our picks for the 7 new movies and TV shows to stream this weekend (January 17).

7. Windows 11 24H2 broke games

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

It’s the same story again for Microsoft’s Windows 11 and its 24H2 update, causing problems for multiple users. This time around, gamers are frustrated with the functionality of their games, notably Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, after Valhalla and Origins received patches to fix constant crashes.

While some may point the finger at Ubisoft developers, the 24H2 update has been a long-lasting irritant to the user experience, with numerous bugs pushing some people away from operating systems (at least for now).

Valve announced that SteamOS will be coming to other handheld gaming PCs, providing gamers with a great alternative. Also, a native cloud image, Bazzite, running SteamOS but not affiliated with Valve, can be used on desktop PCs, so Microsoft needs to get its act together before potentially losing plenty of users.

• Read more: Windows 11 24H2 forces Ubisoft’s AC fixes

6. OpenAI predicted AGI in 2025

(Image credit: Getty Images)

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicts we’ll achieve AGI (artificial general intelligence, also known as superintelligence) "as we have traditionally understood it" in 2025 – a bold prediction for the year.

AGI is a type of AI that matches or even surpasses a human’s cognitive capabilities across a broad range of cognitive tasks compared to current AI models, which can only attempt to match people in a few specific areas. It’s what sci-fi has trained us to imagine when we think of AI.

This would be a major advancement in the AI field, with many experts saying AGI would lead to a revolution unlike anything we’ve seen so far. For now, we’ll have to take Sam Altman’s word that AGI is almost here, but we could be in for a wild 2025 if his prediction is correct.

• Read more: Sam Altman predicts artificial superintelligence (AGI) will happen this year

5. Apple’s 2025 roadmap leaked

(Image credit: Karen Freeman / Future)

Speaking of leaks, Apple’s iPhone and iPad roadmap for 2025 was teased by reporter and reputable tipster Mark Gurman this week (via a paywalled Bloomberg article), with Gurman detailing what tech we should see in the next 12 months.

The first is the iPhone SE 4 with Apple Intelligence and Face ID, which will land in Q1 or early Q2. Then, alongside it, Gurman says we’ll get the iPad 11 with an A17 Pro chipset (just like the iPhone 15 Pro) and 8GB of RAM, which should mean it’s powerful enough to run Apple Intelligence.

Sometime in Spring, Gurman believes we will get a new iPad Air with an M4 chipset to bring it in line with the latest iPad Pro models, and then rounding out the year will be the blockbuster iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone 17 Air (or possibly just iPhone Air) launches.

• Read more: Apple’s packed 2025 iPhone and iPad roadmap just got tipped

4. DJI launched a first-of-its-kind drone

(Image credit: DJI)

DJI unveiled the new and unique Flip, a multi-use drone for beginners unlike anything we've seen before. Its Star Wars spacecraft-like body features folding propellors with guards, meaning you can fly safely up close, armed with auto-tracking flight modes and 4K videos up to 60fps, plus slow motion 100fps clips.

It's ultimately like a larger, pricier, and supercharged DJI Neo – although the latter offers FPV flight – so check out our DJI Flip vs DJI Neo article to discover the key differences. During testing for our in-depth DJI Flip review, we found that you get better 4K video and 48MP images than the Neo, with the quality approaching that of DJI’s Mini 4 Pro, but without quite hitting those same heights.

Ultimately, what’s most distinct about the DJI Flip is its first-of-kind folding design, which still falls within the 249g-and-lighter category of drones that's largely restriction-free.

• Read more: DJI Flip review a new breed of beginner drone

3. Samsung’s Unpacked announcements leaked

The first Samsung Unpacked event of 2025 might still be a couple of days away – it takes place on Wednesday (January 22) – but it looks like we already know everything there is to know about the phones that will be unveiled at the launch.

Multiple leaks – which feel like they're been ongoing since about this time last year – have shed light on almost everything, including the full specs and color options for the entire three-phone lineup (made up of the Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25 Plus, and Galaxy S25 Ultra), details of AI enhancements, including a new morning brief feature, and even the Samsung Galaxy S25's jazzy new ringtone (which Samsung itself released early).

As with all leaks, we should take these details with a pinch of salt until Samsung makes an official announcement, but on the plus side we don't now have long to wait until then.

• Read more: Samsung Galaxy S25 latest news, rumors and everything we want to see

2. TikTok faced its end… for now

(Image credit: Getty Images)

TikTok’s US ban has been looming for some time, but it came into focus this week as we approach January 19 – the day it will supposedly come into full force. Users afraid of losing the app took to rival services, but not just Instagram’s Reels and YouTube’s Shorts. Chinese-made alternatives such as RedNote and also Lemon8 (which is owned by ByteDance, just like TikTok) proved popular.

There were hopes that the US Supreme Court would stop TikTok’s app store execution, but they have not, and while at the time of writing there are reports the US Government might not enforce any fines related to the ban at first, that has yet to be confirmed. All TikTok fans have left to hold on to is that when Donald Trump steps in as President on January 20, he could work to overturn the ban – a ban which he has been a vocal opponent of, despite being one of TikTok’s original detractors.

We’re not holding our breath, but perhaps this time next week, we’ll all be back to sharing dances on the clock app.

• Read more: TikTok Ban updates live

1. Nintendo Switched things ups

After years of speculation, hype, and rumors, the Nintendo Switch successor finally broke cover, with Nintendo releasing a Nintendo Switch 2 trailer. Unoriginal name aside, the short teaser showed us plenty – it confirmed the console and its screen are larger than before (we’ve heard it’s now an 8-inch display from leaks), showed us the new button on the right JoyCon, and gave us a new kickstand design for the console, alongside clips of what could be a new Mario Kart title (while many are calling it Mario Kart 9, if Nintendo counts Tour as a mainline game this would be Mario Kart 10).

It’s light on specifics, though, and there’s still a lot we aren’t certain about. For one, it’s unclear how much the console will cost when it is released and what its exact specs are.

For those details, we’ll have to watch this space and wait to see what Nintendo announces over the next few days and weeks.

• Read more: Nintendo has officially revealed its next console!

We’re in Samsung season right now, as in a matter of days we’re expecting the Samsung Galaxy S25, Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus, and Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra to launch, and the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim might not be too far behind them.

This rumored new addition to Samsung’s Galaxy S line is – as the name suggests – supposedly a lot thinner than the company’s typical flagships.

But slimming down in size might not mean slimming down too many of the specs, as there’s talk of a 200MP camera, a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, and more.

Below, you’ll find everything we’ve heard about the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim so far, and we’ll update this article whenever more Galaxy S25 Slim news rolls in.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? A high-end, slim Samsung phone
• When is it out? Possibly May
• How much will it cost? Likely over $999 / £999 / AU$1,699

Likely landing in May

The Samsung Galaxy S24 (Image credit: Future | Roland Moore-Colyer)

• Most leaks point to a launch in or around May
• Expect it to be priced somewhere between the S25 Plus and Ultra

We first heard talk of a Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim back in October, with a source claiming that this phone would probably land a few months after the rest of the Samsung Galaxy S25 series. Since those phones are set to be announced on January 22, that would mean a launch in April or May.

This source cautioned though that the S25 Slim might only be released in limited quantities or regions, so Samsung can judge how much interest there is in it before committing to a wider release for a model next year.

Then, in November a model number for a phone believed to be the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim was spotted on the GSMA IMEI database. This told us a few things. For one, it provided more evidence that the phone existed, and for another, the model number ended with a ‘U’, which denotes a US model, so whether or not its availability is limited, it’s likely to land in the US at least.

This find also pointed to a release in or around May, as Samsung phones tend to get added to this database roughly six months before they launch.

Another model number for the S25 Slim has since emerged, this time with a ‘B’ at the end, which typically means a phone that Samsung will sell in every region it operates in. So the Galaxy S25 Slim might not be limited to certain regions after all.

In any case, in mid-December a source claimed the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim would land in Q2 (so between April and June), and in January of 2025 we heard to expect the Galaxy S25 Slim in May.

That said, one early rumor stated that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim was in the final stages of development, and that Samsung was hoping to have it finished in time to launch it alongside the rest of the Galaxy S25 line on January 22. So there's some disagreement.

As for the price, we haven’t heard much, but based on its rumored specs and model number it’s likely that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim will be positioned somewhere between the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra.

We don’t know how much those phones will cost yet either, but for reference the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus starts at $999 / £999 / AU$1,699 and the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra starts at $1,299.99 / £1,249 / AU$2,199, so a price somewhere between those two is likely.

Can you trust these rumors?

Almost every Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim release date leak is pointing to the same launch window, with May sounding the most likely month.

While one source did suggest a launch in January, we’d think this is very unlikely to happen, since we haven’t heard this from other sources and as we’d expect to have heard far more Galaxy S25 Slim leaks and rumors by now if it was landing that soon. It’s believable that the phone might be teased during that Galaxy Unpacked event though.

A slim body and a big screen

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus (Image credit: Future | Alex Walker-Todd)

• Expect a slim design and an other S24-like appearance
• Could be just 6.4mm thick
• The screen might be 6.66 inches

The biggest Samsung Galaxy S25 design leak so far takes the form of numerous renders shared by @Onleaks (a reputable tipster) in collaboration with SmartPrix.

You can see some of these below, and they show a phone that looks a lot like the Samsung Galaxy S24, complete with slim bezels, a glass back, a flat metal frame, a flat screen, and a triple-lens camera.

The source claims that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim has dimensions of 159 x 76 x 6.4mm (rising to 8.3mm if you include the camera bump). For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus (which this is expected to have a similar size screen to) is 158.5 x 75.9 x 7.7mm.

Image 1 of 2

A render of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim (Image credit: @OnLeaks / SmartPrix)Image 2 of 2

A render of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim (Image credit: @OnLeaks / SmartPrix)

While we’d take these claims with a pinch of salt, another source has also said that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim is somewhere between 6.0 and 6.9mm thick.

This might sound very thin, but yet another source has shown a comparison image revealing that the Galaxy S25 Slim might not be noticeably much thinner than the rest of the Galaxy S25 line. And indeed, however thin the Galaxy S25 Slim might be, it’s reportedly not as thin as Samsung was hoping to make it.

As for the screen, the source of the renders above claims that it’s somewhere between 6.7 and 6.8 inches, while another source got more specific, saying that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim has a 6.66-inch display. That would put it in line with the Galaxy S24 Plus, and probably also with the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus.

Can you trust these rumors?

The source of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim renders has an excellent track record, so we’d say they’re likely accurate, and as all sources are broadly in agreement on the screen size and thickness, we’d think those details are probably more or less correct too.

Ultra-level cameras

The Samsung Galaxy S24 (Image credit: Future | Roland Moore-Colyer)

• Multiple sources point to a high-spec camera
• A triple-lens snapper is likely
• Possibly a 200MP main, 50MP ultra-wide, and 50MP telephoto

The earliest Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim camera leak suggested this phone would have an "Ultra" camera, which presumably means similar camera hardware to the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra or the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Later, the same source similarly said that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim would have a “stronger” camera than the standard Galaxy S25.

Another source has since got more specific, claiming that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim will have a 200MP main camera, a 50MP ultra-wide, and a 50MP telephoto with 3.5x optical zoom. This claim likely fits with the leaks above, as a 200MP main sensor would see it match the S24 Ultra, and these specs are likely better than you’ll find on the standard S25.

Finally, we’ve heard elsewhere that the telephoto camera on the S25 Slim could have an ALoP (All Lenses on Prism) design, making it thinner than most telephoto lenses.

Can you trust these rumors?

We’re slightly skeptical of the claim that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim will have a 200MP main camera and two 50MP snappers, simply because the source doesn’t have much of a track record.

But this does line up with the other, vaguer camera claims we’ve heard from more credible sources, so it’s certainly possible.

At the very least, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim will probably have a triple-lens camera, as that’s what it’s shown with in the renders we’ve seen.

Top-end power

(Image credit: Qualcomm)

• Leaks point to a high-end Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset
• 12GB of RAM also looks likely

Our first real Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim specs information came in December, 2024 when we heard that – like the rest of the Samsung Galaxy S25 series – this would probably have a top-end Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset.

More recently, the Galaxy S25 Slim appeared in a benchmark, with exactly that chipset and 12GB of RAM. Its scores weren’t as impressive as we’d expect from such a top-tier chipset, but that’s probably just because the phone’s hardware and software were still being developed and optimized.

Another rumor has since echoed that chipset and RAM amount for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim. So this could be an extremely powerful phone, offering performance that’s in line with the rest of the Samsung Galaxy S25 series.

Can you trust these rumors?

Multiple sources have pointed to a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and 12GB of RAM. So there’s a good chance this is what we’ll get, especially as that’s what we’re expecting from the Samsung Galaxy S25 and Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus.

A worryingly small battery

The Samsung Galaxy S24 (Image credit: Future)

• Could have a very small battery
• Most leaks suggest it will be under 4,000mAh
• One source instead says it will be 4,700mAh or bigger

One area where the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim might not impress is its battery, with an early leak suggesting Samsung had failed at making the battery as energy dense as hoped, which – combined with the phone’s slim build – might mean a lower-capacity battery than you’d expect from a phone with a screen of this size.

That’s been echoed by a more recent claim that the Galaxy S25 Slim’s battery will be somewhere between 3,000mAh and 4,000mAh.

That said, the source of the renders above stated that its battery is “significantly” bigger than 3,050mAh, so it might at least be approaching 4,000mAh.

Or these sources could be wrong, as we’ve elsewhere heard that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim might have a battery of between 4,700mAh and 5,000mAh.

Can you trust these rumors?

While one source points to a big battery in the Galaxy S25 Slim they don’t have much of a track record, and it’s hard to believe Samsung would be able to fit such a big battery in such a slim phone.

So the claims that the battery is somewhere between 3,000mAh and 4,000mAh are more believable, but we’re hopeful that it will at least be at the upper end of that range.

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• El Capitan is a classified US government property that crunches data related to US nuclear arsenal
• ServeTheHome's Patrick Kennedy was invited for the launch at the LLNL in California
• AMD and HPE's CEOs were also part of the ceremony

In November 2024, the AMD-powered El Capitan officially became the world’s fastest supercomputer, delivering a peak performance of 2.7 exaflops and 1.7 exaflops of sustained performance.

Built by HPE for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to simulate nuclear weapons tests, it is powered by AMD Instinct MI300A APUs and dethroned the previous leader, Frontier, pushing it down to second place among the most powerful supercomputers in the world.

Patrick Kennedy from ServeTheHome was recently invited to the launch event at LLNL in California, which also included the CEOs of AMD and HPE, and was allowed to bring along his phone to capture “some shots before El Capitan gets to its classified mission.”

Not the biggest

During the tour, Kennedy observed, “Each rack has 128 compute blades that are completely liquid-cooled. It was very quiet on this system, with more noise coming from the storage and other systems on the floor.”

He then noted, “On the other side of the racks, we have the HPE Slingshot interconnect cabled with both DACs and optics.”

The Slingshot interconnect side of El Capitan is - as you'd expect - liquid-cooled, with switch trays occupying only the bottom half of the space. LLNL explained to Kennedy that their codes don't require full population, leaving the top half for the "Rabbit," a liquid-cooled unit housing 18 NVMe SSDs.

Looking inside the system, Kennedy saw “a CPU that looks like an AMD EPYC 7003 Milan part, which feels about right given the AMD MI300A’s generation. Unlike the APU, the Rabbit’s CPU had DIMMs and what looks like DDR4 memory that is liquid-cooled. Like the standard blades, everything is liquid-cooled, so there are not any fans in the system.”

While El Capitan is less than half the size the xAI Colossus cluster was in September when Elon Musk's supercomputer was equipped with "just" 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs (plans are afoot to expand it to a million GPUs), Kennedy points out that “systems like this are still huge and are done on a fraction of the budget of a 100,000 plus GPU system.”

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• Intel says its unfinished supercomputer broke the exascale barrier

Whether it's a 5K run or just a lap around the neighborhood, the best running shoes can make all the difference.

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Jan. 18.

Here are some hints — and the answers — for the Jan. 18 Strands puzzle, No. 321.

• Amazon's replacing 'Try Before You Buy' with a 'Virtual Try-On.'
• Swapping a physical try-on for a digital one is becoming somewhat of a theme in online retail.
• Virtual Try-On joins other features like AI-powered size recommendations.

Amazon would rather you try clothes on virtually instead of testing their fits at home. The company is officially retiring its “Try Before You Buy” program at the end of January, and in its place, Amazon wants you to trust its AI tools to find your perfect fit.

Try Before You Buy launched in 2017 as Prime Wardrobe and has let buyers get up to six items, try them on at home, and only pay for what they keep while sending back the rest. No dressing room with harsh fluorescent lighting is necessary. It's very popular, but Amazon has decided the program is not good enough.

Amazon believes its AI tools are all you need to find your best look. One might suspect this also has something to do with the company’s increasing investment in AI-driven shopping features. After all, why wait for a box of clothes when an algorithm can tell you which pair of jeans will love you back?

“Given the combination of Try Before You Buy only scaling to a limited number of items and customers increasingly using our new AI-powered features like virtual try-on, personalized size recommendations, review highlights and improved size charts to make sure they find the right fit, we’re phasing out the Try Before You Buy option," Amazon said in a released statement.

AI e-commerce

The tools Amazon points to are a different way of thinking about online shopping for clothes. Virtual try-on is an augmented reality feature that lets you see how shoes, glasses, or lipstick will look without leaving your couch. Meanwhile, the personalized size recommendation system uses your purchase history, return patterns, and feedback from other customers to predict your ideal size.

For a more conversational approach, there’s the Rufus AI chatbot, ready to answer all your questions and suggest products based on your shopping habits.

For fans of Try Before You Buy, this news might sting. The idea of confidently trying on clothes before committing is hard to replace, and AI, no matter how advanced, doesn’t have the tactile joy of slipping into something that just fits. Still, Amazon says that its free return policy will remain intact for most apparel purchases, so you can always fall back on the classic “order three sizes and hope for the best” strategy.

Amazon’s decision to swap physical try-ons for digital solutions isn’t just a company quirk; it’s part of a more significant trend in retail. AI is becoming increasingly popular as an aid to Google and other retailers' online shopping.

Whether shoppers will embrace this new era of virtual assistance or will long for the days of box-filled try-on sessions at home remains to be seen.

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Here are some hints — and the answers — for Connections: Sports Edition No. 117 for Saturday, Jan. 18.

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• ChatGPT's use in schoolwork doubled in a year to 26% among U.S. teens
• A majority of teens think using ChatGPT for research is fine
• Far fewer support using ChatGPT to write essays or solve math problems

I'm old enough to remember when teachers said we couldn't use a calculator in tests because we wouldn't always have one in our pockets, and they would check essays that seemed familiar against their entry on the Encarta CD-ROM encyclopedia. Teachers today are faced with the far more sophisticated tools offered by ChatGPT and other AI chatbots, whose popularity has skyrocketed among students, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center. The percentage of teenagers using ChatGPT for schoolwork doubled from 13% in 2023 to 26% a year later.

Let’s face it: schoolwork isn’t always the most thrilling part of a teenager’s life. It's not shocking a lot of teens are turning to AI for a little academic assistance. But the details of how ChatGPT is used by students are a little more nuanced. Pew’s research found that a slight majority of 54% of teens are okay with using the AI chatbot for tasks like researching new topics, which is hard to claim is an attempt to cheat. That approval drops to 29% for using ChatGPT to solve math problems, and only 18% of teens think it’s acceptable to get ChatGPT to write essays for them.

ChatGPT's prominence makes it likely to be the most widely used of the many options. Even if all of the respondents were scrupulously honest about whether they used ChatGPT for schoolwork, that doesn't mean they haven't dabbled with Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Meta AI, Microsoft Copilot, or any of a million apps that serve as a wrapper for ChatGPT's model. The Digital Education Council released a survey in August that pegged the global use by students of some kind of AI at a far higher 86%.

Academic AI

Students who aren't just turning in ChatGPT-written essays may actually be improving their education in creative ways. With the right approach, AI can be a great educational supplement, but never a replacement. Even the best ChatGPT prompt won't replicate the experience of wrestling with an idea until you finally get it. There are already some experiments in that vein, with Arizona State University (ASU) working with OpenAI to incorporate ChatGPT and London’s David Game College running an AI-taught class as part of its new Sabrewing program.

There's reason for concern over students becoming overly reliant on AI and not learning to think critically and solve problems independently. On the other hand, AI in education can mean, if leveraged properly, offering students access to personalized resources they might not otherwise have. That's the tougher but probably best recourse since even the strictest policies are unlikely to stop students from using AI in any context they can. You'd need a school that replaces all homework with oral presentations and requires all research to be done using paper books to prevent it.

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Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,000 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today – or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc's Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Quordle today (game #1090) - hint #1 - Vowels How many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 3*.

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

Quordle today (game #1090) - hint #2 - repeated letters Do any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 1.

Quordle today (game #1090) - hint #3 - uncommon letters Do the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

• No. None of Q, Z, X or J appear among today's Quordle answers.

Quordle today (game #1090) - hint #4 - starting letters (1) Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?

• The number of today's Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 2.

If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you're not ready yet then here's one more clue to make things a lot easier:

Quordle today (game #1090) - hint #5 - starting letters (2) What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• B

• I

• B

• P

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1090) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1090, are…

• BLARE
• ITCHY
• BICEP
• PIPER

When you haven’t got a single word after the fourth or fifth goes, Quordle feels pretty unbeatable.

I got that sinking feeling today, spending far too long trying to guess BLARE. I almost got there, but was one letter out with PIPER.

Some very tricky words today, congratulations to anyone who completed it.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Daily Sequence today (game #1090) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1090, are…

• UDDER
• YOUNG
• BLURB
• MOLAR

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1089, Friday 17 January: CATCH, WEARY, SWOON, LATHE
• Quordle #1088, Thursday 16 January: PARTY, BLUNT, TWEED, PLANT
• Quordle #1087, Wednesday 15 January: RISEN, PLATE, RURAL, ENVOY
• Quordle #1086, Tuesday 14 January: SWARM, SCRAP, ONION, BELCH
• Quordle #1085, Monday 13 January: EYING, GIDDY, CHEAP, PETAL
• Quordle #1084, Sunday 12 January: BRIEF, PETAL, WOMAN, FELON
• Quordle #1083, Saturday 11 January: ASCOT, FIBER, ROGUE, SMELL
• Quordle #1082, Friday 10 January: BIGOT, INLET, LEECH, TUNIC
• Quordle #1081, Thursday 9 January: RESET, HUMOR, TENOR, IMAGE
• Quordle #1080, Wednesday 8 January: MINCE, SADLY, RISEN, VOUCH
• Quordle #1079, Tuesday 7 January: CREED, FILET, ROUTE, TAPER
• Quordle #1078, Monday 6 January: PIVOT, WOOLY, GRUNT, GROOM
• Quordle #1077, Sunday 5 January: BORAX, JUDGE, CADET, SALON
• Quordle #1076, Saturday 4 January: CORER, CRATE, QUASI, EXIST
• Quordle #1075, Friday 3 January: PERKY, QUARK, NAVEL, SHEEN
• Quordle #1074, Thursday 2 January: UNIFY, SWORE, DEPOT, INTRO
• Quordle #1073, Wednesday 1 January: CLING, SUITE, WORRY, TONIC
• Quordle #1072, Tuesday 31 December: PLUMP, TUBER, IRATE, ICILY
• Quordle #1071, Monday 30 December: TODDY, GROIN, GROWN, VERVE
• Quordle #1070, Sunday 29 December: PURER, SPLAT, RABID, EMCEE

Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #321) - hint #1 - today's theme What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… O ___! My ___!

NYT Strands today (game #321) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• READ
• BISON
• PANT
• NUDE
• ANGER
• TORA

NYT Strands today (game #321) - hint #3 - spangram What is a hint for today's spangram?

• Leader of the gang

NYT Strands today (game #321) - hint #4 - spangram position What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First side: left, 6th row

Last side: right, 5th row

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #321) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #321, are…

• PLANET
• HOOK
• CRUNCH
• OBVIOUS
• KANGAROO
• UNDERPANTS
• SPANGRAM: CAPTAIN

• My rating: Moderate
• My score: 2 hints

An intriguing theme today and it wasn’t until I saw HOOK that I cottoned on to the OBVIOUS.

I also experienced a bit of puzzling deja-vu and I’m convinced these words have appeared in Connections or Strands before – which is the only way I could possibly know about Captain KANGAROO. This niche kids TV character with the catchphrase “good morning Captain” didn’t penetrate the world beyond the USA.

Maybe if I’d seen UNDERPANTS sooner, I wouldn’t have struggled so much.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Friday, 17 January, game #320)

• MILLENNIAL
• ALPHA
• BOOMER
• ZOOMER
• GREATEST
• SPANGRAM: GENERATION GAP

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's new word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now out of beta so is a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable and can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.

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