Connections is the latest puzzle game from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.
Some days are trickier than others. If you’re having a little trouble solving today’s Connections puzzle, check out our tips and hints below. And if you still can’t get it, we’ll tell you today’s answers at the very end.
In Connections, you’ll be shown a grid containing 16 words — your objective is to organize these words into four sets of four by identifying the connections that link them. These sets could encompass concepts like titles of video game franchises, book series sequels, shades of red, names of chain restaurants, etc.
There are generally words that seem like they could fit multiple themes, but there’s only one 100% correct answer. You’re able to shuffle the grid of words and rearrange them to help better see the potential connections.
Each group is color-coded. The yellow group is the easiest to figure out, followed by the green, blue, and purple groups.
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Pick four words and hit Submit. If you’re correct, the four words will be removed from the grid and the theme connecting them will be revealed. Guess incorrectly and it’ll count as a mistake. You only have four mistakes available until the game ends.
We can help you solve today’s Connection by telling you the four themes. If you need more assistance, we’ll also give you one word from each group below.
In today’s energy-hungry tech industry, big companies have been looking for ways to supply themselves. However, they also aim to meet environmental goals by ensuring that a significant portion of the energy they consume is clean. Microsoft’s investment in reactivating nuclear plantsand Google’s investment in massive solar and wind farms in the US are proof of that.
The Google-backed Orion Solar Belt will generate 875 megawatts in the US
On Friday, Google boasted that it completed the largest purchase of solar energy in its history. In August, the company had said it would invest more than $1 billion in Texas this year for clean energy. Google plans to allocate these investments to power its cloud servers and data centers. In fact, the company has a worldwide long-term clean energy purchasing project of around $16 billion through 2040.
Ben Sloss, a Google executive, and Jennifer Granholm, U.S. Energy Secretary, were at the inauguration of three solar farms built by SB Energy in Buckholts, Texas. The project, called the “Orion Solar Belt,” is one of the largest investments in solar energy in U.S. history, and Google is taking part in it. “Sometimes when you are in the middle of history, it’s hard to tell, because you are in the middle of it… but I’m telling you right now that we are in the middle of history being made,” Granholm said.
The massive expansion of the so-called Orion Solar Belt will be capable of generating 875 megawatts of clean energy. A typical nuclear plant can deliver the same amount of energy. According to Google, the company’s total investments in clean energy projects in Texas have resulted in more than 2,800 megawatts from wind and solar farms.
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15% of the energy will go to the state’s power grid
Google will allocate 85% of the solar energy from the project to Ellis data centers and cloud computing in Dallas. The other 15% will go to the state’s power grid to benefit people. The company also ensures the presence of vegetation around the solar panels by keeping thousands of sheep grazing.
As the tech industry evolves, energy sources must grow and improve proportionally to meet the higher energy demand. Not only do big companies require more energy than ever, but so do users. Electric cars are becoming increasingly popular, so their impact on current power generation capabilities must be considered. Large AI-powered projects from companies such as Google are also consuming a significant amount of power.
Ensuring that new energy sources are clean and renewable can be a challenge. That said, it’s good to know that big tech companies are doing their part.
The test software is now available to download ahead of the start of gameplay, and requires 2.2GB of free space. Participants didn’t sign an NDA, but Nintendo requested in the playtest terms and conditions that users refrain from sharing any details about it — which has gone about as well as can be expected. While Nintendo has already started issuing copyright strikes to take leaked media offline, screenshots and information about the playtest are still available across websites like Xand Reddit at the time of writing.
This appears to be Nintendo’s attempt to develop its first MMO (massively multiplayer online) style game. According to the game description, “the goal is to work with others to fully ‘develop’ a massive, expansive planet by utilizing creativity and framed resources.” Players will encounter “new lands, enemies, and resources” as they progress, and utilize “Beacons” that create zones to develop the environment around where they’re placed. These Beacon zones are personal — players can only “move, lift, or edit items” in zones they have placed, and cannot edit anything within someone else’s Beacon.
There’s a separate social hub called the “Dev Core” where players can level up, obtain items, and interact with each other. Nintendo also describes “UGC (User-Generated Content) features” for creating and sharing custom content, but players are required to pass an in-game test “to show that you understand the importance of respectful communication” before this capability can be unlocked.
At a glance, the game shares some similarities with family-friendly MMO’s like Minecraft and Roblox. The IP is either entirely new (in that it doesn’t feature any recognizable Nintendo characters) or it’s a placeholder for the game system itself — meaning it could be part of an existing franchise at release. All we know for sure is that previous speculation suggesting the playtest would bring GameCube titles to the Nintendo Switch Online service can probably be put to rest.
Shared on the company’s official Weibo account (via NotebookCheck), you can see a brief video showing the rear of the phone in White Dawn (white), Blue Moment (blue), and Obsidian Secret (black) shades.
It’s not just a choice of colors though – they also come in different textures, with the blue model supposedly having a skin-like feel, while the black one has an “ebony wood grain” textured finish.
The OnePlus 13 in three colors (Image credit: OnePlus)
As for the overall design of the OnePlus 13, the back looks similar but not identical to the OnePlus 12. Both phones have a circular camera block, but the OnePlus 12 has a strip of metal connecting the camera block to the edge of the phone, while the OnePlus 13 lacks this.
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In any case, this teaser also includes the launch date of the OnePlus 13, with October 31 being the big day, though based on past form that’s almost certainly just going to be a Chinese launch, with a global release likely to follow in early 2025.
Another teaser and an esports appearance
Beyond this hefty teaser there are also a couple of leaks, including a leaked teaser video shared by @OnLeaks, which as well as providing a close up look at the back of the OnePlus 13, also offers some glimpses at the front of the phone. Though from the front this really just looks like any other handset, with a flat screen and a punch-hole camera.
And finally, some Weibo users (via Phandroid) have even spotted the OnePlus 13 in the wild, at an esports event in China. You can see the phone in all three of the above colors, though these images don’t really reveal anything that OnePlus hasn’t now shown us.
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What we still haven’t heard much about officially is the specs, but it’s thought that the OnePlus 13 will be one of the first phones to use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset, so this could be a very powerful handset. We should have a clearer idea of exactly how powerful on October 31.
SpaceX’s Super Heavy rocket was the star of the show during last week’s test flight after being successfully caught by the launch tower’s giant mechanical arms at the first attempt.
Minutes earlier, the Super Heavy booster had deployed the upper-stage Starship spacecraft to orbit as part of the fifth test flight of the world’s most powerful rocket.
While we’ve heard less about it, the spacecraft also enjoyed a wild ride, coasting to the other side of the world from the launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, before performing a landing burn and coming down in the Indian Ocean. Even better, it descended precisely to SpaceX’s targeted landing spot, with a camera-equipped buoy in place to record its final burn and splashdown about 65 minutes after launch. You can watch Starship’s final moments in the video below:
Starship flip maneuver and landing burn on its fifth flight test. Vehicle improvements ensured flaps were protected from high heating, resulting in a controlled entry and high accuracy splashdown at the targeted area in the Indian Ocean pic.twitter.com/nLIQLLVMv1
“Starship executed another successful hot-staging separation, igniting its six Raptor engines and completing ascent into outer space,” the Elon Musk-led company said in a message accompanying the recently shared footage. “It coasted along its planned trajectory to the other side of the planet before executing a controlled reentry, passing through the phases of peak heating and maximum aerodynamic pressure, before executing a flip, landing burn, and splashdown at its target area in the Indian Ocean.”
In a post on its website, SpaceX said the team behind the Starship’s most recent test flight should “take pride in the engineering feat they just accomplished. The world witnessed what the future will look like when Starship starts carrying crew and cargo to destinations on Earth, the moon, Mars, and beyond.”
In an upcoming test flight, SpaceX said it plans to catch the Starship spacecraft in the same way that it secured the Super Heavy booster during its most recent test. The spacecraft also has the capability of landing upright on the ground, a feat it will have to perform when it reaches other celestial bodies, including the moon as part of the Artemis III mission currently scheduled for 2026 and which will involve returning humans to the lunar surface.
The Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition is official and it comes with a slimmer body
Samsung announced this phone via a press release in Korea. Trusted sources said, a while back, that the phone will be available in Korea and China only. Those are sad news for many people out there, but this launch type kind of confirms the rumors.
You’ll notice that its back side is flat, and the same goes for its sides. The edges are not sharp at all, though, so the phone shouldn’t be too uncomfortable to hold. All three rear cameras are vertically-aligned and a part of the same camera island.
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This handset is 10.6mm thick when folded, 4.9mm when closed, and weighs 236 grams. That makes it 1.5mm thinner and 3 grams lighter than the Galaxy Z Fold 6. The thickness difference will be easy to notice, that’s for sure. The phone, when open, measures 157.9 x 142.6 x 4.9mm. When closed it measures 157.9 x 72.8 x 10.6mm.
Samsung replaced a dated 50-megapixel camera with a 200-megapixel one
Samsung is using a 200-megapixel main camera on the back of this phone. For that camera, Samsung says that it’s “supporting more vivid and clear photos and videos”. Samsung did not go into too much detail spec-wise, which is why we cannot offer you more information. The other two cameras are 12-megapixel and 10-megapixel units, ulrawide and telephoto cameras.
The phone comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage included. We presume that’s LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 flash storage, though Samsung didn’t confirm it. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy SoC fuels this smartphone.
The main display on the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition measures 8 inches, and offers a 20:18 aspect ratio. That panel has a resolution of 2184 x 1968, and it goes up to 2,600 nits of brightness at its peak. It is also a 120Hz panel. The cover display measures 6.5 inches and has a display aspect ratio of 21:9. That display has a resolution of 2520 x 1080, and its refresh rate goes up to 120Hz.
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The phone is water resistant, and it has the Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the cover display. The S Pen stylus is not supported on this phone.
This phone is far from cheap
The device comes in only one color, ‘Black Shadow’. The phone is priced at the equivalent of $2,020 (in Korean won). It’s around $500 more expensive than the Galaxy Z Fold 6 in the country.
These are tough times to be running a business. Relief at exiting the pandemic was short-lived, followed by rampant inflation, sky-high interest rates, business uncertainty and geopolitical volatility. Against this backdrop, the last thing an organization needs is to have critical data stolen and systems crippled by cyber-attack. Or for a key supplier to suffer the same. June’s ransomware attack on an NHS provider showed the catastrophic knock-on effect such a breach can have.
That’s why CISOs up and down the country are trying to build a case for improving cyber resilience. However, their job isn’t easy. First, they have to convince a skeptical – and sometimes downright hostile – board.
Bharat Mistry
Technical Director UK & Ireland at Trend Micro.
Why resilience matters
Cyber-resilience is all about addressing people, process and technology gaps to ensure an organization can continue to operate effectively even if it’s hit by a sustained and sophisticated cyber-attack. It means improving cyber-hygiene through best practices like multifactor authentication (MFA), regular security awareness training, backups, encryption, anti-malware, prompt patching and more. This “prevention” approach must be enhanced with detection and response to catch any threats that may sneak through – and recover quickly before there’s been any significant impact on the organization.
Unfortunately, this is getting harder than ever as digital investments expand the typical corporate attack surface. Half of UK businesses recorded at least one cyber-attack or breach last year, rising to 70% of medium-sized and 74% of large companies, according to the government. Ransomware isn’t the only threat facing these organisations. But it has become the largest one, according to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which also warns that the threat is expected to increase as malicious actors get hold of AI tools.
For some companies, it has become an existential risk. Boards facing the threat of IP or customer/employee data loss and/or service disruption should be well aware by now of the long-term financial and reputational impact on their business. Even relatively small-scale cyber-incidents can force some systems offline for investigation, and redirect resources away from important digital transformation projects.
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Undermined and undervalued
Investing in cyber-resilience should therefore be an open-and-shut case for CISOs to make. Unfortunately, it is not quite so straightforward. For cyber strategy to function as intended in an organization, the IT or security lead needs to be heard and understood. The board must buy into their vision, implicitly understanding the business criticality of effective cyber-risk management.
Unfortunately, research reveals that boards are more likely to be disengaged and unenthused by cyber, viewing it as an IT risk and little more. In fact, most (80%) CISOs claim that their board would only be incentivised to act on cyber risk if there was an actual breach. Reactive investments such as these often lead to point solutions which fail to address fundamental challenges, papering over the cracks when something more holistic is needed.
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That same research finds that 79% of cybersecurity leaders have felt boardroom pressure to downplay the severity of cyber risks facing their organization. Many claim this is because they are seen as being “nagging” and are viewed as overly negative. A third say they have been dismissed out of hand.
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Bridging the gap
This is partly the fault of the board. Although regulators are increasingly demanding more personal accountability for cyber incidents at a board level – which will certainly focus minds – there is more to do. CISOs can sometimes also be part of the problem, by packing their presentations with irrelevant metrics and industry jargon. That’s not the way to win over a business audience that wants answers to far more fundamental questions: How secure are we? What will it take us to get there?
To bridge the yawning boardroom credibility gap, security leaders need to keep their communications simple, to the point and free from tech-speak. They need to align cyber with business risk, and cybersecurity outcomes to business objectives. And they need to work harder to build personal relationships with board members.
The journey starts here
How do they get there? Using the right metrics is a good start. By consolidating point solutions onto a single platform for managing cyber risk, they can generate a single source of truth for more consistent reporting. The best outcome would be a solution capable of calculating risk based on attack landscape, user exposure and security configuration, as well as overall impact on the business. This could be used to continually map risk across the corporate attack surface and take automated remedial actions to close any gaps that appear, like vulnerabilities and misconfigurations.
The results could be displayed in an easy-to-consume executive dashboard, which helps senior leaders grasp the real-world implications of nebulous concepts like cloud misconfiguration and account compromise. This approach lights a clear pathway to closer alignment between security and business objectives, which could ultimately help to enhance cyber resilience. It may be a long journey ahead for some companies, but the alternative is far worse.
This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro’s Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro
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