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.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.
Your Strands expert
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Your Strands expert
Marc McLaren
NYT Strands today (game #244) – hint #1 – today’s theme
What is the theme of today’s NYT Strands?
• Today’s NYT Strands theme is… Good on paper
NYT Strands today (game #244) – hint #2 – clue words
Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.
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LATE
LAST
STALE
STARE
PUFF
CLIP
NYT Strands today (game #244) – hint #3 – spangram
What is a hint for today’s spangram?
• Stationery cupboard
NYT Strands today (game #244) – hint #4 – spangram position
What are two sides of the board that today’s spangram touches?
First: left, 4th 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 #244) – the answers
(Image credit: New York Times)
The answers to today’s Strands, game #244, are…
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PRINTER
SCISSORS
PENCILS
STAPLER
RULER
SPANGRAM: OFFICESUPPLIES
My rating: Easy
My score: Perfect
As the father of teenage daughters I am well aware of all of the OFFICESUPPLIES in today’s Strands. Not because they work in an office, obviously, but because they are at school and seem to get through about 20 RULERs and 50 PENCILS a year, constantly need me to help them use the PRINTER and still seem a little clueless about how to use SCISSORS or a STAPLER. Kids today, eh? Too much time spent in front of a screen, clearly.
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My own parental issues aside, this was an easy Strands puzzle to solve. The theme clue provided a good push in the right direction, and when I found PRINTER by accident my course was duly charted. None of the words were had to think of, and only the rather long and complex spangram provided any real challenge.
Yesterday’s NYT Strands answers (Friday, 1 November, game #243)
QUEEN
KING
ROOK
TIMER
BISHOP
PAWN
KNIGHT
BOARD
SPANGRAM: CHECKMATE
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.
I am more excited about the Samsung Galaxy Ring than any other recent new product from a big tech company. Surpassing my interest in the Apple Vision Pro as a product that people will actually find a purpose for, the Galaxy Ring has found a place in my daily routine for one very simple reason: I don’t like wearing a watch all the time.
Samsung is onto something here with a device that fits into its health and wearables ecosystem in a very interesting way. Down to the core, the Galaxy Ring takes the health smarts of the company’s great range of smartwatches and crams them into a tiny ring. There are some health features the Ring can’t provide that the Galaxy Watch can, but it covers the bases; heart rate, body temperature monitoring, sleep and steps. For me, the best feature is its sleep tracking, particularly because it’s much more comfortable to have a ring on my finger in bed instead of a smart watch.
But it’s not a complete device and though it matches the feature set of the Oura Ring 4, it is very distinctively first generation. Though I’m enjoying my time with it (and it’s successfully made me care about my health and fitness) and I agree with TechRadar’s Samsung Galaxy Ring review, we’re talking about what is quite an expensive device without much practical functionality. It’s tempting to say that the reason for its high price and low feature set is because it’s niche by design, but I think there are changes that could be introduced to make it more palatable and ultimately a more attractive device altogether.
Let’s put it down to three points.
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Why does it look like this?
(Image credit: Zachariah Kelly / TechRadar)
Smart devices, inclusive of phones, are largely fashion statements in the right contexts. Of course, some people are more interested in good functionality, but you can’t discount the style points and aesthetics of any product you have to wear. The Samsung Galaxy Ring is, pointedly, a fashionable piece of technology, much more so than any other Samsung device preceding it… So why does it look so basic?
I’m not disputing the style of the ring; the thick shape is necessary for its smart features, and the concave design is a smart way of avoiding scratches, but the black and silver colorways look like plastic. The ring itself is made of titanium and coated in a similar paint to that of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (with comfortable and partially transparent plastics on the inside), but while the Ultra looks especially premium with its epic colors, the Galaxy Ring looks almost cheap in Titanium Black and Titanium Silver.
The Titanium Gold colorway looks fine; it has a lovely polish to it. The Silver and Black look almost like pieces of a Hasbro toy lightsaber. It’s likely a non-issue for many, but we’re talking about a new product that takes strides into the jewelry space. It needs to look the part.
It wasn’t going to take long before we got into this, but the Oura Ring 4, the closest competitor to the Galaxy Ring, looks especially premium. Silver, Black, Gold and Rose Gold colorways are available at the checkout, along with a matte black color dubbed Stealth and a raw-looking Brushed Silver color. The variety is greater, albeit with some options priced higher than others, and they’ve aced the assignment; the Oura Ring 4 looks premium. It looks like jewelry.
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Why is it priced like that?
(Image credit: Zachariah Kelly / TechRadar)
This criticism applies equally to the Oura Ring 4, and admittedly it goes in tandem with my third criticism that we’ll get into below, but it can’t be skipped over. The Samsung Galaxy Ring is a $399 / £399 / AU$699 device, which positions it on par with (or slightly above) the Galaxy Watch 7 44mm LTE in most markets, above cheaper Watch options, and above the lowest price Oura Ring 4 ($349 / £349 / not available in AU).
Samsung justifies the higher price over this competitor by not having a subscription service, while Oura charges its customers a $5.99 per month bill for all features and health insights in its app (charged in USD in all regions irrespective of local currency), but we can head these pricing strategies off at the pass; the unique form factor and intent of these smart rings allow them to charge a significant amount. Development costs would have also been considerable, and ultimately there’s just not strong competition in this tiny market. If Apple, OnePlus, Oppo and Google got in at the same time, things would likely be a bit different.
For a dedicated user obsessed with health tracking, this device can be justified, but at this price, against accessories like earbuds and smart watches, it’s too niche for a casual user to be this expensive. Perhaps if, as written above, it was somewhat more attractive or had the ability to add engravings or markings it’d be a different story.
Why doesn’t it do much?
(Image credit: Zachariah Kelly / TechRadar)
When I’m talking to people about the Samsung Galaxy Ring, they’re obviously immediately interested in what it actually does – and perhaps unsurprisingly, as much as I can gas the Galaxy Ring up, the takeaway they’re typically left with is “not much”.
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Make no mistake, Samsung’s health tracking tech is brilliant and it’s had a positive impact on the way I see my own wellbeing; step tracking, sleep tracking and heart rate monitoring are all things the Galaxy Ring is capable of. I have no trouble recommending it as a device that can positively impact your health, but consumers will also likely want to consider the competition.
The Oura Ring 4 has all the same features and health trackers, minus the deep integration with Samsung’s Health suite, though it is compatible with iOS – the Galaxy Ring only works with Android devices.
But as far as a casual user goes when it comes to big tech products, health features are expected in tandem with… Normal features.
The Galaxy Ring does have gestures, which are awesome – pinch your thumb and your ring finger, and you’ll stop alarms or trigger the camera to take a shot. At the time of writing, those are the only two gesture options. No answering calls, media controls or integration with any specific apps, just those two things. It doesn’t help that gestures are exclusive to Galaxy smartphone users, and were also a celebrated feature of the Galaxy Watch 7 and Watch Ultra which launched at the same time as the Galaxy Ring, making it even more of a tough sell for watch owners.
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And that’s kind of it! Before the Galaxy Ring launched I joked about being able to use different finger gestures to control my home smart lighting like waving a magic finger, expecting the feature set to be somewhat more fleshed out, but there’s not much going on here. I’m not sure why, but I’ve also picked up an extremely strange habit of checking my ring for the time as if it were a watch – there’s no clock on it, but perhaps a digital readout would be helpful for some. Other features a future iteration could sport include NFC for payments, automatic phone unlocking based on proximity, capacitive buttons for quick functions, and hell, how about an RGB light strip (though perhaps that last one we’ll leave to ASUS with its ROG range).
But this grates so heavily against my other two points; if you cram any more features into this gadget, you risk making it thicker and much less attractive. Any more neat tricks, and you invite price bumps.
So can we hit the right balance?
(Image credit: Zachariah Kelly / TechRadar)
I’ve been wearing the Samsung Galaxy Ring every day since I first received it and it’s really complementing my suite of Samsung devices. At the same time, I just wish it did a little more. Samsung knocked it out of the park all throughout 2024 with its newly released gadgets and the Galaxy Ring is definitely the most exciting, but when the Watch already does so many of the same things, why would even a health-minded Samsung user pick it up?
It’s a situation that no doubt many companies encounter when entering a new product category. The Apple Vision Pro for instance received a significant amount of criticism for its limited VR app support, and if the last year of crummy AI hardware has taught us anything, it’s that sometimes a new product isn’t any better than just having an app.
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But Samsung’s on the right track with the Galaxy Ring. I’m very much looking forward to what the company has next in store with this device.
Lawyers hired by MrBeast to investigate claims that his former co-host groomed a teenager have concluded that the allegations were “without basis”, the star YouTuber has said.
Ava Kris Tyson stopped working with MrBeast in July after other YouTubers accused her of sending inappropriate messages to a minor, reportedly then 13, when she was 20.
At the time, Tyson apologised for her “past actions”, but said her behaviour never “extended beyond bad edgy jokes” and denied ever grooming anyone.
The alleged victim – who was named online – also defended her, saying the claims were “massive lies” and that they had never been “exploited or taken advantage of”.
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MrBeast, 26, real name Jimmy Donaldson, hosts the largest channel on YouTube, with 325m subscribers, and is known for making videos of stunts, challenges and acts of philanthropy.
Tyson, 28, who last year came out as transgender, has appeared regularly on the channel since it was launched in 2012.
After the initial claims in July, MrBeast said he was “disgusted” by the “serious allegations of Ava Tyson’s behaviour online” and “opposed to such unacceptable acts”.
On Friday, he shared a letter on X from Quinn Emanuel Urqhart & Sullivan LLP, the law firm he hired to conduct an investigation into the claims.
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The letter said the firm had conducted 39 interviews with current and former employees of MrBeast’s company and reviewed over 4.5m documents collected from mobile phones, e-mails, and a variety of messaging platforms.
“Allegations of sexual misconduct… between company employees and minors are without basis. The allegations were soundly rejected, including by alleged victims,” it said.
It added that allegations the company had knowingly employed “individuals with proclivities or histories towards illegal… conduct” were “similarly without basis”.
The letter said some “isolated instances of workplace harassment and misconduct were identified” and that, once informed about them, the company had taken “swift and appropriate actions”.
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Following the publication of the letter, the alleged victim of Tyson’s behaviour said again that the claims were “completely false”.
“People used my name to make very serious allegations and claims without ever speaking to me,” they said.
“It was incredibly difficult having my name thrown around in a public forum without being given the opportunity to share the truth.
“The private investigators reviewed all my [direct messages] and interactions with Kris.
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“I was not groomed. These were false allegations made up by other people with my name thrown in them.”
Responding to the initial allegations in July, Tyson apologised for her “unacceptable social media posts, past actions, and to those who may feel betrayed by how I used to act online”, but added: “I never groomed anyone”.
“To lump these two factors together to create a narrative that my behavior extended beyond bad edgy jokes is disgusting and did not happen,” she said.
“I have learned that my old humor is not acceptable. I cannot change who I was, but I can continue to work on myself.”
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.
Google could be bringing its Quick Share tool to iOS and macOS. The convenient and fast file-sharing tool may need to play nicely with Apple’s restrictive policies.
Why is Quick Share missing on Apple iPhones?
Formerly known as Nearby Share, Quick Share arrived in 2020. It’s a file-transfer service that lets users quickly move any number of files over a local network connection.
iOS is one of the leading smartphone operating systems that’s exclusive to iPhones. Still, Quick Share isn’t even available as a standalone app on the Apple Store. Android users have to find another solution if they want to share files with anyone who has an iPhone.
Apple is quite restrictive about iOS and the backend processes. In other words, iOS and macOS are closed-source or proprietary operating systems. This could be one of the reasons why tools such as Quick Share don’t work on these platforms.
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Google porting Quick Share to iOS and macOS, reveals code
Quick Share is one of the best and easiest tools to move files between Android phones. It is also available on Chromebooks and even Windows PCs can utilize Quick Share after installing the tool.
Quick Share is built on top of Nearby Connections, which is a peer-to-peer networking API that lets apps “easily discover, connect to, and exchange data with nearby devices in real-time, regardless of network connectivity.” The source code for Nearby Connections is easily and openly available on GitHub under Google’s Nearby repository. Google engineers improve the platform, fix bugs, and add new features to Quick Share regularly.
In one of the bug fixes, Android Authoritydiscovered references to iOS and macOS. Mishaal Rahman spotted a potential clue suggesting that Google is working on bringing Quick Share to iOS and macOS.
Google hasn’t made any official announcements about Quick Share coming to iOS and macOS. Moreover, the company would have to make several changes to integrate Quick Share into Apple’s ecosystem and work in accordance with Apple’s App Store and privacy policies.
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Interestingly, OnePlus has already laid the groundwork. According to Phone Arena, in the recently introduced OxygenOS 15, there’s a feature called “Share with iPhone”.
OnePlus essentially created a dedicated iOS app. While installing yet another app could be a minor convenience, it dwarfs in comparison to the possibility of easily transferring files between an Android device and an iPhone or MacBook computer.
Audible is offering a sweet promotion as an early Black Friday deal, allowing new users to sign up for three months of its Premium Plus plan for just $3. That breaks down to $1 per month. It’s only for new users, so anyone who has previously dipped their toes in the Audible waters are out of luck.
This offer starts today, but is available all the way until midnight on New Year’s Eve. It’s only for US customers and, as usual, the subscription will automatically renew after the three months, so be vigilant about smashing that cancel button if it’s not working out. The regular price for Audible Premium Plus is $15 per month plus tax.
Amazon
Audible Premium Plus is the top-tier offering for listening to audiobooks. A membership provides access to the entire catalog plus a monthly credit to purchase nearly any title outright. Subscriptions also offer discounts on other newly-released titles. All told, there are thousands of books to choose from, along with podcasts and Audible Originals.
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To that end, there’s a whole lot of original content here for fans of different literary genres. James Patterson has an Audible Original that features a stacked voice cast, with Cobie Smulders and Reid Scott headlining. There’s also unique fare like sleep meditations and the like.
Palo Alto, CA — October 2024 — Following its successful Series A funding round in August 2024, where DevRev secured $100.8 million and reached a $1.15 billion valuation, the company continues to drive forward its mission to revolutionize customer support and product development. Led by Khosla Ventures with participation from Mayfield Fund, Param Hansa Values, U First Capital, and several accelerators, family offices, and angel investors, this investment highlights the growing potential of AI-native enterprise software.
Fueling this mission is DevRev’s AgentOS platform, which is rapidly advancing GenAI adoption in enterprises. By offering seamless 1-click data migration from legacy systems and deploying lightweight AI agents, DevRev is setting a new standard for how businesses integrate and benefit from AI.
A visionary approach to developer-customer interaction
DevRev, founded in October 2020 by Dheeraj Pandey, former co-founder and CEO of Nutanix, and Manoj Agarwal, former SVP of Engineering at Nutanix, aims to remodel how businesses connect developers directly with customers and revenue. The company was born out of a simple yet powerful realization:
“Today, every company is a software company, yet we isolate developers from customers and revenue…Our mission is to break down these barriers and empower developers to create customer-conscious products and businesses.” — Dheeraj Pandey, CEO of DevRev
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DevRev’s knowledge graph powers its AgentOS, delivering AI-native solutions that streamline customer service, product management, and software engineering. The platform is already trusted by customers across all major geographies, various industries, and numerous company sizes, including many of the global leading players across AI, SaaS, and financial services.
By analyzing structured and unstructured data — from customer conversations to session analytics – the platform’s unique approach allows developers to connect their code directly to production issues and customer interactions. From there, DevRev’s AI-driven agents are able to automate enterprise workflows to reduce manual effort, enhance operational efficiency, and accelerate response times.
“We have invested heavily in the generative AI sector. We’ve noticed that to fully harness the potential of AI, the underlying data and knowledge infrastructure must be reimagined and rebuilt. DevRev is at the forefront of enabling AI adoption in enterprises, thanks to its innovative product architecture. Furthermore, DevRev is pioneering a new vision for organizational structure by breaking down internal silos, fostering greater collaboration and efficiency across the company.” — Dr. Ekta Dang, CEO of U First Capital
AI agents on knowledge graphs
Organizations today suffer from technology complexity that siloes around departments and their respective apps, data, and workflows, which results in poor customer experiences, delays in product development, and often building the wrong software.
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DevRev believes that this complexity can be meaningfully resolved by AI-on-Knowledge Graphs, which combines the emerging power of GenAI and an organization’s own systems mapped into Knowledge Graphs. While AI is proving to be powerful, organizations are realizing that without Knowledge Graphs, they either end up with AI copilots on single apps or AI copilots on vast data lakes with little-to-no context or definition.
The solution begins by creating an organization’s Knowledge Graph by ingesting data from 2-way real time integrations with an organization’s CRM, support, and engineering applications, along with the underlying code repositories. By doing so, the Knowledge Graph understands the product (software), the customers (users), the people (employees), and the workflows involved, along with unique elements to the organization, such as security and customizations. Once mapped, customers and employees can run queries through AI Agents to not only return more accurate search results, but also power systems of action quickly across the organization. This is the productivity promise GenAI holds, which is only enabled by the contextual mapping that Knowledge Graphs provides.
With DevRev’s Knowledge Graph platform and data from major system of record applications that are ingested real-time into DevRev, DevRev creates an interdependent network of customer, user, product, employee, work and usage records.
Put simply, DevRev comprises both the front-end applications and the back-end Knowledge Graphs to analyze, contextualize, and act on enterprise data, enabling organizations to:
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Gain Deep Organizational Insights: spot emerging trends and linkages across customers, products, and employees to better inform strategic planning
Increase Focus: connect the dots between product / engineering roadmaps and customer impact to better prioritize and allocate resources
Boost Operational Efficiency: streamline operations by identifying bottlenecks, eliminating redundancies, and automating workflows across the organization
Enhance Customer Experience: gain a comprehensive understanding of customer interactions and feedback, leading to more personalized and effective service
About DevRev
DevRev’s mission is to help build the world’s most customer-centric companies, embracing the principle that “less is better.” Founded in October 2020 by Dheeraj Pandey and Manoj Agarwal, DevRev is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices in seven global locations. For more information, visit DevRev’s website.
About U First Capital
Led by two technical PhDs based in Silicon Valley for over two decades, U First Capital’s focus is to invest in stellar founders. The firm has invested in over twenty five category-leading companies like Anthropic, Cohere AI, Rubrik, Worldcoin, Pensando, Palantir, Uniphore, and Nile. For more information, visit U First Capital’s website.
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