Will your phone be getting the upgrade?

Newer iPhones get a more customizable Siri AI

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,500 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today — or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc’s Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.

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.

A robotic spacecraft called LINK will soon tug the telescope to a higher orbit.

Sarla Aviation just finished a full round of flight tests with its Sylla 1.0. The 700-kilogram machine with a 7.5-meter wingspan became the heaviest electric aircraft ever to take off vertically in India. Engineers put it through more than 500 tests and over 18 hours of flight time during a six-month campaign in southern India.

Sylla 1.0, built as a half-scale tech demo, is essentially a shrunken version of what the business envisions for the full-size passenger aircraft. It has a novel dispersed propulsion system, with electric motors sticking out along the wing. These are fueled by a 400-volt grid that keeps everything running smoothly. This is critical because the entire structure just lifts off vertically and hovers steadily in the air, with no runway necessary.

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The goal of the test phase was to get all of the individual components to communicate with one another. For example, electric propulsion, battery systems, flight control software, the aircraft itself, and the landing gear were all tested to see how well they operate together in practice. First up, get off the ground and hover. Not that difficult, it turned out… Sylla 1.0 just repeated this section several times, obtaining a wealth of relevant flight data along the way.

The entire project moved at quick pace to say the least, with this group going from the start of developing Sylla 1.0 to actual flying in just under a year, which isn’t bad considering the project’s complexity. To top it all off, the project only cost them around 13 million dollars. When compared to some of the major global eVTOL projects now in development, the difference is clear.

Sarla Aviation opened its doors in Bengaluru in 2023 and now employs a team of engineers, many of which had previously worked for Lilium, Volocopter, Wisk, Beta, and Joby Aviation. They pulled all of that international know-how back together with some quick execution to get the place off the ground. Sarla Aviation is named after Sarla Thukral, India’s first woman pilot in the 1930s.

Sylla 2.0, on the other hand, will have to figure out how to fly forward rather than just hovering. We all know how important this is, since it dictates how efficiently these birds will be able to transport passengers or cargo from A to B. They’ve already started collecting important data from Sylla 1.0 and are incorporating it into the next level of testing.

Of course, the long-term goal is to reach Shunya at full capacity. This is the real deal: an aircraft capable of carrying a pilot and six passengers, or four in a more spacious configuration, as well as cargo variants capable of carrying around 680 kg. Oh, and they’re also looking into hybrid power with some sustainable aviation fuel, which should help increase the range to about 800 kilometers. They plan to reach a top speed of roughly 250 km/h using seven ‘propulsion units’ and two batches of separate batteries.

Sarla sees these aircraft fitting in similarly to how ride-hailing apps are used today, as a way to travel from A to B in the air. Early routes can link big cities, such as Bengaluru to Mumbai or Delhi to Pune, or just shuttle passengers between airports and city centers. The real goal, however, is to see what they can do to help India’s push for cleaner transportation while simultaneously increasing their own digital industry.
[Source]

Many don’t think of the Fourth of July as a mattress-shopping holiday, but they probably should. Black Friday, Memorial Day, and even Presidents’ Day get a lot of attention when it comes to mattress sales, but many brands offer some of their biggest discounts for Independence Day as people tackle summer moves, home projects, and long-overdue bedroom upgrades. If you’ve been putting off replacing an old mattress, now’s a smart time to put down the grill tongs and shop.

The WIRED Reviews team has spent years testing mattresses in our own homes, and we evaluate everything from long-term comfort and cooling to motion isolation and durability, so the recommendations below are mattresses we’ve actually slept on and continue to recommend. Note that all prices are for queen-size models.

If you’re looking to upgrade the rest of your bedroom, check out our guides to the Best Pillows, Best Bed Frames, and Best Sheets.

WIRED Featured Deals

The Best Fourth of July Mattress Sales

Helix Midnight Luxe

Photograph: Wired

Helix

We’ve tested dozens of mattresses over the years, and the Helix Midnight Luxe continues to earn the top spot, ranked as the best overall mattress of 2026 so far. Its medium-firm feel, zoned support coils, and excellent pressure relief work for nearly every sleeping position, but especially for side sleepers, and it is surprisingly cool for the amount of plush that it has. Fourth of July brings one of the best prices we typically see for this mattress outside of Black Friday, making this an excellent time to buy.

Leesa

The Leesa Sapira Chill is one of our favorite mattresses because it tackles two of the biggest sleep struggles: waking up sore and waking up hot. Its medium-firm hybrid design gently cushions the shoulders and hips without sacrificing support, while the cooling cover regulates temperature throughout the night. When former WIRED director Martin Cizmar tested it, he found it to be the best cooling mattress he’s tried for side sleepers, making this deal especially worth a look, especially in this heat wave.

Avocado

The Avocado Green has remained one of our top organic mattress picks over the years. Its hybrid construction hits a sweet spot between plush comfort and sturdy support, making it a great option for couples with different firmness preferences and combination sleepers who tend to toss, turn, and switch sleeping positions throughout the night. Its individually wrapped coils also do a great job minimizing motion transfer, and after nearly three years of use, WIRED operations manager Scott Gilbertson has reported virtually no sagging or signs of wear. Avocado doesn’t offer discounts as aggressively as many competitors, making this 15-percent-off sale one of the better opportunities you’ll get all year.

• The best organic mattress: Avocado Green Mattress for $2,039 (15 Percent Off)

Nolah Evolution

Photograph: Julia Forbes

Nolah

Designed with side sleepers in mind, the Nolah Evolution pairs zoned foam and pocketed coils to cushion the shoulders and hips and support the lower back. We also found it comfortable for both side and stomach sleeping, thanks to its hybrid design that makes it easy to roll over without feeling like you’re stuck in your mattress. Nolah’s Fourth of July sale takes 35 percent off site-wide, matching one of the brand’s strongest promotions of the year.

Naturepedic

The Naturepedic EOS Classic Organic Mattress stands out for its customization. Its modular design lets you fine-tune its firmness by swapping out latex layers, and each side of the mattress can be configured independently, making it another great mattress for sleeping partners with different sleep preferences. We also appreciate that you can exchange the latex layers for free during your first 100 nights, so you don’t have to cross your fingers and hope you picked the right firmness the first time. The Fourth of July sale knocks 20 percent off site-wide with code JULY4 and includes a free muslin blanket with qualifying mattress purchases.

Bear

If back pain has you shopping for a new mattress, the Bear Elite Hybrid is 35 percent off with code JULY35. Multiple WIRED reviewers with conditions including scoliosis, spondylosis, sciatica, and chronic back pain have found that this mattress’s zoned coil support helped keep their backs happy while the quilted pillow top provided enough cushioning to prevent sore shoulders and hips. It feels pretty firm right out of the box, but our testers found it cushioned up over time while maintaining the support they needed.

As part of an ongoing legal dispute with three Hollywood studios, AI startup Midjourney is seeking to compel those studios to reveal how they use AI themselves.

Disney and Universal sued Midjourney for alleged copyright infringement last year, noting that the startup’s image-generation models could create images of characters, such as Bart Simpson and Darth Vader, who are owned by the studios. A few months later, Warner Bros. sued Midjourney as well.

The startup argues that training its AI models on images of copyrighted characters is permitted under fair use. 

The current dispute revolves around the documentation the studios will need to produce during the discovery process. A judge previously ruled that the studios would indeed have to provide information about their generative AI usage – but only when it led to “consumer-facing” videos and images.

In its latest filing, Midjourney seeks to overturn that limitation, arguing that it “unfairly” allows the studios “to cherry-pick only those documents they believe support their market harm claims while depriving Midjourney of documents that would support its defenses.”

Midjourney goes on to claim that the “documents [the studios] are withholding are precisely those that would reveal whether, behind closed doors, they are doing exactly what they are suing Midjourney for doing.”

For example, the startup says that if the studios are developing image-generating AI models  “for internal use in storyboarding or ideating content for film or TV, that evidence would equally demonstrate that it is an industry custom, even among the studios themselves, to download and train AI on unlicensed copyrighted content.”

In the filing, the startup also argues that the studios should reveal all the prompts they used in Midjourney, as well as the resulting outputs, not just the prompts that produced the allegedly infringing images.

The studios’ lead attorney David Singer previously claimed Midjourney was seeking this documentation as part of a “fishing expedition.” 

He also said the studios “do not seek to stop AI technology or even shut down Midjourney’s business,” but rather “simply want Midjourney to stop copying their movies and TV shows and to stop distributing, publicly displaying, publicly performing, and creating derivative works that include copies of [their] famous characters without authorization.”