Technology

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 Wordle today, NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games.

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

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Full house

NYT Strands today (game #220) - hint #2 - clue words

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

• BIFF
• FRAME
• ITCH
• PANT
• ROLL
• DUST

NYT Strands today (game #220) - hint #3 - spangram What is a hint for today's spangram?

• Where the heart is

NYT Strands today (game #220) - hint #4 - spangram position What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First: right, 5th row

Last: left, 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 #220) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #220, are…

• HALL
• OFFICE
• STUDY
• KITCHEN
• LIBRARY
• PANTRY
• FOYER
• SPANGRAM: HOMEROOM

• My rating: Moderate
• My score: Perfect

Either the staff of the NYT live in far bigger houses than I do or they're taking a few liberties with the answers here, because my home contains neither an OFFICE, LIBRARY, PANTRY or FOYER; I'm not an aristocrat… Still, the central theme of 'rooms in a house' is fair enough, were it not for the fact that the spangram is HOMEROOM, which is a different thing entirely.

Setting that aside, it's not too tricky. The biggest problem is that so many rooms have the word, um, ROOM in them – meaning the likes of bedroom, bathroom, dining room etc were all ruled out. The challenge was therefore to think of rooms that don't contain the actual word 'room', which took me a while.

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

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday 8 October, game #219)

• LOCK
• PASSWORD
• SAFE
• BACKUP
• FIREWALL
• ENCRYPTION
• SPANGRAM: SECURITY

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.

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now nearly 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 Wordle today, NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles.

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 #989) - hint #1 - Vowels How many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 5*.

* 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 #989) - 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 0.

Quordle today (game #989) - 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 #989) - 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 #989) - hint #5 - starting letters (2) What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• T

• H

• D

• T

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

Quordle today (game #989) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #989, are…

• TRIAL
• HUSKY
• DOWNY
• TRADE

The HUSKY would be in my top 10 of dogs, an important list that is (of course) topped by my own chocolate labrador. It wasn't necessarily my favorite Quordle word today, though, on account of it being slightly more difficult than the others here; that -US-Y format could also be BUSHY or MUSHY or PUSHY, so I needed a guess to narrow it down.

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

Daily Sequence today (game #989) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #989, are…

• BLAND
• NOBLE
• SHORE
• BLIMP

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #988, Tuesday 8 October: TROUT, HATER, BARGE, DOZEN
• Quordle #987, Monday 7 October: CAULK, HALVE, APING, HEATH
• Quordle #986, Sunday 6 October: FUDGE, TENOR, BEGAT, ROUSE
• Quordle #985, Saturday 5 October: ELECT, CROAK, FRISK, JAUNT
• Quordle #984, Friday 4 October: ELFIN, GRAIL, PATIO, RECAP
• Quordle #983, Thursday 3 October: TENTH, REMIT, CURVE, TOAST
• Quordle #982, Wednesday 2 October: ARGUE, CRANE, TOKEN, PRINT
• Quordle #981, Tuesday 1 October: FRILL, MADLY, GRANT, NYLON
• Quordle #980, Monday 30 September: CRUSH, TARDY, TEACH, STUMP
• Quordle #979, Sunday 29 September: SERIF, BORNE, WRITE, SLEEK
• Quordle #978, Saturday 28 September: BUSHY, CIVIC, SNOUT, EQUIP
• Quordle #977, Friday 27 September: GUEST, CHASM, ROOST, BASAL
• Quordle #976, Thursday 26 September: STAGE, VOGUE, CLUMP, HEATH
• Quordle #975, Wednesday 25 September: UMBRA, DADDY, GLAZE, PRANK
• Quordle #974, Tuesday 24 September: SPACE, INNER, SPAWN, BEGAT
• Quordle #973, Monday 23 September: GUILT, STERN, ANNEX, FIELD
• Quordle #972, Sunday 22 September: ZESTY, MEATY, ALIVE, DRAWN
• Quordle #971, Saturday 21 September: VITAL, FRAIL, SPEAR, EERIE
• Quordle #970, Friday 20 September: ELIDE, DITTO, SHAWL, BONUS
• Quordle #969, Thursday 19 September: MARRY, OWING, DICEY, LUCKY

Amazon's October Prime Day sale is finally here and the deals are coming in full force. Score great bargains on TVs, laptops, home essentials and so much more!

If you are a hot sleeper who doesn't want to spend too much on a mattress, the Cocoon chill mattress is worth considering.

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The new Shimmering Skies set is included in the discount.

Grocery shopping as a game without checkout lines could make a sometimes tedious errand more bearable thanks to an AI infusion into Instacart’s Caper Carts. Instacart augmented the smart grocery carts with new AI features. They offer a touchscreen that provides navigation guidance to the products you’re looking for, as well as personalized recommendations, discounts, and even a way to make shopping into a kind of treasure-hunting game.

Instacart created the Caper Carts to skip the need for checkout lines. They have cameras, a scale, and other sensors to evaluate items placed within, while the screen lets you know what the cart thinks you just pulled from the shelf using Nvidia’s AI libraries of information about products plus its on-device AI processing platform. You can buy everything before you even get to the front of the store and simply walk out when you’re done. 

The AI in the new Caper Cart offers a lot more than just a faster checkout, though. They come with real-time location tracking to note where you are and lead you to what you want to buy. You can upload your grocery list to the cart with a QR code in the Instacart app, which then displays it on the cart’s screen. It can also do the same for products on sale that pique your interest, offering discounts based on your location.

(Image credit: Instacart) Shopping Games

If you want more fun in your shopping tasks, there’s always gamification. The Caper Cart has a feature that creates quests for items on your shopping list as though you’re in a video game. There are real prizes, too. Adding one item to your cart can lead to products with additional discounts related to what you’re buying, such as an extra percentage off soda when buying disposable cups. Anything that leads to more purchases is likely to make grocery store owners happy, of course, even if the Caper Cart is more expensive than the traditional metal basket.

“Caper Carts are ushering in a new era at the grocery store – making shopping more delightful while delivering a seamless experience for customers, retailers, and brands,” Instacart Chief Connected Stores Officer David McIntosh said. “With Caper Cart’s digital screen, we’re now delivering an unmatched omnichannel experience for retailers and brands in-store. Today’s news is further proof of how we’re truly transforming grocery shopping from a chore to a fun adventure, giving customers a one-of-a-kind, interactive experience in every aisle of the grocery store.”

Grocery stores might find the Caper Cart appealing not just for making shopping faster for customers but for the advertising option on the screen that they can use for in-store promotions and sponsored product recommendations from brands with products in the store. It makes for a kind of mobile impulse purchase aisle that way. More than 70 locations have rolled out Caper Carts, including big grocery chains like Fairway Market, Kroger, and ShopRite, as well as ALDI stores in Austria.

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Pour one out or better yet, braid a French twist for the iconic iPod Shuffle. Once the world's smallest digital music player, Apple's iPod Shuffle is now relegated to the tech giant's growing scrap heap, officially joining countless other "obsolete" gear that will no longer receive service or support from the company.

The distinction should come as little surprise. The last iPod Shuffle was released in 2015 and Apple stopped selling them in 2017. Apple relegates most products to the discarded pile after seven consistent years of support. Joining the iPod shuffle this year is the entire iPhone 6 lineup. The Shuffle will soon be joined by the iPod touch 4th Gen and iPod touch 6th Gen, which are currently settled in Apple's Vintage grouping. They're no longer distributed but still have some service and support from Apple.

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

Still, there was something special about the iPod Shuffle. When it arrived in 2006, it was a wholesale redesign of the original Shuffle, itself a gum-pack-sized player that looked more like a lanyard than a digital device. The 2006 Shuffle was tiny (they never weighed more than about a dozen grams), rectangular (later a square), and could easily hide in the palm of your hand. It not only kept the 3.5mm headphone jack but cleverly made it dual-purpose, shipping with a special dock that delivered a charge through that same port. Instead of a screen, the face still featured the classic, circular iPod hardware controls. It even had a physical off switch!

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

What truly set the player apart, though, was the full-body clip. With it, you could clip the iPod Shuffle to your shirt, jacket, backpack, or bag. And because the player shipped in a variety of attractive colors (Blue, Pink, Red, Gold...), you wanted to show it off.

@pariscampbellgrace

♬ original sound - paris campbell grace

Even though Apple sold the iPod Shuffle for almost 20 years, it was, like the rest of the iPod line, long ago eclipsed by the multi-purpose iPhone, which duplicated the iPod's music feature and, of course, added countless others.

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

In recent years, though, the iPod Shuffle has enjoyed an odd second act as a hair clip. Some claim, it's among Gen Z's favorite hair accessories. It's certainly popular on TikTok. Some even charge up the old, wearable digital players and find they work as both a hair clip and as a music player.

I can report that the iPod Shuffle second generation I dug out of a drawer still functions as a music player (glad I still own a 3.5mm headphone) and when I connected it to my Macbook Air M3 using the USB-based dock, Apple Music recognized it as my wife's old iPod and showed me all the music she stored on it. I wonder if I could add some more music and then convince my wife to wear it as a new hair clip.

Probably not.

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Save even more during Amazon's October Prime Day event with the Prime Visa card.

Other World Computing (OWC) has announced the release of its Envoy Ultra Thunderbolt 5 SSD, available for pre-order now.

This new SSD is designed to take full advantage of Thunderbolt 5, offering speeds that exceed 6000MB/s, which the company claims will make it up to twice as fast as Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 drives.

The Envoy Ultra Thunderbolt 5 SSD is built to work with a variety of devices, including PCs, Macs, iPad Pros, Chromebooks, and Surface devices. It supports Thunderbolt 5, Thunderbolt 3 and 4, and USB4. The SSD is also built for durability, featuring water-resistant, dust-resistant, and crushproof protection, which makes it suitable for users in need of reliable external storage in harsh conditions.

Available in 2 and 4TB capacities

In addition to its durability, the Envoy Ultra SSD features a fanless, heat-dissipating aluminum design, allowing it to operate silently while remaining cool. The drive is bus-powered, meaning no additional power supply is required, and it includes a built-in Thunderbolt cable for easy connectivity.

"Intel's innovative Thunderbolt 5 technology sets a new standard for performance and simple connectivity, and OWC’s Envoy Ultra SSD is a perfect example of how this technology can be harnessed to meet the needs of today’s most demanding users,” said Larry O’Connor, OWC’s Founder and CEO. “OWC continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible, delivering a solution that not only leverages the full potential of Thunderbolt 5 but also opens up new possibilities for professionals and creatives alike."

Intel’s Vice President and General Manager of Client Connectivity Division, Jason Ziller, added: "Intel is excited to see OWC utilize Thunderbolt 5 technology with their new Envoy Ultra SSD, pushing the limits of data transfer speed and versatility. This product exemplifies how Thunderbolt 5 technology can empower users to tackle even the most demanding tasks with ease and efficiency."

The OWC Envoy Ultra Thunderbolt 5 SSD will be available in two capacities: 2TB for $399.99 and 4TB for $599.99. Pre-orders are now open, with shipments expected to begin in late October.

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• These are the fastest external SSDs around right now
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With Amazon's Prime Day deals you can get in shape for less, whether you prefer the popular Peloton Bike or the Peloton Tread.

There's a small catch.

You'd be shocked by where a jar of coconut oil will take you. For Amazon Prime Day, you can get a quality organic oil for just $9.

Atlus’ new game from Persona designer Katsura Hashino is about to transform fantasy games—with anxiety.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and a whole host of conspiracy theorists are claiming the hurricane was planned in order to harm Republicans. Climate experts tell WIRED that’s impossible.

Google promised advertisers that its AI plans would not bar them from reaching potential customers, and the tech giant has delivered with the addition of advertising to the AI Overviews feature in Google Search. Whether that makes the Gemini AI-written summaries to your search queries more appealing is debatable. AI Overviews means you may not need to click on a link to get an answer to a question and was hyped at Google I/O this year. Companies that rely on Google's search engine to promote their websites were leery of a tool that seemed to make sponsoring results worthless. 

Google anticipated that reaction and promised ads would be an element of AI Overviews. After months of testing, the ads are rolling out. Essentially, you'll see products mentioned and linked to in the text written by the AI. For now, it's just going to be U.S. mobile users who see the ads, but they will likely expand quickly, assuming the tests have worked out most of the bugs. 

The idea is to connect how Google traditionally used ads to support itself with the new AI mandate, bringing Gemini to every corner of the company's ecosystem. While you may or may not find the direct suggestions for products useful, it's definitely going to make it more likely that people click on a product and buy it than if there were only the somewhat subtle hyperlinks to the content Gemini used to write the AI Overview. The company said it will only include sponsored links when it's directly relevant, so you shouldn't see any ad spam in the AI Overview.

Google demonstrated in the video below how you might look for tips on removing grass stains from clothing. While the AI Overview would normally suggest methods and provide links, the sponsorship of a cleaning product company means you'll also see a list of products you might want to buy for that purpose. The products are marked as being sponsored, much like when you see a bunch of sponsored links at the top of a search result page. 

AI Overviews Just for You

"This new ad format was designed to help people discover new brands and make informed purchasing decisions," Google explained in a blog post. "People have been finding the ads within AI Overviews helpful because they can quickly connect with relevant businesses, products, and services to take the next step at the exact moment they need them."

Google has been keen to push AI Overviews onto users despite some major problems with how safe the answers were early on and reports that Google was pulling back on its rollout. Still, the feature is now international, and clearly, Google feels comfortable enough with it to trust its AI models with its crucial advertising dollars.

Melding its keystone services of search and ads with AI could be a boon to both advertisers and consumers who want a faster route between having a question and getting a product to solve the problem. It's also necessary for Google as it works to match and beat its rivals in both search and AI. Microsoft has been playing with ads in its Copilot AI chatbot, as has Perplexity with its sponsored follow-up questions. And, Amazon has pursued a similar objective from the other direction by making an AI chatbot on its website called Rufus that will also offer sponsored suggestions for purchases.

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Saatva’s Solaire mattress is the brand’s most unique option. The Solaire uses air chambers for support, which makes it perfect for most couples.

Make your favorite fancy coffees in the comfort of your own home with this Breville espresso machine that's $150 off.