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Is there anything better than lights outdoors? Here are the best outdoor string lights that'll make your garden feel magical.

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 #1083) - 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 #1083) - hint #2 - repeated letters Do any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

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

Quordle today (game #1083) - 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 #1083) - 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 0.

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 #1083) - hint #5 - starting letters (2) What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• A

• F

• R

• S

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

Quordle today (game #1083) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1083, are…

• ASCOT
• FIBER
• ROGUE
• SMELL

Being UK-based was a help and a hindrance today. A help because ASCOT is a well known English racecourse and a type of tie traditionally worn by a dapper Englishman attempting to straddle the perpetually tricky smart/casual dress code. Cary Grant remains the prime model for such a style.

Living in London was also a hindrance, as FIBER is spelt fibre in the UK and it’s tricky to think otherwise (unless you play a lot of US puzzle games, which rewires your thinking somewhat). Either way, I was happy to check out after eight turns guessing four very tricky words.

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

Daily Sequence today (game #1083) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1083, are…

• SHIRE
• SHRUB
• SHIED
• LEVEL

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1082, Friday 10 January: BIGOT, INLET, LEECH, TUNIC
• Quordle #1081, Thursday 9 January: RESET, HUMOR, TENOR, IMAGE
• Quordle #1080, Wednesday 8 January: MINCE, SADLY, RISEN, VOUCH
• Quordle #1079, Tuesday 7 January: CREED, FILET, ROUTE, TAPER
• Quordle #1078, Monday 6 January: PIVOT, WOOLY, GRUNT, GROOM
• Quordle #1077, Sunday 5 January: BORAX, JUDGE, CADET, SALON
• Quordle #1076, Saturday 4 January: CORER, CRATE, QUASI, EXIST
• Quordle #1075, Friday 3 January: PERKY, QUARK, NAVEL, SHEEN
• Quordle #1074, Thursday 2 January: UNIFY, SWORE, DEPOT, INTRO
• Quordle #1073, Wednesday 1 January: CLING, SUITE, WORRY, TONIC
• Quordle #1072, Tuesday 31 December: PLUMP, TUBER, IRATE, ICILY
• Quordle #1071, Monday 30 December: TODDY, GROIN, GROWN, VERVE
• Quordle #1070, Sunday 29 December: PURER, SPLAT, RABID, EMCEE
• Quordle #1069, Saturday 28 December: BUNCH, LABOR, TRIPE, BUNNY
• Quordle #1068, Friday 27 December: BRAWL, LYING, ORGAN, CRONY
• Quordle #1067, Thursday 26 December: TATTY, OVERT, FLOUR, SWEPT
• Quordle #1066, Wednesday 25 December: LIVER, CRIER, SHORE, MURKY
• Quordle #1065, Tuesday 24 December: TIPSY, SCALE, FLYER, VALVE
• Quordle #1064, Monday 23 December: SNAKE, SAVVY, ELBOW, TWEED
• Quordle #1063, Sunday 22 December: DOUBT, SLURP, PAPER, CIVIL

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 #580) - today's words

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• CONVERSE
• SUPREME
• FOOD
• NETWORK
• SURFING
• KANGAROO
• TABLE
• TENNIS
• MATRIX
• BREAKING
• TRAMPOLINE
• GRID
• CIRCULATE
• TAEKWONDO
• ARRAY
• MINGLE

NYT Connections today (game #580) - hint #1 - group hints

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

• YELLOW: Everything in its place
• GREEN: Working the room 
• BLUE: New gold medals 
• PURPLE: See you in ….

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 #580) - hint #2 - group answers

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

• YELLOW: DISPLAY OF ROWS AND COLUMNS 
• GREEN: THINGS TO DO AT A WORK EVENT 
• BLUE: OLYMPIC EVENTS SINCE 2000 
• PURPLE: -_COURT 

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

NYT Connections today (game #580) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #580, are…

• YELLOW: DISPLAY OF ROWS AND COLUMNS ARRAY, GRID, MATRIX, TABLE
• GREEN: THINGS TO DO AT A WORK EVENT CIRCULATE, CONVERSE, MINGLE, NETWORK
• BLUE: OLYMPIC EVENTS SINCE 2000 BREAKING, SURFING, TAEKWONDO, TRAMPOLINE
• PURPLE: -_COURT FOOD, KANGAROO, SUPREME, TENNIS

• My rating: Easy
• My score: 1 mistake

Seeing SURFING and BREAKING, TABLE and TENNIS, and CONVERSE and SUPREME (two clothing brands) gave me a brief pause, but I managed to complete today’s puzzle in record time.

The only thing that slowed me down was the list of Olympic Events. Thinking it was about recently introduced sports I immediately clicked BREAKING, which was introduced at Paris 2024, and TAEKWONDO which debuted in Sydney. But I incorrectly chose TENNIS, which was actually one of the original Summer Olympics events from 1896 to 1924 before taking a 60-year break and returning in 1988.

Sadly, breaking won’t be part of the LA Games of 2028, joining a long list of discarded events including Tug-of-War, architecture, deer shooting and sculpture. Incredibly, American competitor Walter Winans was triumphant at both of the latter events, winning gold at London 1908 for shooting a running deer from 100 meters and at Paris 1912 for his horse figurine.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Friday, 10 January, game #579)

• YELLOW: BE CONTINGENT (ON) DEPEND, HINGE, RELY, REST
• GREEN: "CALM DOWN" CHILL, EASY, ENOUGH, RELAX
• BLUE: INGREDIENTS IN AN OLD FASHIONED BITTERS, ORANGE, RYE, SUGAR
• PURPLE: FEATURED IN THE MONTY HALL PROBLEM CAR, DOOR, GOAT, HOST

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

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Say when …

NYT Strands today (game #314) - hint #2 - clue words

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

• WIND
• VIBE
• WORK
• NINE
• MATE
• GILT

NYT Strands today (game #314) - hint #3 - spangram What is a hint for today's spangram?

• Natural schedule

NYT Strands today (game #314) - hint #4 - spangram position What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First side: right, 5th row

Last side: left, 8th row

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

NYT Strands today (game #314) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #314, are…

• DAWN
• DUSK
• NOON
• EVENING
• MORNING
• DAYBREAK
• TWILIGHT
• SPANGRAM: TIMING

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

Today’s Strands was a nice one, but to make up for it the setters made us earn our crust by putting the words in a couple of interesting switchbacks – it was almost therapeutic. Hands up if you tried to tap out Daylight instead of DAYBREAK (I may have done this, cough).

I’m a TWILIGHT kind of person – not the sexy vampires – it’s the classic procrastinator's time of day, the regret of the daytime wasted, the promise of an evening to come when you can forget about the daytime wasted.

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

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Friday, 10 January, game #313)

• ARTS
• CRAFTS
• MILK
• CEREAL
• SOAP
• WATER
• RHYTHM
• BLUES
• SPANGRAM: TOGETHER

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.

• Chinese researchers discovered a variant of Mirai with an offensive name
• It targets industrial routers and smart home devices with zero-day flaws, misconfigurations, and poor passwords
• Some 15,000 active IP addresses were found

A new malicious botnet was recently observed, spreading through zero-day vulnerabilities and assimilating industrial routers and smart home devices.

Cybersecurity researchers from the Chinese outfit Qi’anxin XLab claim the botnet is based on Mirai, an infamous piece of malware that’s known to be behind some of the biggest and most devastating Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

However, the new versions differ greatly from the original Mirai, as they abuse more than 20 vulnerabilities, and target weak Telnet passwords, as means of distribution and spreading. Some of the vulnerabilities have never been seen before, and don’t have CVEs assigned just yet. Among them are bugs in Neterbit routers, and Vimar smart home devices.

Intense attacks

The researchers also observed CVE-2024-12856 being used to infect devices. This is a high-severity (7.2/10) command injection vulnerability found in Four-Faith industrial routers.

The botnet is called “gayfemboy” and apparently counts roughly 15,000 active IP addresses located in the US, Turkey, Iran, China, and Russia. The botnet mostly targets these devices, so if you’re running any of them, be on the lookout for indicators of compromise.

ASUS routers, Huawei routers, Neterbit routers, LB-Link routers, Four-Faith Industrial Routers, PZT cameras, Kguard DVR, Lilin DVR, Generic DVRs, Vimar smart home devices, and other different 5G/LTE devices with misconfigurations or weak credentials.

Whoever is behind this botnet is not wasting their time, either. Since February last year, it’s been running different DDoS attacks, with peak performance being recorded in October and November 2024. The targets are mostly located in China, the US, UK, Germany, and Singapore.

The attacks usually last between 10 and 30 seconds and are quite intense, exceeding 100Gbps in traffic, which can disrupt even the most robust infrastructures.

“The targets of attacks are all over the world and distributed in various industries,” the researchers said. “The main targets of attacks are distributed in China, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Singapore,” they concluded.

Via BleepingComputer

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School districts in and around Los Angeles shut down because of the fires. That includes LAUSD, the second largest school district in the country.

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CES 2025 unveiled hundreds of new and upcoming products, even some that can make food and drink for you. We had to put them to the test.

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• TCL unveiled three new smart glasses at CES 2025
• Two boast AR capabilties, the other is for AI and video capture
• No precise price or release date details have been shared yet

As someone who has tested a lot of smart glasses I know first-hand how much variety there is in this sector of tech – despite being under the same umbrella, there’s as much similarity between the Halliday specs, the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, Xreal One Pro AR glasses, as there is between electric cars, bikes and scooters as ‘electric vehicles’ – so usually companies focus on one type at a time. TCL isn’t afraid to tackle smart glasses from all angles however, with it announcing three very different smart specs at CES to suit every type of smart glasses wearer.

The most impressive is the RayNeo X3 Pro. It boasts the same Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chipset as the Ray-Ban specs, but goes a step beyond its rival in other areas. The X3 Pro has a dual-camera setup – one for snapping pictures and for AI vision, while the other helps deliver AR features like hand-tracking – and full-color micro-LED screens built into the lenses.

This allows you to see apps and notifications in your field of view, and in my demo, I got to see how the RayNeo X3 Pros could help on my next trip thanks to their real-time translation. My demo with them was short but they seriously impressed me, and kinda put the standard Ray-Ban Meta specs to shame.

(Image credit: TCL)

Though if you want a simplified, display-less approach you’ll be after the RayNeo V3. They strip out the screens but come equipped with a 12MP Sony IMX681 sensor to facilitate first-person content capture and voice-guided insights – with those being relayed by on-device speakers and three in-built microphones.

What’s most impressive was how thin these glasses look – noticeably slimmer than Meta’s Ray-Bans – and how light they are – just 39g. I’d love to try wearing these for a whole day to verify my suspicions, but they could be the best smart glasses for comfort while still boasting useful tools.

Lastly, you have the entertainment-focused RayNeo Air 3 specs. Like other similar AR smart glasses you connect these to a compatible USB-C device via a cable to have the device’s screen appear as a massive floating window in front of you – a 201-inch virtual screen to be precise.

With in-built speakers to boot these specs are an upgrade on previous RayNeo Air smart specs which offer you a wearable home-cinema setup that is ideal for making your travels fly by. I'll want to test them out further, but if I could I would have never left the demo and spent all day playing Mario Odyssey with them.

We’re still waiting on pricing details on all these glasses in the RayNeo CES 2025 lineup, but TCL says they’ll be revealed closer to their respective launches. The X3 Pro and Air 3 will drop first in “mid-2025” with the V3 landing “later in the year.”

We’re covering all of the latest CES news from the show as it happens. Stick with us for the big stories on everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI.

And don’t forget to follow us on TikTok for the latest from the CES show floor!

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