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.

You’ve seen this comic before: An anthropomorphic dog sits smiling, surrounded by flames, and says, “This is fine.”

It’s become one of the most durable memes of the past decade, and now AI startup Artisan seems to have incorporated it into an ad campaign — an ad for which KC Green, the artist who created the comic, said his art was stolen.

A Bluesky post seems to show an ad in a subway station featuring Green’s art, except the dog says, “[M]y pipeline is on fire,” and an overlaid message urges passersby to “Hire Ava the AI BDR.”

Quoting that post, Green said he’s “been getting more folks telling me about this” and that “it’s not anything [I] agreed to.” Instead, he said the ad has “been stolen like AI steals,” and he told followers to “please vandalize it if and when you see it.”

Software that collects public data from the Internet and uses it to provide half-assed answers to your questions might seem like a modern craze, but today we bid farewell to a website that helped pioneer pretend conversations all the way back in 1997 — as of May 1st, Ask Jeeves is no more.

Well, technically they dropped the “Jeeves” part back in 2006. Since then it’s just been Ask.com, but as the name implies the idea was more or less the same. Rather than the relatively rigid parameters and keywords required by traditional search engines, you could ask Jeeves questions about the world using natural language. Early advertisements showed the virtual valet answering arbitrary questions like “How many calories in a banana?,” which of course today seems commonplace and utterly unimpressive, but was a pretty wild for the 1990s.

It might seem surprising that a site designed from day one to offer a human-like Q&A experience should fold right as such technology is becoming commonplace. But of course, that commonality is the problem. When Google can answer your questions just as well (or poorly…) as Jeeves or anyone else, what’s the benefit for the average Internet user to seek out another service? But it’s still somewhat ironic, which is probably why the farewell message on Ask.com ends with the line “Jeeves’ spirit endures.”

While on the subject of technology that’s potentially ahead of its time, MacRumors is reporting that Apple is giving up on their Vision Pro augmented reality googles. They haven’t been formally discontinued as of yet, but sources indicate that the internal development team for the entire product line has been disbanded and reassigned to other projects within the company. This comes after a October 2025 refresh of the hardware still failed to connect with consumers. Insiders have said that not only were sales sluggish on the ~$3,500 headsets, but that they were getting returned at a far higher rate than any of Apple’s other hardware products.

Now, we’re hardly Apple apologists here at Hackaday. It sort of goes without saying that the whole “Walled Garden” thing doesn’t really fit our ethos. But we can’t deny that the Vision Pro is an impressive piece of technology. After years of sticking our phones in crappy plastic headsets, or trying to force hardware designed for VR gaming to do literally anything else, the Vision Pro offered a practical way to put augmented reality to work. But even for a company known for producing expensive hardware, the price tag was just too much for most consumers.

We’ll go out on a limb here and predict that the Vision Pro will one day be looked back on like the Newton — a product that was too expensive and niche to be a commercial success when it came out, but still a technical milestone that gave us a glimpse into the shape of things to come.

Speaking of a technology that will inevitably become more common, the European Patent Office (EPO) released a report this week showing a seven-fold increase in the number of inventions intended for battery reuse and recycling over the last decade. Given our insatiable demand for rechargeable batteries, it should come as no surprise that there’s a huge push for new methods of squeezing more use out of cells. As noted several times by the EPO, it’s not purely about saving money either. Even if Europe produces the batteries domestically, they need to import the raw materials. Relying on foreign countries to provide critical infrastructure can be precarious in the best of times, and is likely to only become more politically onerous in the future.

Finally, we’ll leave you with a fun way to waste some time on a Sunday evening: Visible Zorker. Created by Andrew Plotkin, this website allows you to not only play through all three installments of Zork, but presents a debugger-style view of the source code as the game is running. Even if you’re not terribly interested in seeing how your responses are parsed, the map that shows your progress through the world is certainly handy. The project was actually started back in 2025, but Andrew just completed the trilogy by adding support for Zork III a couple days ago so now is the perfect time to check it out.

See something interesting that you think would be a good fit for our weekly Links column? Drop us a line, we’d love to hear about it.

Apple has set its sights on India’s antitrust watchdog, questioning the legality of a request for its financial data as part of an ongoing battle over its App Store policies.

India’s competition body wants the information so it can calculate what penalty Apple should face. This comes after a 2024 investigation found that Apple had abused its dominant position in the market.

Reuters reports that Apple could be on the hook for a whopping $38 billion penalty. However, in court documents seen by the news outlet, Apple has pushed back on India’s request for financial data. The company doesn’t believe that the antitrust body has exceeded its powers as part of its request for financial data.

Apple had previously been given until May 21, 2026, to submit the data required to calculate the penalty. Now, it’s gone on the offensive and chosen to challenge India’s entire antitrust penalty system via a New Delhi court.

The court will convene on May 15 to discuss the matter.

A recurring theme for Apple

India remains a key market for Apple, with iPhones making up almost 10% of the smartphone market. That’s double the 4% figure from just two years ago, the report notes.

For its part, Apple argues that it is still small fry compared to Google’s Android. Android makes up the vast majority of the Indian smartphone market.

India is far from the first country to consider Apple in breach of local antitrust laws. The company has been embroiled in a legal battle with the European Union for years.

Antitrust bodies around the globe believe that Apple is abusing its market position by preventing third-party iPhone app stores. The EU successfully forced Apple to allow such stores in the bloc, and others are working to follow suit.

There is a $100 price difference between the Artisan Plus and Artisan models. However, the Artisan Plus’s features are small but mighty, and make the cost difference seem like a bargain, especially in higher-stakes recipe scenarios. This upgraded model has a more powerful 350-watt motor compared to the Artisan series model’s 325 watts. With the Artisan Plus’s increased intensity also comes the new precision speed control. Twist the knob of the Artisan Plus and you engage half-speed settings, so you can move between two and 2.5, all the way up to 11. Previous generations capped out at 10 speeds.

The Artisan Plus’s “Soft Start” feature gently transitions between speeds. Coupled with the LED light situated above the mixing bowl, it makes managing the most delicate of recipes exact. While I compared the Artisan Plus and Artisan series models, I found that the addition of the bowl light and precision mixing speeds alone made it worth the slightly higher price point. I’d often stop mixing to visually check progress with my Artisan series stand mixer, while the Artisan Plus could chug right along without breaking its stride thanks to its light.

Mix-and-Match

Taking a glance at the KitchenAid attachments of yesteryear, it’s evident that the Artisan Plus is an upgrade. Its whire whip, dough hook, flat beater, and new double-edge beater attachment are all stainless steel, sleek, and heavy. Apart from what I had on hand for the ’64 mixer (most attachments were lost to time), the older mixers had a combination of aluminum and powder-coated attachments to work with. All attachments, regardless of mixer generation, are designed to be top-rack dishwasher-safe; that’s still the case with the Artisan Plus’s extras, too.

1964 KitchenAid

Photograph: Julia Forbes

1990 KitchenAid

Photograph: Julia Forbes

2017 KitchenAid

Photograph: Julia Forbes

I set up each mixer side by side and had them all make the same recipe at the same time. While my pseudo test kitchen was chaotic, it was insightful to see the generational differences in action and even the slight design changes over time. The Artisan Plus’s footprint did not take up any more space compared to previous generations. It also doesn’t look fundamentally different from the KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer, or even the 1990s model.

Razer is back with a new Blade 16 refresh. The company has introduced new high-end configurations, and they push the laptop firmly into “no compromises” territory.

What’s actually new with the Razer Blade 16 (2026)?

The Blade 16 (2026) was already announced earlier, but Razer has now rolled out new SKUs featuring 64GB of LPDDR5X memory, paired with its top-tier GPUs. These new configurations sit above the previously announced 32GB variants and are clearly aimed at users who need more than just gaming performance.

The updated lineup now includes options with RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 Laptop GPUs alongside 64GB RAM, making this one of the most loaded portable systems available right now. The pricing reflects that jump. The RTX 5080 model with 64GB RAM is priced at $4,699, while the fully maxed-out RTX 5090 version goes up to $5,599. Both are available globally through Razer’s official store and select retail locations.

Is the Blade 16 now a gaming laptop or a workstation?

Razer is clearly positioning the Blade 16 as a hybrid performance machine, one that can handle heavy multitasking, content creation, and even AI workloads alongside gaming. With modern workflows becoming more demanding, especially in areas like video editing, 3D work, and AI-assisted tools, higher memory configurations are starting to make more sense. It also aligns with the rest of the hardware.

With Intel’s Panther Lake CPU and RTX 50-series GPUs already pushing serious performance, adding more memory ensures the system does not become bottlenecked in more demanding scenarios. At the same time, Razer has not changed its core formula. You still get the same sleek chassis, high-refresh OLED display, and premium build that define the Blade lineup. The difference is that now, the internal specs are catching up to that premium positioning more than ever.

Razer is not just chasing gamers anymore. It is chasing power users who want one device that can do everything. And with these new configurations, the Blade 16 is getting very close to that goal.

Whether it’s rocket car launches, the reveal of the most gaudy phones you’ve ever seen, or a fingerprint-scanning smart fridge debut, Dreame Next was full of surprises — but the most exciting for me was easily the appearance of Steve Wozniak. It turns out he’s among the few people who adore the iPhone Air.

Starting with his thoughts on the latest Apple phones, Wozniak mentioned also loving his iPhone 17 Pro Max — though he calls the orange color model the Trump phone, given it shares the US president’s complexion — but for him, as he waved the iPhone Air he pulled from his jacket pocket to the crowd, the improbably slim device wins out.

Because “it invokes an emotion” with its unique aesthetics that feel infused with human passion.

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For Wozniak, this human element is what matters most: “Human beings are more important than the technology.”

Music aficionados are always looking for dependable over-ear headphones, and when comparing options from various brands and pricing points, the Beats Studio Pro, priced at $169.95 (was $350), stands out as an economical option. The reason for this model’s exceptional performance is a whole new set of drivers that do an excellent job with audio, precision, and so on. You can feel right immediately that the distortion levels are significantly lower than the previous generation due to improved internal components and larger magnets, which ensures that the sound remains pure regardless of volume.

The battery life allows for 40 hours of continuous play without using the noise reduction feature. When you turn it on, you get 24 hours, which is more than enough time to cover a full day. A 10-minute charge provides four hours of playback, which is quite useful when you go to bed and forget to charge your headphones all night.

Pairing these headphones with your phone is simple, whether you have an iPhone or an Android, and the controls are identical to those on your device. Spatial audio allows you to enjoy supported sounds while feeling a sense of space around them, and you may even employ natural head movements to enhance the experience. If you’re using a computer or phone, you can connect them via USB-C to get lossless audio playing without any of the compression that comes with wireless, allowing you to hear the music with the clarity it was intended to have.

Noise reduction is always adapting to the environment you’re in, whether it’s a noisy train or a talkative office. There is also a transparency mode, which allows you to hear exterior sounds as needed. You can move from entirely blocking out distractions to hearing your surroundings with no effort, which is ideal if you’re on a noisy airline or running on the treadmill.

Value appears clearly when daily use reveals how these features combine into one practical package. Extended playtime, clean sound, and flexible connectivity add up to headphones that handle real routines without constant recharging or awkward trade-offs. For anyone who logs hours with audio on the go, the Studio Pro models turn routine listening into something that simply keeps working session after session.

Compare Top 6 Travel Totes

More Travel Totes I Recommend

Longchamp Large Le Pliage Tote for $180: This bestseller is the equivalent of a classic white tee: timeless, versatile, and built to be passed down for generations. Inspired by origami, Le Pliage folds down small when you need to pack it, but it’s also roomy enough to double as your personal item. I can fit all the essentials in here—laptop, Kindle, my airport toiletries, snacks, and then some. With its minimalist design and zipper closure for valuables, it’s also the ideal work bag for business trips. My one gripe with this travel tote bag is the lack of internal compartments (besides two impractical flat pockets), but if you’re someone who has little pouches and tech organizers for your gear, you might not miss it.

Cincha the Vegan Leather Go-Tote for $130: This vegan leather bag is deceptively huge. The base is 7.5 inches deep, so while it doesn’t look that big in pictures, it holds an astonishing amount of stuff. I’ve packed enough clothes in it for a full weekend trip. I usually have concerns about vegan leather cracking and breaking with use, but Cincha’s soft pebbled fabric does not look or feel obviously plastic. This is the tote bag I took on a multi-week trip to the Philippines, and the leather stood up to rain and being kicked around airport lounges, ferries, and train depots. However, it is more than 2 pounds heavier than a Longchamp Le Pliage, so this is strictly for when you can sling it on top of your carry-on. —Adrienne So

Mission Workshop Drift Laptop Tote for $345: The Drift is my favorite travel tote. It’s burly but with styling that’s refined and classy, and the rolled handles and removable strap make it comfortable to carry by hand or over the shoulder. But the best thing about it is the smartly organized storage pockets inside and out. It feels designed especially for people like me who always carry an army of gadgets. The Drift is kind of a beast, though. It’s too huge to slide under the seat in front of you on an airplane, but it fits into the overhead baggage compartment. —Michael Calore

Vera Bradley Original Duffel for $105: If there were ever a product I would refer to as “ol’ reliable,” it’s undoubtedly the Vera Bradley bag. The bright pattern, durable materials, and washable cotton structure have held up remarkably well for over a decade’s worth of travels. Even when I’ve completely overpacked and lugged it with me on planes, trains, and car travels, I don’t detect strain on the handle stitching. There are no internal pockets, but you do have four exterior ones located around the sides of the bag for easy access (or last-minute additions to your planned outfits). —Julia Forbes

BaubleBar Large Custom Icon Tote for $98: What sets BaubleBar apart is its playful personalization. Your chosen icons (up to six, depending on the size) are embroidered directly onto the canvas tote. The process is super user-friendly, with predesignated spots to help you visualize your picks. Choose from zodiac signs, cutesy foods, initials, and more. Just note that it’s a final sale, so be sure of your design before ordering. The large size fits everything you need for a beach day trip, and the medium and small options are better for light shopping or city exploring. It closes with just a snap button, which isn’t the most secure for crowded areas.

Aer Simple Tote for $139: Have you ever hefted a nylon or leather tote in your hand and realized that slinging it over your shoulder would give you immediate scoliosis? Then you want Aer’s ultra-lightweight, simple sailcloth tote, which weighs less than a pound. Its 15 liters felt surprisingly capacious. I fit two jackets inside on a walk with my kids, and the 3-inch-wide bag tucked neatly under my arm. The two exterior drop pockets fit my Nalgene and Kinto mug, and my phone fits neatly in the exterior zipper pocket. This is a great upgrade if you are getting tired of carrying everything in your canvas tote from Umami Mart and want a bag that’s not going to get soaked in something questionable if you put it down in the wrong place on the subway. It is a little more expensive, though. —Adrienne So

Cuyana System Tote 16-Inch for $378: The Cuyana System Tote is a modular gear-hauler that shape-shifts with your itinerary. Designed to outlast the churn of fast fashion, this travel tote starts minimal, but the genius lies in its add-ons. A laptop sleeve or insert organizer creates a structure on the go, with dedicated slots for your computer, water bottle, and other work essentials. A System Flap Bag insert doubles as a clutch or in-bag organizer, and a detachable, adjustable crossbody strap (also available in a wide model) converts the tote, perfect for hands-free airport sprints if you’re unintentionally trying out airport theory. Instead of stitched-on straps prone to failure, the System Tote’s handles are cut directly from its leather body, minimizing points of wear. The main compartment snaps shut rather than zips, something to know if you’re the spill-averse type.

Avoid This Tote

Calpak Diaper Tote Bag with Laptop Sleeve for $195: This bag was really puffy, but felt bulky, and space was lost to give the puffiness to the bag’s layers. It was somehow too big for everyday use, but not big enough when I needed a lot of stuff brought along for a day trip or long outings. It also didn’t really feel that diaper bag-centric; the only thing “diaper” about it was the baby wipe compartment on the outside, but I would have preferred an exterior pocket to store actual diapers along with it. You could stuff a couple of diapers in the flat front pocket, but it’s not as ideal as other designs I’ve tried. The insulated bottle pockets are handy if you travel with bottles, but feel useless after your baby graduates from bottles (which they graduate much earlier than diapers!) It’s not a bad bag, but I’d recommend a different design for parents and travelers alike. —Nena Farrell

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