Technology

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Aug. 20, No. 331

My M1 Mac mini has been one of the best purchases I’ve made in recent years. It’s performed incredibly well since I bought it and has served me well over the years despite having nothing more assuming than an entry-level chip. Throw in the fact that it only cost me $699, and it’s left me one happy bunny.

Now, AppleInsider says it’s been told by sources inside Apple that the company is testing an M5 Mac mini. This follows up on the outlet’s report earlier this year that an M5 Pro Mac mini was in the works and suggests we could be getting close to seeing the next generation of Apple’s tiny desktop computer.

As well as my M1 Mac mini has performed, I’m sorely tempted to upgrade to an M5 model. By all indications, it’ll come at the right time and with the right features to make the outlay worth it.

An upgrade that’s built to last

(Image credit: Apple)

The Mac mini is already the best mini PC you can buy, and it’s not even close. Its powerful, efficient chips deliver significantly more performance than you would expect from a computer this small. And it really is small, leaving a tiny footprint on your desk, even by the standards of these small-scale devices. It’s made from high-quality materials with a solid aluminum chassis, yet its $599 price tag - $100 less than I paid for the M1 model – means it offers tremendous value.

That’s all with the M4 chip, but with an M5 on the way, we can expect things to get even better. The M5 chip is rumored to bring a performance increase of 15-25% over the M4, as well as Thunderbolt 5 in the entry-level models and Wi-Fi 7 connectivity. It’ll be a modest but meaningful upgrade.

There won’t be a new design for the Mac mini, but that really doesn’t bother me. Considering the current look is less than a year old – and still looks fantastic – there’s no need to change it. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

All this talk of a new Mac mini comes at the ideal time for me to upgrade. My M1 Mac mini is five years old and can’t always keep up with more heavy-duty tasks. My MacBook Pro with M1 Pro chip, meanwhile, is doing OK, but I’m increasingly having to turn down the settings in more demanding games like Cyberpunk 2077. In both instances, my Macs are starting to show their age.

A Mac mini with an M5 or M5 Pro chip would be perfect for my more performance-intensive work (such as reviewing high-end games), allowing my MacBook Pro to focus on less-demanding work on the go. Given how much I’ve managed to eke out of my M1 Mac mini, an upgraded model could last me well into the future.

Pro possibilities

(Image credit: Apple)

I recently took the macOS version of Cyberpunk 2077 for a spin on two different Macs: my MacBook Pro with M1 Pro chip, and an iMac with M4 chip. And thanks to its extra graphics cores, the M1 Pro actually outperformed the M4, despite being several generations out of date.

That makes me excited to think about what might be possible with an M5 Pro Mac mini and the extra graphical oomph granted by its increased core count. Throw in frame generation – Apple has its own MetalFX implementation of this in the works – and the next Mac mini could achieve frame rates I never thought possible from a Mac. And that’s all for $599, which makes the Mac mini a pretty spectacular bargain.

For now, we don’t yet know when the M5 Mac mini is going to launch. AppleInsider previously suggested that it would arrive in 2025, but early 2026 is also a possibility.

Either way, it’s going to come at a potentially expensive time for me. I’m eyeing up the MacBook Pro with M6 Pro chip, as its expected combination of high-grade performance and OLED display could make it a gaming dream machine. At the same time, I also want to upgrade my desktop PC from 2021, which isn’t quite able to hit the levels I want with its RTX 3070 graphics card.

But given what could be coming to the Mac mini, it’s going to be hard to resist prioritizing Apple’s dinky desktop Mac. All in all, it feels like a great time to be an unashamed computer nerd.

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• Gaming company Bragg spotted an attack on its systems recently
• It says no data was stolen, and no encryptor deployed
• No threat actors claimed responsibility yet

Bragg Gaming Group, a Canadian company which provides casinos with software, games, and backend platforms, has confirmed it recently suffered a cyberattack, but fortunately it doesn’t seem to have caused much trouble.

A short press release published on the company’s website said that Bragg learned of a “cybersecurity incident” on early Sunday morning, August 16.

Upon learning of the incident, Bragg brought in third-party cybersecurity experts to contain the attack and assess the damage, it said. Preliminary results showed that the attack was “limited to Bragg’s internal computer environment.”

Targeting iGaming providers

“At the present time, there is no indication that any personal information was affected. Additionally, the breach has had no impact on the ability of the company to continue its operations, nor has it been restricted from accessing any data that has been subject to the breach,” the company added.

So, this either wasn’t a data breach or ransomware attack, or the incident was stopped quickly enough to prevent any actual harm.

Bragg Gaming Group does not run casinos itself. It is a B2B provider building software, games, and backend platforms that online gambling operators use to run their businesses. It also seems to be rather successful. It serves operators across North and Latin America, as well as Europe, having more than 200 customers and more than 450 employees.

Between 2019 and 2023, it experienced a 37% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), and projects a total addressable market of about $40 billion by 2028.

In its writeup, The Record hints there is a pattern here, since Bragg is not the only gaming company to face a breach in recent months, after Australia’s Ainsworth Game Technology, as well as International Game Technology, both reported “significant disruptions” late in 2024.

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The HMD Fuse uses AI to prevent children from seeing, saving, sending or filming sexual content. The company claims it's impossible to bypass.

I don't know if there's a right age for an iPhone, but I think most can agree that there should be different smartphone and online experiences based on age, and that's really the philosophy behind most digital parental controls, including the fairly voluminous ones found across Apple's ecosystem. Now, with iOS 26 – and other platform updates – on the horizon, that system is set for a series of small but important updates.

I've seen most of them in action and, on the whole, I think these may be just the series of privacy and safety controls parents and, yes, even teens and kids, have been looking for.

To Apple's credit, it's been adding to and enhancing its parental control ecosystem for years. So much so that many parents may only scratch the surface of its vast platform of controls.

Worth noting that if you identify a new device like an iPhone or iPad as going to a child or teen, many of the controls, like web content restrictions, app restrictions (apps rated 4-plus only), screen distance alerts, and messaging filters that automatically blur out the naughty bits, will function automatically.

There are, though, key safety changes that you can enable when Apple releases public versions of its OS updates for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

The age of appropriateness

Your child's iPhone and iPad are already pretty good, based on your Parental Control settings, at managing your kid's access to age-appropriate apps, but Apple is going further in iOS26, iPadOS26, and macOS 26 (essentially any platform that's part of your Family Plan and that can access the App Store).

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Age Appropriate Experiences seems designed to help prevent App developers from inadvertently delivering inappropriate in-app content to your children and teens. It's enabled through a series of simple screen prompts that let you supply the age (but not birthdate) of your children to developers.

Using this information, developers can ensure that regardless of which apps you let them download, their apps only deliver content that aligns with the child's age.

I appreciate that there's another level of control: parents can choose if the Age range is "Always" shared, if developers have to "Ask First", or if it's "Never" shared. I think I like the second option best because it's the only one that allows the child to choose if they want their age range shared with developers.

Getting the right message

Once your child has an iPhone and a phone number, it's almost guaranteed that they will be targeted by predators. There is a simple setting in iOS right now that lets you automatically block unknown numbers (Filter Unknown Senders under Settings/Apps/Messages). However, iOS 26 will take these protections further.

With iOS 26, your child won't be able to add just anyone to their contacts and messaging lists.

If your child wants to add a study buddy to messaging on their iPhone or iPad, they'll see a new pop-up that will let them "Ask a Parent or Guardian to Approve this Person".

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If the child or teen selects the pop-up, a pre-populated message appears where they can fill in the friend's details and add a message explaining who the person is. Parents get a time-sensitive notification on their devices with the details and message. They can choose to add the contact, decline, or select "Not now."

Once the friend is added, your child or teen will get a message telling them they can call or message the new contact. Of course, it might make sense to pause in the middle of this process to chat in person with your kid and make sure the "study buddy" is really just another kid.

Apps less limited

Apple's parental controls make it quite easy to set time limits and even exclude apps from view so that when your child searches the App Store, they won't even see those not-age-appriate apps in the App Store.

Apple, though, appears to have recognized that some kids are, well, sneaky.

When you set time limit controls at an app level or even globally, your child can request more time with the app. Approving the extension requires the parent's passcode, which they can enter remotely from their best iPhone or best iPad, or in person if they happen to be sitting next to their kid. If the kid has been surreptitiously watching you enter the passcode and has it memorized, they could be granting themselves more screen time.

With this small yet useful upcoming update, parents will receive notifications whenever their passcode is used.

Making the exception

Parents get to choose which apps their kids can access, but there will soon be a new button at the top of App description pages that will offer the ability to request an exception.

That request goes to parents who can grant permission, which immediately turns on the "Get" option on an app.

This might come in handy when, say, your child has a project where some YouTube research will come in handy. However, when the project is done, you can just as quickly revoke the exception, and then not only does access in the App Store disappear, but the app also disappears from your child's device.

This is a level of control I can get behind.

Tell us how you manage your child's screen time in the comments below.

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• Emdoor EM-959-NM16ASH-1 Ryzen AI MAX chip promises strong workstation power
• Display refresh reaching up to 180Hz seems excessive for workstation needs, leaning toward gaming territory
• At 2.45 kilograms, this laptop feels more like a desktop replacement than a mobile workstation

Emdoor, a company that has mostly kept a low profile since 2023, is now releasing another system that it calls a "high-end PC workstation with next-gen AI chip."

The device, listed under the code "EM-959-NM16ASH-1," comes with AMD’s Ryzen AI MAX processors, also known as Strix Halo.

The Emdoor EM-959-NM16ASH-1 features soldered LPDDR5X-8000 memory on a 256-bit bus, giving high bandwidth but preventing upgrades.

A workstation or gaming laptop?

Although the memory is limited to a maximum of 128GB at purchase, the storage is more flexible with two PCIe 4.0×4 M.2 slots supporting up to 8TB.

The display is a 16-inch panel at 2560x1600 resolution, with refresh options of either 165Hz or 180Hz.

Such specifications may attract users looking for a video editing laptop, but they also blur the line between workstation and gaming hardware.

That impression is further reinforced by leaked internal file names tied to the design, which included the term "GAMES."

At 2.45kg, the system is heavier than many of its rivals, with the likes of Sixunited's XN77-160M-CS and HP's ZBook Ultra G1a weighing less than 1.8kg.

Although bulkier construction may have been chosen to handle the 45–120W thermal design of Strix Halo, this weight might be acceptable only for a stationary workstation, as buyers seeking a business laptop may not find this design appealing.

It also includes a 99Wh battery that is claimed to last eight hours, but without independent testing, such claims remain promises.

Cooling is handled by a dual-fan setup coupled with triple heat pipes and a quad-exhaust system.

The company markets this system as a workstation, but the aesthetics, refresh rates, and naming history suggest gaming roots.

Since Emdoor acts as an original design manufacturer, the same model could easily appear under another brand marketed as a gaming system.

Whether this laptop becomes a reliable tool for professionals or fades into obscurity, as some of the firm’s past projects have, will only be clear once it reaches the market and real-world feedback emerges.

Currently, only a limited number of PCs feature the Strix Halo chip, with examples including the Asus ROG Flow Z13 (13.4″), the HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a, and a handful of others.

In terms of pricing, these devices cost well over $2,000, and considering the specifications of the Emdoor EM-959-NM16ASH-1, it will likely cost more.

Via Videocardz

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Gamescom Opening Night Live 2025 has officially finished, and I was pretty disappointed by this year's show. There were loads of announcements, sure, but many of them felt like pure filler. Did we seriously need not just one, but two whole World of Tanks trailers?

As a long-time Call of Duty fan, I was really looking forward to the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 gameplay reveal, which was confirmed ahead of the show, but even that left a sour taste in my mouth.

The trailer showed off some levels from the campaign and gave us our first look at its four-player co-op in action. The visuals are definitely there with some really stunning sights like the neon-lit rooftops of Tokyo, but the frequent glimpses of large open environments left me feeling uneasy.

I can't help but think that they look more like the maps from the open-world 'Open Combat Missions' of 2023's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 than the linear environments that the series is known for.

Modern Warfare 3 had easily the weakest campaign in Call of Duty history, transparently comprised of sloppily repurposed Warzone battle royale content, and I worry that the same thing is true of Black Ops 7's offering.

We already know that part of the story takes place in Avalon - a map that rumors indicate was initially intended for Warzone - but things only got worse when a subsequent developer video confirmed that the campaign's final mission will be some kind of weird multiplayer "social experience".

Officially called the Endgame, it's a repeatable PvE (player versus enemy) experience that drops you into Avalon with your squad to explore and survive against a wide range of enemies, which sounds suspiciously like a Warzone match to me.

Like Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops 7 is being released as a direct sequel to its immediate predecessor - Black Ops 6. Hailing from the same two studios, Treyarch and Raven. I hope that not many corners have been cut in order to make that shorter than the usual production time.

More of the game is being shown at an upcoming Call of Duty Next on September 30, 2025, so I'm hoping that multiplayer and zombies – the other two parts of the offering – will look a lot more promising.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is set to launch on November 14, 2025.

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Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Aug. 20, #801.

Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for Aug. 20, No. 1,523

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• Ghost of Yōtei will receive the Legends multiplayer mode in 2026
• The mode will be free for all owners of the base game and offer two-player story missions and four-player survival matches
• The multiplayer DLC was first introduced in Ghost of Tsushima

Sucker Punch has announced that Ghost of Yōtei will receive a free Legends multiplayer mode in 2026.

Revealed during Gamescom Opening Night Live 2025 alongside a new story trailer ahead of the game's October launch, Legends is a cooperative multiplayer mode that was first added to the previous game, Ghost of Tsushima.

Ghost of Yōtei Legends will offer two-player story missions and four-player survival matches and will be available at no extra cost to those who already own the base game.

In this version, players will have access to four character classes and will need to defeat demonic, giant versions of members of the Yōtei Six, along with a variety of new enemies that fight beside them.

Concept art for each boss has been revealed in a new PlayStation Blog post, which you can view here.

Ghost of Yōtei launches on October 2, 2025, exclusively for PS5 and PS5 Pro, and takes place more than 300 years after the first Ghost game.

In this indirect sequel, players explore the lands surrounding Mount Yōtei as protagonist Atsu, who will hunt down the people responsible for her family's death.

Ghost of Yōtei pre-orders are now live, along with Ghost of Yōtei PS5 bundle pre-orders. If you're looking to get your hands on the exclusive PS5 controller, here's where you can buy the Ghost of Yōtei DualSense.

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• An anime based on Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is coming to Crunchyroll in 2026
• Sekiro: No Defeat will be a fully hand-drawn adaptation of FromSoftware's game
• A first trailer teasing memorable boss fights has been released

An anime based on FromSoftware's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has been announced, and we have our first official teaser trailer.

Revealed during Gamescom Opening Night Live 2025, Sekiro: No Defeat is coming to Crunchyroll in 2026 worldwide, excluding Japan, China, Korea, Russia, and Belarus, and will be produced by Kadokawa, Qzil.la, and ARCH.

The anime will be a fully hand-drawn adaptation that will retell the game's story down to every memorable boss battle.

"We are taking on the monumental task of animating the breathtakingly beautiful Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. In doing so, we are pouring every ounce of our artistic vision and passion for beauty into its production," said Kenichi Kutsuna, director of the adaptation.

"The final product is being crafted to be a truly memorable experience, one that will leave a lasting impression on both dedicated fans of the game and those who are discovering the world of Sekiro for the very first time. Please look forward to it."

The anime will also be helmed by a team of acclaimed anime creators, including director Kenichi Kutsuna, screenwriter Takuya Satou, character designer Takahiro Kishida, action animation director Takashi Mukoda, and more.

We also have the first few names of the voice cast. Sekiro's main character, Wolf, will be played by Daisuke Namikawa, Kuro (The Divine Heir) will be voiced by Miyuki Satou, while Genichiro Ashina will be played by Kenjiro Tsuda.

"Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a game known for its precision and intensity, and those qualities carry through beautifully in this adaptation," said Asa Suehira, chief content officer at Crunchyroll. "We’re excited to bring Sekiro: No Defeat to fans around the world, and honored to work alongside Kadokawa, Qzil.la, and ARCH to expand this iconic story through the medium of anime."

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• A new trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's DLC, The Order of the Giants, was revealed at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2025
• The expansion arrives on September 4, 2025
• The game is also coming to Nintendo Switch 2 in 2026

Machine Games has given us a new look at Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's forthcoming expansion, The Order of the Giants, along with confirmed of a Nintendo Switch 2 version.

Gamescom Opening Night Live 2025 is finally here and as one of the major announcements of the showcase, a gameplay trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle's first downloadable content (DLC) was revealed.

The Order of Giants was first announced during the Xbox Games Showcase earlier this month and arrives on September 4.

The story expansion will be accessible to those who own the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Premium Edition, Collector’s Edition, or Collector’s Bundle, or it can be purchased separately.

The DLC takes place during the events of the main game and follows Indiana Jones as he returns to the city of Rome to uncover a dark secret that lies beneath the city.

"There is a myth of a beast in the hidden depths of Rome, rumored to guard a terrible secret... When Indiana Jones encounters Father Ricci, a young priest desperate for help to track down a Roman artifact, a standard treasure hunt soon turns into a perilous journey," its description reads.

"Along the way, Indy must face the sinister plots of Emperor Nero and his gladiator games, the enigmatic Cult of Mithras, and whatever else lurks in the shadows. Can Father Ricci's cryptic knowledge guide Indy through these treacherous passageways? Only Indiana Jones can piece together this breathtaking mystery."

New and intricate puzzles while traversing Rome’s ancient sewer system, the Cloaca Maxima, and beyond will also be featured, along with new enemies and the return of familiar faces.

However, the most exciting part of the trailer for me was the announcement that the game will also be coming to Nintendo Switch 2 in 2026, making it the first Xbox-owned title to be confirmed for Nintendo's latest console.

In TechRadar Gaming's four-star review, hardware writer Dashiell Wood called Indiana Jones and the Great Circle "a thrilling adventure ripped straight from the silver screen" that features "flawless voice performances and incredible motion capture work".

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• The Maxsun Arc Pro B60 Dual 48G Turbo merges two Intel GPUs into one workstation card
• With 48GB VRAM onboard, the card promises headroom for demanding AI and data tasks
• Power consumption between 250W and 400W forces serious consideration in workstation builds

Maxsun has revealed the Arc Pro B60 Dual 48G Turbo, a $1,200 graphics card which places two Intel GPUs on a single board.

This product takes an unusual route in today’s market, where most manufacturers have abandoned dual-GPU designs in favor of single, more powerful chips.

Maxsun instead combines two Arc Pro B60 processors into one card, supported by 48GB of GDDR6 memory.

Designed for specialized workloads

Each GPU connects to a 192-bit memory interface with 456GB/s of bandwidth, and together the card brings 5,120 FP32 cores to the table.

The hardware is based on Intel’s Xe-2 “Battlemage” design, specifically the BMG-21 variant, marking one of the few workstation-grade attempts to use this architecture in a dual configuration.

Unlike consumer products designed for high frame rates in games, this dual Intel GPU card is presented as a tool for compute-heavy fields.

Maxsun describes this device with the phrase “Cut the Cloud. Keep the Power,” suggesting a push toward local processing of sensitive data.

The move from a single Arc Pro B60’s 120W rating to a combined load between 250W and 400W shows that this is a power-hungry device.

Feeding two GPUs requires strong power delivery and cooling, which in turn complicates deployment in compact workstation cases.

The reliance on PCIe 5.0 x16 ensures that data transfer to both GPUs is handled with sufficient bandwidth, but it does not change the reality that higher power consumption may limit adoption.

A workstation PC with this card could theoretically run large models such as DeepSeek R 70B or QwQ 32B entirely in-house.

Whether the performance matches that of dedicated server hardware remains to be seen.

Although the card is not marketed as a video editing PC component, its 48GB of VRAM could appeal to users working with extremely large projects.

The dual-GPU arrangement also frees up motherboard slots, which might benefit systems where expansion space is limited.

The practicality of such a configuration is still uncertain, especially given the varied history of software optimization for multi-GPU systems.

With retail availability expected soon, the Arc Pro B60 Dual 48G Turbo is unlikely to reach mainstream buyers.

Instead, it seems aimed at AI researchers, engineers, and developers who value large memory pools and local compute capacity over raw gaming output.

Via Guru3D

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