NYT Strands hints and answers for Wednesday, July 8 (game #857)

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Tuesday, July 7 (game #856).

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.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #857) - hint #1 - today's theme

What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Here come trouble

NYT Strands today (game #857) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• HIVE
• CREED
• SPARE
• VICE
• SALE
• CRAPS

NYT Strands today (game #857) - hint #3 - spangram letters

How many letters are in today's spangram?

• Spangram has 11 letters

NYT Strands today (game #857) - hint #4 - spangram position

What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

• First side: left, 4th row

• Last side: 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 #857) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #857, are…

• SCAMP
• HELLION
• RAPSCALLION
• WHIPPERSNAPPER
• SPANGRAM: LITTLEDEVIL

• My rating: Hard
• My score: 1 hint

There were a few different ways to connect LITTLE and DEVIL and I think I tried them all before finally getting a rare, for me at least, spangram first.

The rest of the board was far trickier. After getting SCAMP I used a hint but even with it I struggled to see HELLION — not a word I’ve ever heard before.

Next the non-game word “scallion” helped me see RAPSCALLION before my misery was ended with the brilliantly old-fashioned WHIPPERSNAPPER — a great word, but possibly not one you use when reporting “trouble” to the police.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday, July 7, game #856)

• CART
• BUGGY
• WAGON
• CARRIAGE
• STAGECOACH
• SLEIGH
• SPANGRAM: IGETAROUND

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which 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.

https://ift.tt/EMXPimN

Samsung Messages has just been killed off, forcing loyal users to make the switch to Google Messages, and not everyone is pleased — this is what you need to do

• Samsung Messages has been killed off to make room for Google Messages
• Right now it's just affecting US users, but a wider shutdown is likely to happen
• We recommend making Google Messages your default SMS service

After months of waiting, the dreaded day for Android users arrived: Samsung Messages has finally been shut down for good as of July 6.

The Korean tech company announced its decision to axe its messaging service for Galaxy Phones and tablets in April, with Google Messages taking over as the new default communication platform for devices released in 2022 and onwards.

Samsung stopped installing its flagship messaging platform on devices in 2024, so if you’re using the Galaxy S26 Ultra, for example, Google Messages will already be installed.

So what happens now?

At the moment, Samsung Messages’ demise is only impacting users in the US, according to recent reports. According to SamMobile, it may still work outside the US on devices the app was pre-installed on, but it’s likely that a wider shutdown will follow suit in other countries later — it’s been removed from the Galaxy Store and Google Play Store, and UK users on Reddit are reporting its replacement with Google Messages.

That said, if your device is running Android 11 or lower, the shutdown won’t affect you, according to Forbes. However, the outlet notes that those on a more recent version should switch to Google Messages.

Samsung Messages’ shutdown has been a long process, and though users have been anticipating the move for some time, it doesn’t mean that they’re ready to bid farewell to the app just yet.

Comment from r/S24Ultra

Across the board of reactions on Reddit, the general consensus is that Samsung Messages will be missed. “If I wanted to use Google’s POS services I would’ve bought a pixel,” one user explains, but from Samsung’s perspective, it’s all about giving users a messaging experience enriched with handy features.

The company says that the switch to Google Messages will help bring features to Samsung Galaxy devices to align with modern messaging tools used in third-party apps such as WhatsApp. This includes end-to-end encryption, AI tools, and RCS messages, which Google Messages now allows to be sent between iOS and Android devices.

Still haven’t made the switch to Google Messages? We’d recommend doing this sooner rather than later, and it’s quite a straightforward process.

Once you’ve uninstalled Samsung Messages and downloaded the Google Messages app, launch it and a pop-up reading ‘Set default SMS app’ will appear on your device. Tap this, select Google Messages from the options, then tap ‘Set as default’. You can add Google Messages to your Home screen by tapping and holding the app and selecting ‘Add to Home’.

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NYT Strands hints and answers for Tuesday, July 7 (game #856)

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Monday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Monday, July 6 (game #855).

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.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #856) - hint #1 - today's theme

What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Hitching a ride

NYT Strands today (game #856) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• CARGO
• GATE
• SLATE
• CHAIR
• REAR
• GORE

NYT Strands today (game #856) - hint #3 - spangram letters

How many letters are in today's spangram?

• Spangram has 10 letters

NYT Strands today (game #856) - hint #4 - spangram position

What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

• First side: left, 5th row

• Last side: right, 5th row

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #856) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #856, are…

• CART
• BUGGY
• WAGON
• CARRIAGE
• STAGECOACH
• SLEIGH
• SPANGRAM: IGETAROUND

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

I was having a merry old ride around this board until the final word and spangram slowed me down to a standstill.

Spangrams like IGETAROUND really are my nemesis and I came close, but not that close, to using a hint, but thankfully saw the unseasonal SLEIGH just in time before I disappeared into a letter-soup haze.

Finding non-game words was actually a good deal harder and I struggled to find the six required for this page.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Monday, July 6, game #855)

• BLOOM
• EXPAND
• SPREAD
• FLOURISH
• THRIVE
• BURGEON
• SPANGRAM: SUMMERTIME

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which 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.

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An update to the popular Merlin Bird ID app will turn millions of birdwatchers like me into citizen scientists — doing your bit for bird conservation efforts just got easier

• Merlin Bird ID is a go-to app for bird identification, with more than 40 million downloads
• It can identify over 2,000 species of birds by sound recognition
• A future update will share sound recordings with eBird, a huge biodiversity database

If you're into birdwatching, you'll need no introduction to the popular Merlin Bird ID app, by Cornell Lab of Ornithology. With over 40 million downloads worldwide, and over two million monthly users in the UK alone, Merlin is the go-to app for bird identification for many.

I'm in my forties, and birding has become one of my recent new hobbies, after years of photographing birds while testing cameras and lenses. And while I'm learning, I simply can't identify all the birds I see or hear, especially in my local nature reserve, which is a migration route for varied and sometimes rare birdlife throughout the year, and a popular birding spot.

The app helps me to identify the birds I'm unfamiliar with by their call / song, using machine learning sound recognition, and gives me lightning-fast and almost always reliable results, with an image for each identified bird. It's super helpful.

I can also feed the app one of my photos for identification, such as those taken during a recent outing with the Sony 400-800mm lens, with the results based on location data and other information from a database of more than 2,000 bird species.

So I was delighted to hear that the app — which is free for iOS and Android, with downloadable offline bird packs by location including US, Canada and Europe — is getting an update which will help users like me give something back: integration with Cornell's own eBird database, as reported by the Guardian.

Me during a recent visit to my local birding site, which hosts a wide variety of birdlife throughout the year (Image credit: Tim Coleman)

A new wave of citizen scientists

eBird is a huge citizen-science biodiversity database, with over two billion recordings logged worldwide since its 2002 launch. And it's set for an influx of new data — the Merlin Bird ID app update will in future allow bird identifications to automatically flow directly into the eBird database.

Jessie Barry, of the Merlin project, told the Guardian, "Upcoming feature developments will make an even better link to the eBird systems so that we can use the data from what users ‘hear’ with Merlin to monitor bird populations."

Bird conservation is a hot topic, what with bird numbers declining. The UK, for example, has 70 million fewer birds than it did 50 years ago. So here's the good part: these records could provide vital information to conversation efforts for at-risk birdlife around the world.

Barry added: “This data helps create tools that can be used to further conservation, inspire support and inform ecological management strategies.”

Notwithstanding the cautionary note of the app's outright accuracy, with concern from some about it occasionally misidentifying birds, the Merlin Bird ID app update could be a huge boost for bird conservation efforts.

Being directly connected to the go-to bird identification app, eBird stands to receive more data from millions of users, who don't need to make any special effort to take part; they just need to carry on using the app as before to record and identify birdsong.

I love the idea that I will be one of a new wave of citizen scientists across the world, with the recordings I make playing a small part in monitoring bird populations. And the surge in recording data will likely further improve the app's performance.

Right, I'm off out with my phone, I hear the birds calling...

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NYT Strands hints and answers for Monday, July 6 (game #855)

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Sunday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Sunday, July 5 (game #854).

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.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #855) - hint #1 - today's theme

What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… The growing season

NYT Strands today (game #855) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• GRUMP
• ROLE
• DRIP
• HIVE
• MORE
• FLUE
• BIRD

NYT Strands today (game #855) - hint #3 - spangram letters

How many letters are in today's spangram?

• Spangram has 10 letters

NYT Strands today (game #855) - hint #4 - spangram position

What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

• First side: bottom, 1st column

• Last side: top, 4th column

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #855) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #855, are…

• BLOOM
• EXPAND
• SPREAD
• FLOURISH
• THRIVE
• BURGEON
• SPANGRAM: SUMMERTIME

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

Sometimes Strands themes can be head scratchers, other times they are just plain clever and today's theme falls into that latter category.

With the word “season” in mind I quickly found SUMMERTIME thanks to the hard-to-miss double M, although the corkscrew connections provided a little challenge.

Beyond this there were a couple of tricky words — I wouldn’t have seen BURGEON had it not been for the fact that it was sandwiched by THRIVE and the spangram.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Sunday, July 5, game #854)

• POINTER
• SPANIEL
• TERRIER
• HOUND
• RETREIVER
• SPANGRAM: HUNTINGBREEDS

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which 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.

https://ift.tt/B8u91ie

NYT Strands hints and answers for Sunday, July 5 (game #854)

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Saturday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Saturday, July 4 (game #853).

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.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #854) - hint #1 - today's theme

What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Barking up the right tree

NYT Strands today (game #854) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• POLITE
• SPRITE
• LIVER
• HUNGER
• TINGE
• SPEEDING

NYT Strands today (game #854) - hint #3 - spangram letters

How many letters are in today's spangram?

• Spangram has 13 letters

NYT Strands today (game #854) - hint #4 - spangram position

What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

• First side: bottom, 1st column

• Last side: top, 6th column

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #854) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #854, are…

• POINTER
• SPANIEL
• TERRIER
• HOUND
• RETREIVER
• SPANGRAM: HUNTINGBREEDS

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

My immediate thought was that the theme had to have something to do with dogs, but I was wary, of course, of falling into a trap and barking up the wrong tree.

After spotting POINTER it seemed clear that we were looking for dog breeds, but my canine knowledge was not good enough to know that we were searching out HUNTINGBREEDS until after I had connected SPANIEL and TERRIER and then the spangram.

Beyond the game itself there was also an interesting crop of lengthy non-game words. It’s rare that I’ll find many over five-letters long but today the board was loaded with them.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Saturday, July 4, game #853)

• BRIGHT
• COLORFUL
• DAZZLING
• EXCITING
• SPARKLING
• SPANGRAM: FIREWORKS

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which 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.

https://ift.tt/y9CPf0a

Google Maps may soon be able to replace Uber Eats and DoorDash by letting you order food from restaurants right in the app

• Google Maps may soon let you order food inside the app
• It could work as an extension of the Ask Maps feature
• Right now it's not clear how it would rival apps like Uber Eats

Google Maps may soon offer you the option of ordering food from a restaurant ready to pick up, as well as directing you to that restaurant on the map, according to hidden code found inside the latest version of Google Maps for Android.

The code was found by the team at Android Authority, and includes text strings such as "ask Maps to order food", "say what you're craving", and "Maps will order for you — even while you're on the go".

This feature isn't live yet, so it's difficult to say exactly how it would work, but it certainly looks as though you would be able to quickly request something on the menu at a restaurant and then pick it up yourself.

Presumably there might be the option to dine in, or to have your food delivered to you if you weren't traveling — so maybe this will work in partnership with apps such as DoorDash and Uber Eats rather than replacing them.

AI working for you

The feature could extend Ask Maps (Image credit: Google)

The 'Ask Maps' feature referred to in the code leak is the recently introduced Gemini-powered tool that lets you have a natural conversation with Google Maps about anything you've found or are looking for.

It appears that this same part of the interface is where the food ordering will be placed as well, using Gemini's agentic capabilities to take action for you — though as Android Authority points out, it's not clear just how much autonomy the AI would have.

It might even be restricted to certain phones, like the Magic Cue feature that's currently exclusive to the Pixel 10 series. However, it seems more likely that Google would want to make this as widely available as possible.

We'll have to wait and see how this works, if it does make it to the app at all. The next big announcements from Google should come along with the Pixel 11 launch, which is expected sometime in August.

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