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Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Aug. 13

Investigators say the former president and first lady exerted undue influence on the conservative People Power Party to nominate a specific candidate during a 2022 election.

(Image credit: Jung Yeon-je)

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 might just reel me back into using a vertical-style flip phone. I used to count on the Galaxy Z Flip 5 before I got my S24 Ultra, finding the handset to be more than capable of keeping up with my daily needs while also offering an immense level of cool. The Galaxy Z Flip 7 keeps the cool factor going, with an exceptionally minimized crease and a cover display that I just can’t help but love.

If you’re not aware, the cover screen is an essential component of any foldable smartphone. It allows for functionality when the primary screen is inaccessible due to being closed like a clamshell. It can also be used to take selfies using the rear cameras, conveniently placed at the bottom of the cover screen, or top of the phone.

Now, for a lot of foldables, the cover screen isn’t feature rich – by default. To maintain a seamlessly premium feel, Samsung actively restricts how much a user can do with the screen to a handful of supported widgets and cover screen elements. It’s not a bad idea and it keeps the level of polish to a high standard, but some folks, like me, may be left wanting to do more with the conveniently small screen. Thankfully Samsung has an easy solution to this – Multistar.

Give Multistar a go

(Image credit: Zachariah Kelly / TechRadar)

Multistar isn’t new. It’s been around for several generations of the Galaxy Z Flip, but it’s always been limited by how small the cover screen is. That’s no longer an issue with the Galaxy Z Flip 7, with its cover screen spanning the entire top of the folded phone.

Multistar is an essential piece of the puzzle. This official Samsung extension, accessible through the phone’s cover screen settings and then downloaded from the Galaxy Store, allows you to put apps directly onto one of the widget menus of the cover screen, allowing you to swipe through Bluesky or even play games like Crossy Road.

It’s not a complete solution – the screen doesn’t display notification bar information, navigating between apps is extremely basic (limited to a single swipe up) and indeed some apps are still inaccessible, such as Samsung’s own contacts and phone apps – but it does feel more useful than previous generations of the Flip, and I feel like I could sufficiently use much of my smartphone with just this small screen and my selected apps.

(Image credit: Zachariah Kelly / TechRadar)But is it worth the extra cost?

As much as I love the cover screen, its functionality, and the concept of a compact, square phone over a plain rectangle, it's hard to justify the higher price – especially with a more affordable option on the market.

Alongside the Galaxy Z Flip 7, Samsung also released the Z Flip 7 FE, a cheaper handset with many of the same specs found in the Z Flip 6 – including its smaller cover screen that’s capable of a lot of the same functionality. Similarly, I’d recommend checking out Motorola’s Razr range of foldable smartphones, as those can be used with similar utility when it comes to apps at a more accessible price.

For now though – I’m a big fan of the funny little square I’ve been using instead of a boring rectangle.

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• Anthropic’s Claude chatbot now has an on-demand memory feature
• The AI will recall past chats only when a user specifically asks
• The feature is rolling out first to Max, Team, and Enterprise subscribers before expanding to other plans

Anthropic has given Claude a memory upgrade, but it will only activate when you choose. The new feature allows Claude to recall past conversations, providing the AI chatbot with information to help continue previous projects and apply what you've discussed before to your next conversation.

The update is coming to Claude’s Max, Team, and Enterprise subscribers first, though it will likely be more widely available at some point. If you have it, you can ask Claude to search for previous messages tied to your workspace or project.

However, unless you explicitly ask, Claude won’t cast an eye backward. That means Claude will maintain a generic sort of personality by default. That's for the sake of privacy, according to Anthropic. Claude can recall your discussions if you want, without creeping into your dialogue uninvited.

By comparison, OpenAI’s ChatGPT automatically stores past chats unless you opt out, and uses them to shape its future responses. Google Gemini goes even further, employing both your conversations with the AI and your Search history and Google account data, at least if you let it. Claude’s approach doesn't pick up the breadcrumbs referencing earlier talks without you asking it to do so.

Claude remembers

Adding memory may not seem like a big deal. Still, you'll feel the impact immediately if you’ve ever tried to restart a project interrupted by days or weeks without a helpful assistant, digital or otherwise. Making it an opt-in choice is a nice touch in accommodating how comfortable people are with AI currently.

Many may want AI help without surrendering control to chatbots that never forget. Claude sidesteps that tension cleanly by making memory something you summon deliberately.

But it’s not magic. Since Claude doesn’t retain a personalized profile, it won’t proactively remind you to prepare for events mentioned in other chats or anticipate style shifts when writing to a colleague versus a public business presentation, unless prompted mid-conversation.

Further, if there are issues with this approach to memory, Anthropic’s rollout strategy will allow the company to correct any mistakes before it becomes widely available to all Claude users. It will also be worth seeing if building long-term context like ChatGPT and Gemini are doing is going to be more appealing or off-putting to users compared to Claude's way of making memory an on-demand aspect of using the AI chatbot.

And that assumes it works perfectly. Retrieval depends on Claude’s ability to surface the right excerpts, not just the most recent or longest chat. If summaries are fuzzy or the context is wrong, you might end up more confused than before. And while the friction of having to ask Claude to use its memory is supposed to be a benefit, it still means you'll have to remember that the feature exists, which some may find annoying. Even so, if Anthropic is right, a little boundary is a good thing, not a limitation. And users will be happy that Claude remembers that, and nothing else, without a request.

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