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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 Wordle hints and answers, Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too.

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 #502) - today's words

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• FORMAL
• COOKWARE
• QUESTION MARK
• RAVE
• PERIOD
• THUMBS UP
• BALL
• DOT
• BAD REVIEW
• HOP
• EXCLAMATION
• POINTS
• SATYR
• POINT
• CAMERA MOVEMENT
• HEART
• TITTLE

NYT Connections today (game #502) - hint #1 - group hints

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

• Yellow: Sentence ender
• Green: Thing to bust a move at
• Blue: iReply
• Purple: Look for gold in a river

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 #502) - hint #2 - group answers

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

• YELLOW: •
• GREEN: EVENT WITH DANCING
• BLUE: IPHONE MESSAGE TAPBACK RESPONSES
• PURPLE: “PAN”

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

NYT Connections today (game #502) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #502, are…

• YELLOW: • DOT, PERIOD, POINT, TITTLE
• GREEN: EVENT WITH DANCING BALL, FORMAL, HOP, RAVE
• BLUE: IPHONE MESSAGE TAPBACK RESPONSES EXCLAMATION POINTS, HEART, QUESTION MARK, THUMBS UP
• PURPLE: “PAN” BAD REVIEW, CAMERA MOVEMENT, COOKWARE, SATYR

• My rating: Moderate
• My score: 1 mistake

Today I learned that the word TITTLE means a very small part or indeed a PERIOD, POINT or DOT, as it's used in today's Connections. And there I was thinking that it was a misspelling – possibly deliberate – of TITLE. That ignorance on my part cost me a guess, because I thought maybe BALL would be part of that group instead; don't laugh, it is the same shape at least!

That was supposedly the easiest of today's four groups, but none of them could really be described as that. Green – EVENT WITH DANCING – was not too bad, but FORMAL and HOP are not terms I've heard used often in the UK, where I am, or at least not in the past half century – so I had to rely on my knowledge of US TV and movies for that.

Fortunately, IPHONE MESSAGE TAPBACK RESPONSES was a little simpler for a tech journalist such as myself, but won't necessarily have been so if you're on Android instead. Purple, as always, was just difficult.

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

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Thursday, 24 October, game #501)

• YELLOW: LINEUP BILL, PROGRAM, SCHEDULE, SLATE
• GREEN: NYT OFFERINGS AUDIO, COOKING, GAMES, NEWS
• BLUE: THINGS MADE BY FOLDING PAPER AIRPLANE, CRANE, FAN, FORTUNE TELLER
• PURPLE: FRENCH WORDS ADIEU, BELLE, PAIN, TEMPS

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

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Make some noise!

NYT Strands today (game #236) - hint #2 - clue words

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

• META
• QUEUE
• BARN
• BRUNT
• TOUR
• STEP

NYT Strands today (game #236) - hint #3 - spangram What is a hint for today's spangram?

• Woofers and tweeters

NYT Strands today (game #236) - hint #4 - spangram position What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First: left, 5th row

Last: right, 4th row

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

NYT Strands today (game #236) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #236, are…

• CHIRP
• SQUEAK
• PURR
• GROWL
• BARK
• SQUAWK
• GRUNT
• MEOW
• SPANGRAM: PETSOUNDS

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

What better way to end the working week than by solving a Strands puzzle that's all about PETSOUNDS. No, not the Beach Boys album – though I would have been VERY happy to have had a Strands game with that as the theme – but rather the actual sounds made by animals. For instance SQUEAK, PURR, BARK, MEOW and CHIRP.

They're all pretty obvious, to be honest, so I doubt anyone here will have struggled too much. The most difficult element will have been to get started, but many of the answers are easy to find, so even that is unlikely to have troubled you by much.

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

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Thursday, 24 October, game #235)

• PEPPER
• ANISE
• CINNAMON
• CLOVE
• CARDAMOM
• NUTMEG
• SPANGRAM: MASALACHAI

What is NYT Strands?

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

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

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• The web version of Google Calendar has been given an official dark mode
• The feature is rolling out globally this week to all Calendar users
• Google has also given Calendar a "refreshed user interface"

If you've been patiently waiting years for Google Calendar to deliver an official dark mode, today is your day – the web version of the app has finally been given a darker optional color scheme, along with a mild redesign.

The news came in a Google Workspace blog post where Google said that it's introducing the ability to switch between light mode, dark mode, and default themes. As previous reports have noted, dark modes can give you a small battery life saving, particularly if you're using a device with an OLED screen.

(Image credit: Future)

The update is rolling out now, though it's also become available to a few members of the TechRadar team so far. To see if you have it, head to the settings cog at the top right of the page, then in the new drop-down menu click 'Appearance' (see above).

You'll then see the menu below – choose 'Dark' and you'll be treated to the eye-pleasing sight of the new dark mode. That's not everything that's changed either – the typography and controls have been tweaked in line with Google's 'Material Design 3' guidelines, which Google says makes it "more modern and accessible."

The calendar certainly looks cleaner to us, but the dark mode is the main improvement that we're particularly happy to see.

Warning: may cause extension headaches

(Image credit: Future)

In slightly less good news, Google says these changes may break some of your Chrome extensions if they "are active when using Google Calendar."

Google didn't elaborate on what extensions might be affected but said some "might not work as expected" and that you should contact the extension's developers with any issues. We'd imagine ones like G-Calize (for color-coding calendars) and Timely might be the kind of extensions that could be affected.

Other affected extensions could include some theme customizers that became available in the Chrome Web Store when it looked like Google was reluctant to make an official one.

Fortunately, that dark mode is now here – which is good news for both our eyes and laptop battery lives in general.

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This could stand as a significant boost for PC gamers, especially considering the improvement in 3D V-Cache, which was a downside in our AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D review. The leak from VideoCardz contains a marketing description of the 9800X3D, revealing ‘Next-Gen 3D V-Cache’ which points towards better thermal performance when operating at higher clock speeds.

VideoCardz also reports that it’s expected to have a 15% enhancement over the 7800X3D in multi-threaded workloads, ideal for multi-tasking duties and video editing, using 8 cores and 16 threads — this strikes a balance for both content creators and gamers, along with the aforementioned 3D V-Cache improvements. These pivotal enhancements being leaked ahead of the 9800X3D’s confirmed November 7th launch and AMD’s full spec reveal gives gamers some insight into what to expect.

Will the 9800X3D be worth the upgrade?

While we have yet to see the full scope of what the Ryzen 7 9800X3D will have to offer specification-wise, the leaked marketing description gives us a great idea of what is in store for PC gamers. Considering the aforementioned 8% boost in gaming performance and room for slightly higher clock speeds up to 5.2GHz compared to the previous 5GHz, the switch is certainly worth contemplating - and for gamers who have yet to upgrade to an AM5 chip, this performance boost could finally be the push they need.

Despite the improvements listed in the leak, it’s important to note that there is only so much that can be done when it comes to poor game optimization on PC — an upgrade can help specifically with reducing stuttering in certain games, but it’s not the silver bullet for achieving optimal performance. Besides, most modern games are far more dependent on your GPU and available VRAM.

If you’re using the best GPUs on the market, like the Nvidia RTX 4080 Super or RTX 4090, any kind of upgrade isn’t entirely urgent, but we’ll have to wait to see everything AMD’s new processor has to offer before we can pass judgment on the value of this new chip.

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