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.

Dell‘s EOFY laptop discounts can be a little less obvious than a normal retailer sale, because there’s no before price shown after a drop. Fortunately, I track Dell pricing, so I can spot when an easily missed price drop is actually worth paying attention to.

That’s why the Dell 14 Plus caught my eye: it’s a compact 14-inch Windows laptop with a pretty grunty Ryzen AI 7 350 processor, 16GB RAM and a roomy 1TB SSD. Just as importantly, there’s a TechRadar coupon code available that brings the price down to just AU$1,139.05.

Our review said the Dell 14 Plus “delivers pretty much exactly what you need to get the job done” for everyday use, school work and general productivity.

What more could you want?

One of the reasons I like this little laptop is that for the price, it doesn’t shortchange you on memory or storage space. And it might not feel as important now, but that 1TB SSD means you can store loads of photos and files without worrying about running out of space.

Our review gave the Dell 14 Plus 4.1 stars, and the scorecard sums it up neatly: “a solid general-use and productivity notebook that’s great for work or school”. The value score is a top-notch 5 out of 5, while performance and battery life each score 4 out of 5.

There are some caveats, of course. The display is only 300 nits, so it’s better suited to an office, home desk or lecture room than bright outdoor use. Our review also noted the keyboard, trackpad and speakers could be better, so I wouldn’t buy this expecting a premium MacBook Air feel.

But considering the price, those trade-offs make perfect sense if you mainly need a portable Windows laptop that handles everyday work without any fuss.

There’s also a related Dell deal that may suit some readers better: the Dell 14 Plus 2-in-1 with a Ryzen AI 7 350 processor, 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD is AU$1,299.10 with the same FUTUREAU5% code, down from the early June price of AU$1,799.

The 2-in-1 makes more sense if you like using a touchscreen. Personally, I find that being able to fold the display back into tablet or tent mode is super handy for things like handwritten notes, reading on the couch, marking up documents or watching movies on a plane.

If you want to check out more laptop options before deciding, our main EOFY laptop deals hub is chock full of laptop deals. It covers everything from more Dell deals to MacBooks, Windows laptops, 2-in-1s and gaming laptops, so it has something for everyone.

For even more Dell discounts, check out our TechRadar Dell coupons page, or try one of the codes below.

• FUTURE13% — Save 13% off selected XPS and Alienware laptops and desktops
• FUTURE11% — Take 11% off select monitors and displays
• FUTUREAU5% — Enjoy 5% off a wide range of laptops and desktops

YouTuber Matthew Trahan has made a career out of 3D printing increasingly unusual things. He has printed musical instruments, bedroom furniture, and, in one particularly memorable video, himself.

His latest project is a full outfit, from shirt to shoes, belt to glasses, because apparently nobody told him 3D printers are for creating engineering prototypes or structures that aren’t otherwise feasible, not for fashion week.

So how did it actually go, and what did it cost?

Trahan’s checklist for his latest video included ten items: a shirt, shorts, shoes, socks, a belt, a hat, a wallet, a bag, a tie, and glasses. He couldn’t print all of them successfully, though. 

The shorts, in particular, look like they belong to a Minecraft character. Some of the results were genuinely interesting, especially the Waveform shoe design by Stephen Drunks. 

On the cost side, however, the numbers tell a complicated story. The filament came to about $100, which might sound like a bargain until you add the Prusa Core 1L printer he needed specifically to print the shorts, which costs $1,999. He used several different machines across the project.

Is this actually the future of DIY fashion?

Trahan also spent 33 hours on modeling all the different items, but that wasn’t all. He also spent 560 hours, or about 23 days, printing all of them.

Using a power cost estimator, electricity for the 560 hours comes to about $13.30 at the US average rate of $0.16 per kilowatt-hour. The EIA’s April 2026 figure puts that average slightly higher at $0.19 per kWh, and Californians pay nearly $0.38 per kWh (via Gizmodo).

So, we’re looking at $100 in materials, $1,999 in equipment, 593 hours of your life, and a pair of questionable shorts. All the patterns are still available on MakerWorld if you want to give it a shot, but it might be an expensive affair.

networks

Malaysia ponders regulating management of IP addresses

Wants to revive the lost art of the National Internet Registry, which APNIC has deprecated and isn’t keen to bring back

The government of Malaysia has commenced a consultation on whether it should regulate management of IP addresses and autonomous systems numbers, over objections from regional internet registry the Asian Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC).

Malaysia announced its consultation in June, when the nation’s Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) posted a paper [PDF] in which it explains that a lot has happened since passage of the 1998 Act that governs its activities – so it probably needs an update.

One of the proposed changes would see Malaysia create a statutory authority with the power to manage electronic addressing “including the management of IP addresses, AS numbers and associated fees.”

“This is to support the development of a National Internet Registry model and to ensure a transparent and sustainable administration of electronic addressing resources in Malaysia which will be overseen by the Commission,” the consultation paper states. “This will contribute to a more robust and well-governed digital infrastructure environment in Malaysia.”

APNIC says its talks with the MCMC saw the Malaysian entity express a desire for “full operational and technical autonomy over resource assignments” – powers that existing NIRs don’t have.

National Internet Registries (NIRs) are a relic of the time before regional internet registries came into being. Only APNIC and LACNIC, the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry, allowed NIRs – and only nine exist, covering China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Mexico, and Brazil.

APNIC stopped accepting applications for new NIRs in 2012, and in 2024 made the moratorium on new applications permanent.

In 2024, APNIC’s executive chair Kenny Huang explained: “NIRs are a historical feature of the APNIC membership structure, recognizing that some IP address registries were already operating at a national or economy level when APNIC started, and some were in formation.”

“In the past, particularly while IPv4 address space was being rapidly allocated and needed careful management, NIRs provided important support to a fast-growing Internet with high demand for number resources and registry services.”

The internet governance community long ago decided that internet resource distribution and management works best when handled by sizable organizations which operate at regional scale, and that if every country had an NIR it would create unhelpful risks and overlapping authorities.

If Malaysia presses ahead with its desire to create its own National Internet Registry (NIR) and have it assume some of APNIC’s functions, it will therefore challenge the status quo. If it actually gets an NIR into operation, that would likely revive debate about whether national governments should have a role in allocating internet resources given the potential for such power to be used for political purposes such as denying resources to groups that a government opposes.

The United Nations last year had its say on that idea by re-affirming its support for multi-stakeholder governance under which governments are one of many voices that participate in debate about the future of the internet.

Kenny Huang has written [PDF] to the Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), pointing out that it’s currently not possible to create a new NIR and that APNIC won’t revisit its policy on the matter – but he also notes that it’s always possible to commence a consultation and policy process that would see APNIC debate a new position. But that process could only start after the conclusion of work on ICP-2, the major revision of the rules that govern the operation of RIRs. The current ICP-2 timeline calls for a revised document to be in place by the end of 2026.

If MCMC decides to pursue creation of an NIR, it will be in conflict on a collision course with APNIC. In the past, most collisions in the world of internet governance occurred at low speed and involved mostly civil debate that plays out over years. ®