TechRadar News

• A few months ago, Chinese state-sponsored actors were observed on IT networks of ISPs, telcos, and more
• Since then, the companies worked hard on cleaning up their infrastructure
• Salt Typhoon still lurks, CISA warns, as it shares guidelines to defend

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) believes Salt Typhoon, the Chinese state-sponsored threat actor that was spotted in telecommunications giants’ networks months ago, is still lurking and hasn’t been completely eradicated. To help organizations tackle this important threat, the agency released in-depth guidance earlier this week.

Salt Typhoon is a known hacking collective, on payroll with the Chinese government. It is mostly engaged in cyber-espionage, targeting important entities and figures in the West, with infostealers and similar malware.

It is part of a wider campaign that includes a number of other “typhoons” - Flax Typhoon, Volt Typhoon, and Brass Typhoon, that seeks not just to steal information, but also to disrupt critical infrastructure.

Strengthening the network

For months now, cybersecurity experts, government agents, and the media have been reporting on Salt Typhoon’s attacks on internet service providers, telecommunications firms, and similar companies. The targets have been working hard on cleaning up their IT systems, but according to CISA, there’s still work to be done.

That being said, the agency first suggests telecoms strengthen their network visibility and focus on monitoring, detecting, and understanding network activity. Then, the report discusses hardening systems and devices through protocols and management processes, device hardening, and access controls. Finally, it tackles incident reporting and provides detailed contact information for reporting cybersecurity incidents in the U.S., Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

Software manufacturers should embed security principles during development, CISA concluded, advocating for secure-by-design configurations, which should reduce reliance on customer hardening.

“Software manufacturers should prioritize secure by design configurations to eliminate the need for customer implementation of hardening guidelines,” it said. “Additionally, customers should demand that the software they purchase is secure by design.”

For any organization fearing being targeted by Salt Typhoon (or any other Typhoon, for that matter), CISA’s guidance is a must-read.

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Spotify Wrapped 2024 is finally here – which means it’s time for the streaming service’s ruthless algorithms to pass judgement on our music tastes for the year. And this time, Wrapped even has an AI-generated podcast where virtual hosts dissect your musical adventures.

Yes, thanks to Google’s NotebookLM, Spotify Wrapped has a pretty big new addition to its popular recap feature. Alongside that new Wrapped AI podcast (more on that below), other recent features like AI Playlists and AI DJ are also getting a twist for Spotify’s reflection on your year in music.

As Spotify veterans, we’re here to run you through how to find your Wrapped 2024 recap, what to do if it isn’t showing up and, most importantly, how embarrassing our Wrapped recaps have been this year. If we make you feel a bit better about your music taste in the process, we’ll consider that a job well done.

So whether you’re still patiently waiting for Spotify’s elves to deliver your Wrapped, or are simply here to gloat, here’s all the latest from the trenches of this year’s Wrapped experience…

Spotify Wrapped 2024: the essentials

• How do you find it? Spotify Wrapped 2024 should appear when you open the app (make sure you’re running the latest version), but if not head to the app’s Home tab. You should see a banner that takes you to your Wrapped experience and a 'Wrapped' button at the top. Alternatively, head to Spotify's web version. For more detailed guidance, head to our how to find Spotify Wrapped 2024 guide.
• What’s new this year? Spotify has gone pretty big on Wrapped this year, introducing a few new AI features. The headline one is ‘Your Spotify Wrapped AI Podcast’, but there are also new twists on features like AI DJ and AI Playlist. Another nice touch is ‘Your Music Evolution’, which sums up how your tastes have changed over the year.
• What if it isn’t showing up? The Spotify Wrapped rollout is rarely plain-sailing, so what can you do if there’s no sign of it? Make sure you’re running the latest version of the app for a start, then head to our guide on what to do if Spotify Wrapped 2024 isn’t working.

(Image credit: Spotify)

Yes, Wrapped is rolling out now

Spotify has finally tired of every single reply to its social media accounts being a skeleton meme with a ‘waiting for my Wrapped’ tagline – the button has been pressed, and Wrapped 2024 is rolling out now.

It’s too late to game those algorithms. The next time you open your Spotify app (making sure you’re on the latest version) you should see a Wrapped 2024 banner appear among your mixes – tap it to find the unvarnished truth of your year in music.

Alternatively, if you’re old-school or secretly checking at work, you can find Wrapped 2024 in the macOS or Windows apps, or in a web browser.

(Image credit: Spotify / Apple)

You may want to try the mobile web player first...

Spotify Wrapped 2024 is now officially rolling out, but not everyone (including many on the TechRadar team) are seeing it in the app yet.

But one way to see your slideshow is to open a browser on your smartphone then head directly to the Spotify web player (making sure you're logged in on the app). You should then see the slideshow of your musical highlights, which will keep you busy while the full Wrapped heads to the app.

(Image credit: Spotify)

Isn’t Wrapped a bit late this year?

Early December feels a little late for Wrapped, but it’s not an unusual time for Spotify to hit the rollout button. Last year, it did land on November 29, but in 2019 it appeared on December 5, while the year before it arrived even later on December 6.

So while it feels like Wrapped should be a late-November affair, the more common rule now is that it lands on a Wednesday, which it’s done for the last five years now. Have we just done a Wrapped-style analysis of Wrapped? Well, it’s about time the tables were turned…

(Image credit: Spotify)

Here's what Wrapped 2024 looks like

While I wait for the full Wrapped to hit my app, I've watched my slideshow in the mobile player (above). It's pretty similar to previous years, with the main new feature being 'Your Music Evolution'.

That shows you your particular music obsessions at three different times of the year. Apparently I was into 'Atmospheric Ritual Ambient' in September, which sounds a bit Wicker Man but I'll take it...

(Image credit: Spotify)

How do you find and share your new Wrapped AI podcast?

The star of this year’s Wrapped 2024 is definitely the new AI podcast, which has just landed for me – even though it’s fairly short at just over three minutes long. It’s rolling out for a “limited time” in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and Sweden only, so it’s worth playing it soon.

You can either find it in your Wrapped home feed (by tapping the banner in the Home tab) or by tapping the app’s ‘Search’ function and typing in “Your Spotify Wrapped AI podcast”. You can also share the unique podcast with others (assuming it’s safe for public consumption) by tapping the share icon underneath the playback menu.

Now, let's try and have a listen without cringing too hard...

(Image credit: Spotify)

AI Wrapped podcast impressions – an impressive debut

Okay, I've just listened to my AI podcast, and it's actually better than I was expecting. Initially, it feels like you've just commissioned two podcast hosts to stroke your musical ego, with my ones cooing "talk about exclusive taste" and "wow, that's impressive" for my total number of minutes.

But there's also some nice added depth. For my top artist Big Thief, the AI podcast fills in some background info on the recording process for Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, talking about the locations for the different sessions.

I'm less keen on Spotify's kooky sub-genres like 'Pumpkin Spice Hollywood Indie', but overall it's definitely a fun addition to this year's Wrapped.

(Image credit: Spotify)

Is Wrapped for both Free and Premium subscribers?

The answer is yes and no. Free Spotify subscribers do get a Wrapped recap – and impressively this year, they also get the new ‘Your Spotify Wrapped AI Podcast’ feature, which is available to everyone for a “limited time”.

But a couple of Wrapped features are reserved for Premium subscribers. Those are the ones related to the AI DJ – which this year commentates on your year in music like a radio show – and the AI Playlist features (above), which lets you create personalized playlists from your Wrapped data.

For example, you can ask it to make a playlist based on "artists similar to my top five” or one for “my top genres”. Did someone say echo chamber?

(Image credit: Spotify)

My Wrapped feels about right

There's always a worry that Wrapped is going to expose you as a secret top 1% Phil Collins fan, even if you only played it on request from your car passengers – but this year my top artists and songs were kind of as I expected.

I've gone pretty hard and Big Thief and Floating Points this year, the latter partly as it's also ideal working music. Sometimes I was Spotify had a 'work mode' to separate that listening from true, chin-stroking intentional listening. Jon Hopkins also made a late charge thanks to his excellent ambient headphones album Ritual.

My only annoyance is that more of my top listening wasn't from 2024 band albums I also loved this year like English Teacher and King Hannah. Maybe next year guys...

(Image credit: Spotify)

AI DJ vs Wrapped AI podcast: what’s the difference?

Spotify appears to have two very similar AI-powered features in Wrapped 2024; a review of your year from its AI DJ, plus that new NotebookLM-powered Wrapped AI podcast. So how do they differ?

The main difference is that the AI DJ is a single radio host who’ll then actually play some songs based on your musical adventures in 2024. The Wrapped AI podcast, meanwhile, is an AI-powered conversation between two hosts about your listening habits, but doesn’t include any songs.

Also, the AI DJ is for Premium subscribers only, whereas all Spotify listeners get the Wrapped AI podcast. I'm personally not a huge fan of AI DJ because it tends to play me songs I've already worn out, but I'll give this special Wrapped version a spin to see if it's more insightful...

(Image credit: Spotify)

Is Wrapped missing features this year?

A fair amount of the online chatter about Wrapped this year is that it's missing quite a few favorite features from previous years, and I have to agree.

There's no in-depth genre breakdowns (other than Spotify's made-up ones like 'Apocalyptic Permanent Wave Rock') and Spotify has ditched Sound Town (which paired you with a city, based on your music tastes) which was big on social media last year.

This year's Wrapped does feel quite superficial, considering the amount of data Spotify could draw upon to make interesting connections and recommendations like Last.fm. But those new AI features has obviously taken priority and the AI podcast is a fun addition that could perhaps grow in depth in 2025.

(Image credit: Spotify)

Why did Google get involved in Wrapped this year?

The new Wrapped AI podcast is a pretty nice addition to Spotify’s recap, and Google’s explained how it works.

Steven Johnson, Head of Editorial at Google Labs, said Google created a new version of a Gemini AI model called Flash specifically to handle the millions of custom podcasts that needed to be generated.

“It was quite an impressive engineering effort,” Johnson said. “It’s been a great collaboration because it’s given us some techniques that we're gonna be able to bring back to NotebookLM.”

It’ll apparently also be the first of many NotebookLM collaborations. “We look forward to a lot of different partnerships, both on the audio front and also just on the text front,” Johnson added. Hmm, surely it's planning something for YouTube too?

(Image credit: Spotify)

Look out for Taylor Swift's new Spotify easter eggs

An important part of the Wrapped experience is finding out just how far you've drifted from the musical zeitgeist. But no-one will be surprised to discover that Taylor Swift has again been the number one most-streamed artist globally, according to Spotify – and the numbers are truly incredible.

Swift was responsible for over 26.6 billion streams on Spotify this year, enough for several for every person on earth. She's so popular that Spotify has baked in a few easter eggs for fans, including "a custom mini-animation tailored to the eras of her discography" (like Sparkles and Seagulls) on Spotify's Play button. They'll apparently being rolling out today, so keep your eyes peeled, Swifties...

(Image credit: Spotify)

The AI playlists are worth dabbling with

I must admit I've barely touched Spotify's AI playlist feature, which rolled out a few months ago – but it's become a bit more interesting with its Wrapped twist. They're a little bit buried, hiding in the 'Your Library' tab at the base of the app under the '+' icon.

You can now put a Wrapped spin on playlist, for example asking it to "make me a playlist with my Top songs that are perfect for a workout". I'm not super-keen on musical echo chambers, so asked it to make me a playlist of songs inspired by my top artists of 2024, with mixed results.

Spotify lets you provide feedback on its results with little '+' icons to keep songs you're happy with, so the more we use the better it'll get.

And with that, it's time to hand over these Spotify Wrapped liveblog reins to someone who's got his ear far closer to the musical ground than me, our Editorial Executive Rowan Davies...

(Image credit: Future)

2024 is the year I turned country

So apparently, I’m a country gal now? Who would’ve thought! To say I’m surprised with my top artists would be a lie, and since I correctly guessed all five I’d say that I have a pretty solid awareness of who I’ve been listening to the most over the past year.

But what surprised me the most was the result of my top five songs. Because the scope of my listening habits has been significantly more widespread than ever this year, my top songs were hard to pin down. While I knew deep down that Cowboy Carter would be my most-streamed album this year, the influence of Taylor Swift and Charli xcx’s banger album Brat has been unprecedented, and I was convinced that they would creep in somehow.

However, to my surprise, Beyonce has yet to be dethroned from my Spotify Wrapped. Not only has she come out on top as not just my most-streamed artist for another year running, but five songs from Cowboy Carter occupy my most-streamed songs list. Excuse me, I’m just off to fetch my cowboy hat and boots.

• One of the data centers NASA uses got damaged by a burst pipe
• Experts are still assessing the extent of the damage
• Stanford has described the outage as “severe”

A number of NASA's projects, such as its Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission, are facing major disruptions after the data center they rely on recently got damaged by water, leading to a serious outage.

Stanford’s Joint Science Operations Center (JSOC) confirmed that a burst water pipe severely damaged the data center’s servers, and a resolution could be a long way away.

JSOC explained that a four-inch chilled-water pipe broke on November 26, affecting the machines that process and distribute data from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) and Atmospheric Imaging Array (AIA) instruments as well as the IRIS spacecraft.

NASA’s data center is offline

JSOC said that its team is still working to assess the extent of the damage, however it has confirmed that the damage is “severe,” adding that data processing for the HMI, AIA and IRIS projects will be down for an “extended length of time.”

Although data processing is set to be unavailable for an uncertain amount of time, JSOC assured us that the data capture systems are still in place and functional, therefore new data will still be collected as usual. Instruments onboard the SDO and IRIS will continue to collect observation data, which is set to be stored at the DDS in New Mexico temporarily, until repairs are complete.

The SDO previously stated that it generates around 42 terabytes of solar observation data monthly, highlighting the scale of the challenge posed by the water-induced outage.

Although data up until November 26 remains accessible on the SDO website, solar scientists and space weather forecasters will need to turn to alternative data sources until the data center is back online.

JSOC stated: “We deeply regret any inconvenience and appreciate your patience as our team prioritizes the repair and recovery of the affected systems.”

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It's Christmas come early for Spotify fans, because Spotify Wrapped 2024 has arrived: a musical stroll down memory lane, giving you the chance to relive the past year through the albums, tracks, and artists you listened to on the streaming service. For our first impressions, make sure to follow along in our Spotify Wrapped 2024 liveblog.

If you were part of Spotify Wrapped 2023 and any of the previous annual recaps, you'll know what's involved. Spotify digs deep into your listening stats, to present you with an entertaining summary of your own personalized hit parade.

This year there are some tasty new features. The headline is the Spotify Wrapped AI podcast, generated by Google's NotebookLM. That's right, you get to listen to Google's AI podcast hosts dissecting your music taste for a few minutes in a custom-made chat. There are also Wrapped-specific twists on Spotify's AI DJ feature and AI Playlists.

You can find Spotify Wrapped 2024 now by opening up the Spotify app for Android or iOS – and we'll tell you below exactly how you can get at your recap. If it's not appearing, make sure you're updated to the latest version of the app, and keep refreshing.

Spotify Wrapped 2024 is available on the web too: just point your browser at spotify.com/wrapped and you're in. Enjoy the look back at your musical year, which may include one or two surprises that you'd forgotten about.

How to find your Spotify Wrapped 2024

Your Spotify Wrapped 2024 should be pretty hard to miss – in the app, go to the Home tab and tap the banner on your homepage (right) or the Wrapped button at the top of the page (left). (Image credit: Spotify)

Spotify Wrapped 2024 isn't hard to find. An alert should show up when you open the app, but if not head to the Home tab inside the app for Android, iOS, iPadOS, Windows, macOS, or the web – you should see a big Wrapped 2024 banner among your mixes and recommendations like the ones above.

Tap or click on that banner and your audio recap of 2024 should start on screen, in the familiar format: a social media stories-style slideshow of highlights, telling you how much listening you've done on Spotify, and the songs and artists you were most fond of.

If you can't see your Spotify Wrapped 2024 yet, make sure you're using the latest version of the app. On mobile, find Spotify on the Google Play Store or Apple App Store – if an update is available, it'll say so on the listing page. On the desktop apps, click your profile picture (top right) and you'll see a prompt to install an update, if one is available.

You can also just open spotify.com/wrapped inside a web browser, log into your Spotify account, and view your Wrapped 2024 data there.

What's new in Spotify Wrapped 2024 this year?

As you might have expected, Spotify has plugged plenty of AI into its Wrapped recap this time around. Alongside the familiar charts of the music you listened to the most, you'll also find these new features:

1. Spotify Wrapped AI podcast

(Image credit: Spotify)

• Available for: Free and Premium subscribers

Thanks to a little help from its friends at Google, Spotify is giving us a special AI-powered Wrapped podcast this year. This tweaked version of NotebookLM's Audio Overview feature serves up a short (three-to-six minute) podcast episode about your year in music, hosted by AI presenters.

It's available to both Free and Premium users for a "limited time" in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and Sweden. From what we've seen, the presenters are pretty positive and complementary, but we also haven't seen your music taste.

To find it, go to the Spotify app's home screen and tap on the Wrapped label at the top of the screen – then tap on the 'Your Wrapped AI Podcast'. Alternatively, you can find it via search by typing in 'Your Spotify Wrapped AI podcast'.

2. An AI DJ for your Wrapped 2024 story

(Image credit: Spotify)

• Available for: Premium subscribers only

If you're a Premium subscriber, you'll be familiar with the AI DJ: the bot is able to play a mix of tunes in Spotify based on your previous listening habits, and talk you through the picks just like a radio presenter would. This feature was actually included in Spotify Wrapped 2023, but it's back and better than ever in 2024.

With Wrapped 2024, the AI DJ will talk through your last 12 months of activity on Spotify – almost as if the synthetic being has been your constant companion over that time. It's an alternative way of digging into your musical past, and will include commentary based on the expert views of the human editors at Spotify too.

3. AI Playlists based on your Wrapped 2024

(Image credit: Spotify)

• Available for: Premium subscribers only

Another Spotify Premium feature that rolled out this year was AI Playlists. The idea is that you can create playlists with simple prompts – in the same way you might get ChatGPT to generate a block of text, or get Midjourney to generate a piece of art. You just tell Spotify what you want from your playlist, and it gets to work.

Once your Wrapped 2024 has appeared in Spotify, you can use the AI Playlist feature to generate new playlists from it (besides the playlist of your top 100 songs for 2024 you get anyway). For example, you can ask Spotify for "a playlist of my top genres" or "artists similar to my top five”.

4. Your Music Evolution

(Image credit: Spotify)

• Available for: Free and Premium subscribers

Last year, Spotify was big on pairing you with your musical twin city with Sound Town, but this time around it's more into seasons. The new 'Your Music Evolution' feature sums up how our music taste has varied according to the time of year.

The feature splits your year into three musical phases, which are named in Spotify's typically new-age style – for example, 'Atmospheric Ritual Ambient' and 'Pumpkin Spice Hollywood Indie' (we're not quite sure what that means).

Still, it's a fun feature that's for both free and Premium subscribers – and it's also turned into a personalized playlist that you can find in the Wrapped feed from the app's Home tab.

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Spotify Wrapped 2024 is now rolling out globally (and you can follow along in our Wrapped 2024 liveblog), but the streaming service's elves don't always deliver your musical gift on time or without hitches. Is your Wrapped 2024 not working or showing up? There are a few things you can try.

Last year, Spotify's Wrapped recap ran into some issues that produced "internal server error" messages. While we haven't seen anything quite on that scale with Wrapped 2024, its rollout is still proving a little uneven.

In 2023, Spotify fans using the desktop, browser-based version of Spotify Wrapped got the error message above, but had more joy in the mobile app. (Image credit: Spotify)

Before we go into some potential fixes, it's worth noting that you need to have listened to Spotify for a certain amount of time to qualify for the Wrapped roundup. With a free or premium account, you need to have streamed at least 30 tracks for over 30 seconds each, from five unique artists, so this won't be an issues for most.

Also, Wrapped isn't available in some regions due to local data privacy laws. In 2022, for example, Spotify users in Sri Lanka and Ghana discovered that Wrapped wasn't available for them.

But if you've tried closing and reopening the app, then tapping the Home tab, only to find that your Spotify Wrapped 2024 is stubbornly refusing to show up in a banner or as a button at the top of the page, try these little fixes and workarounds...

1. Update the Spotify app

On iPhone, you need to be on version 8.8.94 of the Spotify app to be able to see your Wrapped 2024 roundup. (Image credit: Spotify / Apple)

Are you definitely running the latest version of the Spotify app? If Wrapped 2024 isn't showing up, it's worth double-checking, because that's essential for the recap to roll out to you.

Go to the Spotify app in the App Store (on iOS) or Play Store (on Android) and check to make sure there isn't an app update waiting for you. On iOS you need to be running app version 8.8.94, while on Android it's version 8.8.96.476.

All up to date and still no Wrapped showing? You could reach for the red button and try the nuclear option – deleting the app from your phone, then reinstalling it. Your music and playlists are all tied to your Spotify account, so don't worry – they'll show up again when you log back in. But it might just be nudge it needs to spark Wrapped 2024 into life.

2. Head to the mobile site

Head to the Spotify mobile site in the likes of Chrome on iOS (above) and you might get to see your Wrapped 2024 slideshow, even when it isn't yet available in the app. (Image credit: Spotify / Apple)

If Spotify Wrapped 2024 isn't appearing as a banner or tile in the Home tab of the app, there are another couple of ways you can find it.

One is simply by heading to the Spotify Web Player in your mobile browser in iOS or Android, and logging into your account. We've had experience of Wrapped 2024 not being available within the app, but playing for us on the mobile site.

The downside is that you only get the slideshow experience without the Wrapped extras, such as the new NotebookLM-powered AI podcast feature, but it's a start while you waited for Wrapped to belatedly appear in the app.

3. Take the manual route

(Image credit: Spotify / Apple)

If none of the above steps have worked, and Spotify Wrapped isn't appearing as a banner or tile in the app, you can also try using Spotify's search bar.

In the app's search bar, try typing 'spotify:datastories:wrapped' or '2023 Wrapped', then hitting 'search'. For us, typing in the former took us straight to our Wrapped roundup, but the latter may also produce a result that you can tap to take you through your slideshow.

This is also an alternative way to find the find the Wrapped AI podcast. If you can't see a tile, try searching 'Your Spotify Wrapped AI podcast' – if it's available, it should produce a result for you to tap.

How long will Spotify Wrapped 2023 be available?

Spotify Wrapped typically has a limited viewing window, after which it turns into a simple playlist of your favorite songs of the year.

In previous years, Wrapped has been available to view until mid-January, after which it simply redirects you to a playlist of songs. It isn't yet clear if this will be the same for Wrapped 2024, but it gives us a rough idea of the window. The AI podcast feature is expected to be available for a much shorter amount of time.

Want to listen to your Wrapped playlists from previous years? Head to the app's search bar and type 'wrapped 2020' or 'spotify:genre:2020' (depending on your chosen year).

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• Microsoft will begin adding a watermark to the desktop of unsupported PCs
• PCs with Windows 11 installed that don't have TPM 2.0 are considered unsupported by Microsoft
• Updates could also be blocked

If you’re running Windows 11 on an unsupported PC, we’ve got some bad news. Microsoft looks set to make your life a misery by adding a watermark and an annoying pop-up message that’ll keep reminding you that you’re using the operating system on hardware you’re not supposed to until you stop and (ideally, for the company) buy a new PC.

Windows 11 launched with some specific hardware recommendations, especially to do with Trusted Platform Module (TPM 2.0), a bit of hardware included in modern motherboards that supposedly makes the operating system more secure.

However, Microsoft’s insistence that PCs needed TPM 2.0 to run Windows 11 meant that many people found that their perfectly powerful and recent PCs and laptops, which could run Windows 10 without issue, weren’t able to run Windows 11.

Unsurprisingly, this didn’t go down too well with a lot of people, and since then there have been various ways of getting Windows 11 to run on unsupported hardware.

While these workarounds proved that there were plenty of unsupported PCs out there that could run Windows 11 perfectly fine, Microsoft was clearly unhappy about it, and now it’s going to further lengths to make using Windows 11 on unsupported hardware more of a chore.

As ZDNet reports, if a PC doesn’t meet the minimum requirements for Windows 11, but has the operating system installed anyway, then a watermark will be added to the desktop (in a similar way to how watermarks appear if you run Windows 10 or 11 without activating it), and a message will start appearing in the Settings app as well.

As well as those deliberate annoyances, Microsoft also warns that if you run Windows 11 on unsupported PCs you might not get essential updates – and damages to your device might not be covered by a warranty.

While you might wonder how much damage running Windows 11 on unsupported hardware will cause, the bigger concern is that you could miss out on a security update and subsequently fall victim to a virus.

Heavy-handed haranguing

(Image credit: TeodorLazarev / Shutterstock)

Considering how keen Microsoft is to get people to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11, you might think that the company wouldn’t mind (or at least turn a blind eye to) people moving to Windows 11, even on unsupported hardware.

However, it seems the company is sticking to its guns, and doesn’t care if a PC can run Windows 11 – if it doesn’t support TPM 2.0, then it’s not coming in (to the ‘can officially run Windows 11’ club).

This insistence is an odd one. While it’s ostensibly about security, TPM is one of those things that few people outside of enterprise settings will notice or care about. If you’re already annoyed enough that your PC has been deemed unable to run Windows 11 to use a workaround to get the operating system running, having an ugly-looking watermark stamped on your desktop isn’t going to go down well – nor is it going to convince you to either return to Windows 10, or buy a new PC.

Those are the only two options available to you if your PC cannot run Windows 11, and while Microsoft does offer a way to go back to Windows 10, it feels like the company would much rather you just buy a new PC with Windows 11 pre-installed. That’s an expense not everyone can afford, and it can be particularly galling to be forced to do that if your device is perfectly able to run Windows 11, it just doesn’t have TPM 2.0.

However, while I have a lot of sympathy for people who are running Windows 11 on unsupported devices, the fact that Microsoft is warning that those users might miss out on updates means I can’t recommend continuing – if you miss out on a vital security update, you’ll be putting yourself and your device at risk.

Still, it leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth, especially as these workarounds have proved that there are plenty of unsupported PCs that can run Windows 11 just fine if it wasn’t for Microsoft’s insistence on TPM 2.0.

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ExpressVPN has just launched a new dedicated IP feature with privacy at its core.

ExpressVPN promises to go a step further than Dedicated IPs offered by other providers thanks to a unique zero-trust approach. This approach means not even the provider can trace it back to you, a new step for the product.

Available for its Android, iOS, and Windows VPN only at the time of writing (more availability is expected to land soon), users can choose from 29 locations in 22 countries mainly across North America, Asia, and Europe by paying an additional monthly fee.

A new industry standard

"As a privacy-focused company, our vision is to offer a dedicated IP service that addresses any security concerns typically associated with traditional implementations," said Samuel Bultez, Head of Product at ExpressVPN.

With a dedicated IP, the chances that your online activities can be linked back to you are higher. This is what ExpressVPN promised to have fixed.

Bultez said: "Our innovative approach to dedicated IP delivers all the benefits of a static IP address while preserving every user's privacy and security – even ExpressVPN cannot trace the dedicated IP back to the individual."

Dedicated IP solutions are great. But they also come with some limitations—having a static IP typically means your activity can be easily linked to you.Our very own dedicated IP solution solves these challenges and keeps you secure–even we can’t trace it back to you.December 4, 2024

A Zero Knowledge IP Allocation design focused on trust and transparency ensures that IP addresses are allocated privately, the provider explained.

ExpressVPN's "new industry standard for dedicated IP" also makes the most of innovations such as blinded tokens – a token issued by a server without the server knowing who the token is assigned to – and AWS Nitro Enclaves that promise to further boost your privacy and security.

Pete Membrey, Chief Research Officer at ExpressVPN, said the team also released a technical white paper to document Express' unique engineering approach to dedicated IPs.

"With the release of our white paper, we've gone a step further to document this process, providing an in-depth look at our technical architecture, security measures, and privacy safeguards for full transparency," he added.

How to use ExpressVPN dedicated IP

Activating ExpressVPN's dedicated IP is very easy. The option is integrated into the app interface to ensure a quick and easy setup.

All you need to do is head to your account page to add a dedicated IP to your subscription – or add one to the checkout if you're a new user – starting from $3.49 a month, depending on your plan length.

Go to your VPN app (iOS, Android, and Windows only currently) to set it up. You'll need to pick your location among the 29 available and create an access code, which will be the only way to use your dedicated IP. You can see more information on the full process in ExpressVPN's guide.

Once the dedicated IP is set up, you'll be able to switch from this to a standard VPN IP from the app. Bear in mind that the provider is gradually rolling out the option, so you may need to wait some time before being able to use it.

• Third-party Nintendo Switch 2 accessories have surfaced on online shopping sites
• They match previous leaks, but are unlikely to be genuine
• The console has yet to be officially unveiled by Nintendo

Some accessories, purportedly designed for the tentatively named Nintendo Switch 2, have appeared on online shopping websites.

As noted by VGC, accessories allegedly designed for the Nintendo Switch 2 are now up for sale at Chinese retailer Alibaba including a case and tempered glass screen protector. The screen protector appears to be designed for a display much larger than that of the original Nintendo Switch, lining up with previous rumors that its upcoming successor would have a bigger screen.

The case also looks quite different from anything that we’ve seen for the original. It’s bigger, appearing to offer much more room for the Joy-Con controllers. There also seems to be something of a protrusion in the case’s design, though it’s not clear whether this is just for additional protective padding or indicates that the Nintendo Switch 2 controllers are expected to be a radically new shape.

Listing images for the products reveal dimensions too. The case is 1.9in / 5cm deep, with a height of 5.9in / 15cm and a width of 11.6in / 29.5cm which could give us a very rough idea of the Nintendo Switch 2’s size. This would make the system much closer in size to something like the Steam Deck OLED than the Nintendo Switch.

A logo is also shown on one product, though it looks more like a crude fan mock-up than anything else. It’s effectively just the current Nintendo Switch emblem with the number two haphazardly slapped on the end.

It almost goes without saying, but you should take the appearance of these products with a huge pile of salt. Sellers can list basically whatever they want on these kinds of websites, so this is far from an official confirmation of anything. It’s more likely that a few companies are trying to make a quick buck selling accessories in anticipation of the upcoming console, using the latest Nintendo Switch 2 leaks to take a best guess at what they could look like.

Nintendo has previously confirmed that a Nintendo Switch successor will be announced "within this fiscal year" - which is to say before March 31 2025. We'll likely have to wait for an official reveal before we will know for sure what the company has in store.

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• Expect "some very early, gentle messaging" in the coming weeks
• Don't call it a crackdown, but it's a crackdown
• More active streamers will be targeted first

Have you seen one of the best horror movies It Follows? It's about a terrible, frightening thing that follows you and from which there's no escape. And that's a bit like password crackdowns on streaming services: you can move from streamer to streamer, but sooner or later the password crackdown will catch up with you. The latest is the Max password sharing crackdown and it's starting soon.

As Deadline reports, Max is going to target higher data users first with "gentle messaging" encouraging them to stop sharing their logins and add an additional account instead. Those reminders are set to start showing up as soon as next week. But that messaging is going to become less friendly as time goes on in 2025.

How will the Max password crackdown happen?

The crackdown will arrive rather like Mike Campbell's bankruptcy in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises: "gradually and then suddenly."

According to JB Perrette, Warner Bros Discovery's CEO and President of Global Streaming and Games: "We’ll start some early messaging with some people who we think are in the higher tier of usage. We will offer a way to essentially add a member, starting in the first quarter."

Once that process is in place, Max will become stricter. "We will then start gradually as we get the data and start figuring out, with some explicit and implicit signals, how good we are at detecting," Perrette says. "And then as we go through ’25, you’re going to see the filters get tighter and tighter.”

The news isn't exactly a surprise: ever since Netflix first mooted its password crackdown it's been a question of when, not if, rivals would follow suit. Max is just doing what Netflix, Disney Plus and Hulu are doing.

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• Samsung is continuing its Wear OS 5 rollout
• One Watch UI 6 is starting to appear for Galaxy Watch 5 and Watch FE users
• Scattered reports indicate the rollout is proceeding slowly in various territories and models gradually

After rolling out Wear OS 5 to the Galaxy Watch 6 last month, Samsung is finally rolling out the latest version of its wearable software to two older budget models: the Galaxy Watch 5 and the Watch FE.

According to various reports across the web, largely on Reddit, users of the Galaxy Watch 5 and Watch FE are starting to see the software update in Europe, Korea, Malaysia, and more.

As reported by 9to5Google, One UI 6 Watch (Samsung's own package for Wear OS 5) is finally arriving after months of waiting. Wear OS 5 has been on Samsung's best Android smartwatches, the Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra, since July.

Samsung finally rolls out Wear OS 5 to older gen watches

(Image credit: Future / Basil Kronfli)

Samsung's Galaxy Watch 5 was unveiled in 2022, it's two years old and has since been supplanted by the Galaxy Watch 6 and 7, but this weeks new rollout indicates users can expect at least another year of software support.

The Watch FE was released earlier this year, and is the company's cheap smartwatch akin to the similarly-named Apple Watch SE 2.

Per today's report, Redditors are seeing Wear OS 5 roll out to the Galaxy Watch 5 throughout Europe, Malaysia, and more, even in some territories where Watch 6 hasn't yet received it.

9to5 notes the FE rollout appears "limited to Europe" at this stage.

Wear OS 5 brings users new health tracking metrics including Energy Score and Sleep Analysis, as well as power efficiency improvements.

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Strava has just dropped its annual Year in Sport: Trend Report for 2024, revealing that the Apple Watch is top of running, even beating out the best Garmin watches when it comes to popularity.

Every year Strava pulls data from its platform and surveys its users to give us some key highlights for 2024, and the results are as interesting as ever.

It tells us which of the best running shoes are most popular underfoot, which smartwatches are the most popular, and which sports and trends are on the up.

Strava by the numbers for 2024

(Image credit: Future)

So what are some of the headlines when it comes to Strava's 2024 in numbers?

Starting with the social aspects of Strava, the platform says its seeing a massive increase (59%) in group activities, including more activity where people stop and rest or grab a coffee. Pauses are also on the up, as are rest days, with marathon trainees logging no running uploads on 60% of the days leading up to a marathon.

But here at TechRadar, we're all about gear. The number one running shoe on Strava is the Nike Pegasus, while our number one pick for the best running shoe going, the Nike Vaporfly Next%, was the number one shoe for races, and the Nike Alphafly was the number one choice for marathons.

5K runners love the Apple Watch, but longer distances draw more Garmin users. Overall though, the Apple Watch is king of the running devices. The number one pick was the Apple Watch Series (devices like the Series 10, 9, 8, and so on), while the number two pick was the cheap Apple Watch SE. Number three was the Garmin Forerunner 245.

Meanwhile, for cyclists, the top three devices were: the Garmin Edge 530, the Garmin Edge 830, and the Wahoo ELEMNT BOLT V1.

There are also social barriers being broken down. Strava says Boomers and Gen X beat Millenials and Gen Z in mileage and King-or-Queen of the Mountain crowns, with women 20% more likely than men to steal a crown on Strava in 2024.

Weight training is the fastest-growing sport on Strava amongst women (up 25%), while men uploading yoga or pilates increased by 15%.

Strava upset some fans recently with big news that it was making changes to its API which customers warn could seriously disrupt the app ecosystem built up around Strava. New restrictions include changes to the way data is handled, especially for use with AI.

Following community backlash Strava stated it was "steadfast" in its commitment to the app ecosystem it has helped create and says that fewer than .1% of all applications will be affected by the changes.

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With AWS re:Invent underway, the company has already unveiled a whole host of news, updates, upgrades and other announcements.

Given everyone's busy schedules, you may have missed some of the more niche or interesting announcements - but don't worry, we've got you covered.

If you want to track all the news and updates as they happen - follow our AWS re:Invent 2024 live blog for the breaking news - and don't worry, we'll keep this piece updated with anything else we spot that we don't have time for a full article on!

Amazon Nova is here

Our special guest in the day one keynote was a familiar face for AWS fans - former CEO, and now Amazon boss Andy Jassy.

He revealed Nova, a new family of foundation models, which is hoped will push Amazon to the forefront of the AI arms race.

We've covered the image and video generation models Canvas and Reel in our news story - but Nova is actually four tiers of model, available on Amazon Bedrock now.

The full line-up is Amazon Nova Micro (a very fast, text-to-text model); and Amazon Nova Lite , Amazon Nova Pro , and Amazon Nova Premier (multi-modal models that can process text, images, and videos to generate text).

A new generation of SageMaker

Amazon's analytics platform SageMaker has long been one of the company's biggest success stories, and it got a host of upgrades at re:Invent 2024.

AWS CEO unveiled "a new generation of SageMaker", which the company says will bring together the capabilities customers need for fast SQL analytics, petabyte-scale big data processing, data exploration and integration, model development and training, and generative artificial intelligence into one integrated platform.

And a place to experiment in SageMaker too

Another part of this new generation was SageMaker Unified Studio - a new, single environment to access all of your organization's data, and act on it in new ways.

SageMaker Lakehouse

The last bit of the SageMaker triple-header was SageMaker Lakehouse - a new way to simplify analytics and AI with an open, unified and secure data lake house - providing easy access right across all of your data.

Amazon Q for Developers

AI is becoming an indispensible tool for developers everywhere, and Amazon Q for Developers is getting a host of new tools.

This includes generating end-to-end user tests, accurate documentation, and code reviews - all of which should cut down on developer workloads immensely.

Q Developer is also getting transformation support for transforming .NET apps, a great help for modernizing legacy Windows applications, allowing a quick way to transform apps from Windows to Linux.

There's also a new elastic service, moving VMware subscriptions to AWS, but also a new tool allowing transforming VMware workloads to cloud native architectures.

Amazon Q for Business

Trying to get all the information you need from your company's can be tricky to track down, especially if you're a big organization with multiple data siloes.

To make this less painful, AWS revealed Amazon Q Business integration with Amazon QuickSight, bringing together structured and unstructured data out of their siloes.

Amazon Q Business is also now offering more than 50 new actions for some of the most popualr third-party apps it uses, like creating a task in Asana or sending a private message in Teams. There's also even a new capability that uses agents to execute complex workflows, helping employees automate both simple and complex tasks.

GitLab partnership

Another launch aimed at helping developers - a new integrated offering bringing together GitLab Duo with Amazon Q.

The two firms say the launch will combine DevSecOps workflows with Amazon Q autonomous agents to help organizations deliver secure software faster, all providing a seamless AI-powered developer experience.

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need clues.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc's Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.

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

NYT Connections today (game #542) - today's words

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• PAN
• PINE TREE
• LEAD
• CANDLE
• COMPASS
• LOOFAH
• TURNTABLE
• SHEPHERD
• ATLAS
• TOILETRIES
• ECHO
• GUIDE
• SEWING KIT
• HELEN
• DIRECT
• JOHNSON

NYT Connections today (game #542) - hint #1 - group hints

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

• Yellow: Follow
• Green: Get the point
• Blue: Ancient figures
• Purple: Bathroom slang

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #542) - hint #2 - group answers

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: STEER
• GREEN: THINGS WITH NEEDLE/S
• BLUE: FIGURES IN GREEK MYTH
• PURPLE: STARTING WITH SYNONYMS FOR LAVATORY

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

NYT Connections today (game #542) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #542, are…

• YELLOW: STEER DIRECT, GUIDE, LEAD, SHEPHERD
• GREEN: THINGS WITH NEEDLE/S COMPASS, PINE TREE, SEWING KIT, TURNTABLE
• BLUE: FIGURES IN GREEK MYTH ATLAS, ECHO, HELEN, PAN
• PURPLE: STARTING WITH SYNONYMS FOR LAVATORY CANDLE, JOHNSON, LOOFAH, TOILETRIES

• My rating: Moderate
• My score: 2 mistakes

Hi, Johnny here, taking over Connections duties from Marc for a little while (he'll be back occasionally, I'm sure – and he's still looking after the daily Wordle today page, don't worry about that!).

Being a very easily LEAD person the Yellow group appeared before my eyes instantly. The same could not be said about the rest of today’s words, which – as is very often the case at close to midnight – appeared to be a random jumble of letters.

I attempted a second group that seemed to be about getting somewhere using very ancient tech – COMPASS, CANDLE, ATLAS and err ECHO which is nature’s GPS (if you’re in a cave or Alpine valley with someone who can yodel).

Getting this one wrong I used up another mistake guessing that CANDLE, SEWING KIT, LOOFAH, TOILETRIES were all presents you’d buy your Grandmother.

Then sense took hold and grasping at some threadbare knowledge of Greek mythology I bundled together ATLAS, HELEN and PAN and took a gamble on ECHO. This made finding THINGS WITH NEEDLE/S to be much easier, after which the final four revealed themselves, making me feel slightly defeated. Oh, dear Connections, you destroyer of souls...

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

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Tuesday, 3 December, game #541)

• YELLOW: SOPRANOS CARMELA, JUNIOR, MEADOW, TONY
• GREEN: FAMILIAL NICKNAMES CUZ, GRAMMY, MUMMY, POP
• BLUE: “SESAME STREET” CHARACTERS COOKIE, COUNT, OSCAR, SNUFFY
• PURPLE: NAMES THAT SOUND LIKE TWO LETTERS CECE, EDIE, EMMY, KATIE

What is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

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

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… I now pronounce you ...

NYT Strands today (game #276) - hint #2 - clue words

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

• RAIL
• TRADE
• DATE
• GRAIL
• RAVE
• FLEX

NYT Strands today (game #276) - hint #3 - spangram What is a hint for today's spangram?

• Where's that accent from?

NYT Strands today (game #276) - hint #4 - spangram position What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First: top, 4th column

Last: bottom, 2nd column

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

NYT Strands today (game #276) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #276, are…

• GRAVE
• ACUTE
• TILDE
• UMLAUT
• CEDILLA
• CIRCUMFLEX
• SPANGRAM: DIACRITICS

• My rating: Hard
• My score: 2 hints

Hi, Johnny here, taking over Strands duties from Marc (who'll still be looking after the daily Wordle today page, if that's also on your reading list).

Let's be honest, who didn't immediately think of weddings when they saw today's theme?

After a couple of hints, it became apparent that we were instead looking for the words for the dots, accents, and squiggles placed over letters to indicate how they should be pronounced – something which in our age of texting and group chats is vanishing – in English-speaking countries instead.

Unless, of course, you are a fan of heavy metal, where an UMLAUT is near-obligatory, whether it is required or not. Blue Öyster Cult were the first rock band to use this particular DIACRITIC, and they did so purely because they thought it looked good and added an air of the occult.

The use of unnecessary umlauts does lead to confusion, though. Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil told Vanity Fair that they put umlauts in their name after drinking Löwenbräu but had no idea what it meant until they toured Germany many years later and were puzzled to hear the crowd chanting, "Mutley Cruh! Mutley Cruh!"

Vince's opinions on the cedilla are unknown.

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

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday, 3 December, game #275)

• CANDLE
• LANTERN
• TORCH
• HEADLAMP
• FLASHLIGHT
• SPANGRAM: ILLUMINATION

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 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 #1045) - 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 #1045) - 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 #1045) - hint #3 - uncommon letters Do the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

• Yes. One of Q, Z, X or J appears among today's Quordle answers.

Quordle today (game #1045) - 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 #1045) - hint #5 - starting letters (2) What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• J

• G

• G

• C

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

Quordle today (game #1045) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1045, are…

• JUDGE
• GIVER
• GNASH
• CLOAK

Hi, Johnny here, taking over Quordle duties from Marc (who'll still be looking after the daily Wordle today page, if you also play that game).

This is my first attempt at Quordle in a while and I’m not too displeased that I actually got there, but it was a struggle — even after I nailed my first word fairly quickly. For the newcomer, it’s multi-brained, plate-spinning stuff for sure.

In my defense, GNASH is not the first word that springs to mind, but once I’d deduced that the first two letters were GN, there were no other possibilities. A gnarly one for sure.

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

Daily Sequence today (game #1045) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1045, are…

• MOOSE
• POSIT
• PLUCK
• STAKE

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1044, Tuesday 3 December: FUDGE, THICK, CRANK, STASH
• Quordle #1043, Monday 2 December: TROPE, HOVER, SAUNA, SHAPE
• Quordle #1042, Sunday 1 December: NAIVE, CIRCA, STEAD, MICRO
• Quordle #1041, Saturday 30 November: MAMMA, SNUCK, CRYPT, TAROT
• Quordle #1040, Friday 29 November: JOIST, DROOL, DUSKY, GLIDE
• Quordle #1039, Thursday 28 November: GRADE, WORRY, NOISE, DAISY
• Quordle #1038, Wednesday 27 November: HEART, ROGUE, INEPT, UTILE
• Quordle #1037, Tuesday 26 November: PRIED, FAINT, HURRY, WOOER
• Quordle #1036, Monday 25 November: NUDGE, SNOOP, SHACK, DRYLY
• Quordle #1035, Sunday 24 November: CLOTH, CLAMP, PETTY, CHEST
• Quordle #1034, Saturday 23 November: AVOID, PLANT, FILET, TWIRL
• Quordle #1033, Friday 22 November: CUTIE, ALOOF, ETUDE, SILLY
• Quordle #1032, Thursday 21 November: RABBI, EAGER, COUGH, BRASH
• Quordle #1031, Wednesday 20 November: MINTY, TOPAZ, BRUSH, LAPEL
• Quordle #1030, Tuesday 19 November: NINJA, PENCE, PAINT, FOIST
• Quordle #1029, Monday 18 November: ASCOT, BRINK, WEIRD, HOMER
• Quordle #1028, Sunday 17 November: STATE, BRAWN, SWORE, URBAN
• Quordle #1027, Saturday 16 November: NOTCH, BENCH, BUSED, FOUND
• Quordle #1026, Friday 15 November: PURER, TRUSS, TORCH, FORUM
• Quordle #1025, Thursday 14 November: EXALT, TASTE, CRONY, CLOUT

If you are old enough to remember the mysteries of the internet in the late 90s, you may recall the fun "I'm Feeling Lucky" button for Google's search engine that would take you directly to the first result of a search rather than the usual list. Three decades and a million sponsored links later, Google is looking to augment its Gemini AI assistant with a feature similar to one discovered in as-yet unreleased code by Android Authority. This time, the button will be a way of producing a random prompt.

Let fate decide what you should discuss with Gemini. Need a reminder to take your dry cleaning in? How about coming up with gift ideas for the holidays? All this and more will be unpredictably submitted to Gemini when you click on the I'm Feeling Lucky button. The button won't be alone under the text box. Gemini will offer a couple of other random suggestions each time you start a conversation, with the lucky button as a permanent fixture alongside them. Gemini actually had random suggestions of ideas on its homepage when it first debuted, but Google removed them a little while ago to streamline the app's look. The new look is minimalist but still offers random ideas.

It's not too different from the suggestions for conversation topics you see when opening an AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Perplexity. The difference is that you don't know what you'll get when you click on it. The button also has some nostalgia appeal thanks to its distinguished lineage in search engine history.

Lucky Gemini

Random prompts and the lucky button are about more than rosy memories of trusting the first search result to be what you wanted. Like its earlier iteration, the button and its accompanying random prompts help demonstrate what Gemini can do. Google wants people to use Gemini for everything. That's hard to sell if people don't know the useful or just fun ways to use the AI chatbot.

Reintroducing suggestions and giving them a twist with the lucky button helps Google educate users about Gemini and AI as a whole. It might be small in scale and somewhat piecemeal, but it could add up to plenty of loyal customers or positive word of mouth around Gemini.

Playing with random prompts could lead to users engaging with plenty of other upcoming Gemini features and abilities hinted at in future code. Google is planning a lot of upgrades to Gemini, from handling large amounts of code to a better memory for what you like, and even a role as a tour guide in your car.

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• Amazon CEO Andy Jassy speaks at AWS re:Invent 2024 opening keynote
• Jassy outlines Amazon AI work, and what it has learned
• Amazon priority is "technology that really matters for customers"

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has outlined some of the company's biggest challenges when it comes to using AI.

Speaking as part of a guest appearance in the opening keynote of AWS re:Invent 2024, Jassy highlighted the usefulness of "practical AI" in helping its customers.

Outlining multiple examples of how the ecommerce giant utilizes AI internally, Jassy also shared some key learnings from the company's experiences with the technology - as well as revealing its new Nova foundational models.

Andy Jassy and Amazon AI

"We have been using AI expansively across the company for the last 25 years," Jassy noted, "but the way we think about technology - and this goes for AI as well - is that we're not using it because we think it's cool, we're using it because we're trying to solve customer problems."

"That's why when we talk about AI, it's typically less to announced that we beat the best world-class chess player of the world - and more to allow you to have better recommendations, or to equip our pickers in our fulfilment centers...or for out Just Walk Out technology"

"We prioritize technology that we think is going to really matter for customers, and with the explosion of generative AI in the last couple of years, we've taken that same approach - there is a ton of innovation, but what we're trying to do is solve problems for you - what we think of as practical AI."

In his time on stage, Jassy highlighted a number of examples of Amazon's usage of generative AI, from customer service to creating pages for sellers, to inventory management.

Jassy also focused on Rufus, its generative AI chatbot, which is reportedly getting better and smarter at recommending products to customers across the world, and a focus on robotics - which is becoming much more important in its fulfilment centers, providing huge increases in efficiency and productivity.

But he noted this work is not without his challenges - even with the wealth of resources and knowledge Amazon possesses.

"It's actually quite difficult to build a really good generative AI application - you need a good model, but you also need to have the right guardrails, the right fluency of message, and you have to have the right UI."

"We keep learning the same lesson over and over and over again - there is never going to be one tool to rule the world."

"In AWS, we are going to give you the very best combination...as we always do."

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• In-memory processing hardware exists, but software is lacking
• Researchers created PyPIM to enable in-memory computation
• Python commands translated into memory-executable instructions

While processor speeds and memory storage capacities have surged in recent decades, overall computer performance remains constrained by data transfers, where the CPU must retrieve and process data from memory, creating a bottleneck.

Hardware technologies enabling some operations to run in-memory have been in development for some time, but software that allows computers to perform processing operations directly in RAM, bypassing the CPU, has not been properly addressed.

According to a report on Techxplore, researchers at Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology) have developed a solution.

The memory wall problem

"With some computations now handled by the memory, we need new software," explains Shahar Kvatinsky from the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Technion.

"This new software has to be based on new instructions that support in-memory computations. This new computation method is so different from the conventional one that it renders some of the existing building blocks of computer science unusable. Therefore, we need to write new code, which requires a lot of time and effort from software developers."

Kvatinsky has been exploring solutions to "the memory wall problem" - the bottleneck created by the use of different hardware components for computation - for years.

His research group, led by Ph.D. student Orian Leitersdorf in collaboration with researcher Ronny Ronen, has developed PyPIM (Python Processing-in-Memory), a platform that integrates in-memory computing with the popular programming language. PyPIM transforms high-level Python commands into machine-level instructions executed directly within the computer's memory.

The team at Technion believes this new platform will enable developers to write software for PIM computers with ease. Alongside PyPIM, the researchers have created a simulation tool to aid in hardware development and evaluate performance improvements compared to conventional computers.

The researchers' findings were recently showcased at the IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture in Austin, Texas, and a paper detailing their work has been made available on the arXiv preprint server.

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An Argentine horror-fantasy film called The Witch Game is coming to theaters in the U.S. and UK, but the Spanish-language movie doesn't rely on subtitles or English speakers to voice the performances. Instead, AI tools will recreate the original actors' voices and have them speak English. It's a controversial move as it is an actual instance of the frequent warnings about AI taking people's jobs.

The Witch Game tells the story of a woman who gets a VR headset for her 18th birthday, which is capable of sending her to an eerie magical school in another world. Directly inspired by Harry Potter, The Witch Game is directed by rising horror star Fabian Forte.

The performers speak in Spanish for the film, which usually means for non-Spanish-speaking audiences, subtitles or voice actors hired to dub the movie. Instead, the English dialogue sounds like the original actors, dubbed into English using AI. The technology translates and synchronizes the characters' voices to mimic the original tone and emotion of the speech. On the one hand, it's a way to preserve the original performance. It's also cheaper, which makes global distribution of independent films more feasible.

And there's certainly demand for this kind of technology. Companies like Papercup, DeepDub, DubFormer, D-ID ElevenLabs, and other companies have all pioneered their own version of the same translate and re-dub tools. Most are still in early rollout or are aimed more at marketing and individually made videos. But there's a growing interest in what AI voices can do for films. That's one reason the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) went on strike recently and required certain guarantees from production companies before agreeing to a new contract.

AI dubbing

Voice actors understandably have been outspoken critics of AI dubbing. It removes opportunities for professionals who know how to evoke the right emotion and match the cadence of dialogue in other languages, even if they don't sound exactly like the original performers. That can be a good thing since AI can't do subtext, or play with complexities, let alone be spontaneous with adjusting line readings.

There are also questions of consent and compensation when using AI. Do the original actors get the right to refuse an AI voice clone? Do they get paid for each additional language their voice clone performs?

Some performers with real power in Hollywood have already taken a stand. Robert Downey Jr. promised litigation from beyond the grave should a studio deploy an AI clone of his voice or appearance. California has passed a law prohibiting the unauthorized use of AI clones, but who knows how that will impact cinema globally. On the other hand, James Earl Jones agreed to let Disney use his voice for future Darth Vader projects before his recent passing. His contract details how and when his AI voice clone may be used, but the template is there.

These questions may not apply to The Witch Game, as it is a relatively niche film made with a non-Hollywood budget looking for wider reach. However, should it prove to be a success, it's easy to imagine other indie filmmakers around the world making a similar decision.

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• Amazon unveils new image and video creation AI tools
• Amazon Nova Canvas and Nova Reel look to help ecommerce sellers
• Both new Nova models set to launch in 2025

Amazon has announced new image and video generation models as it steps up its fight to become an AI heavyweight.

The company unveiled Amazon Nova Canvas and Nova Reel at its AWS re:Invent 2024 event in Las Vegas, with CEO Andy Jassy revealing the launch as part of a new Nova series of AI models.

Both new models will be available in mid 2025, with the launches set to take Amazon into direct competition with the likes of OpenAI and Grok when it comes to image and video creation.

Amazon Nova Canvas and Reel

The new models look to initially target sellers and other users on Amazon's ecommerce platform, allowing them to quickly and cheaply create media content to enrich their pages.

Amazon didn't reveal too much in the way of specifics when it came to the new offerings, but did reveal Nova Canvas will allow users to create and edit images using natural language text inputs, and Nova Reel can provide "studio-quality" video, with features such as camera motion control, 360-degree rotation, and zoom.

In a blog post announcing the news, the company noted that customers on its Amazon Ads platform using the new models advertised five times more products and twice as many images per advertised product, widening their reach to buyers across the globe.

Looking forward, Jassy also revealed Amazon will be launching a Speech-to-Speech generation model in early 2025, followed by an "Any-to-Any" model in mid-2025.

The former will be able to analyse and understand streaming speech input in natural language, with the ability to interpret verbal and nonverbal cues such as tone and cadence, to reply in a natural, human-esque way.

The latter, which Jassy described as a true multimodal to multimodal model, will be able to take in text, images, audio, and video, before outputting in whichever mode is required.

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