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Thursday, 4 January 2024

Quordle today – hints and answers for Friday, January 5 (game #711)

It's time for your daily dose of Quordle hints, plus the answers for both the main game and the Daily Sequence spin off.

Quordle is the only one of the many Wordle clones that I'm still playing now, around 18 months after the daily-word-game craze hit the internet, and with good reason: it's fun, but also difficult.

What's more, its makers (now the online dictionary Merriam-Webster) are also keeping it fresh in the form of a variant called the Daily Sequence, which sees you complete four puzzles consecutively, rather than concurrently.

But Quordle is tough, so if you already find yourself searching for today's Wordle answer, you'll probably need some hints for this game too.

I'm a Quordle and Wordle fanatic who's been playing since December 2021, so I can definitely help you solve Quordle today and improve your game for tomorrow. Read on for my Quordle hints to game #711 and the answers to the main game and Daily Sequence.

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

Quordle today (game #711) - hint #1 - Vowels

How many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 4*.

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

Quordle today (game #711) - hint #2 - total vowels

What is the total number of vowels in Quordle today?

• The total number of vowels across today's Quordle answers is 8.

Quordle today (game #711) - hint #3 - repeated letters

Do any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 2.

Quordle today (game #711) - hint #4 - total letters

How many different letters are used in Quordle today?

• The total number of different letters used in Quordle today is 13.

Quordle today (game #711) - hint #5 - uncommon letters

Do the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

• No. None of Q, Z, X or J appear among today's Quordle answers.

Quordle today (game #711) - hint #6 - starting letters (1)

Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?

• The number of today's Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 0.

If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you're not ready yet then here's one more clue to make things a lot easier:

Quordle today (game #711) - hint #7 - starting letters (2)

What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• R

• C

• F

• A

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

Quordle today (game #711) - the answers

Quordle answers for game 711 on a yellow background — (Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #711, are…

RACER
CHOIR
FLAME
ADAPT

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Daily Sequence today (game #711) - the answers

Quordle daily sequence answers for game 711 on a yellow background — (Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #711, are…

FOCUS
STOMP
REEDY
WRATH

Quordle answers: The past 20

Quordle #710, Thursday 4 January: MAJOR, CHOSE, IDEAL, JELLY
Quordle #709, Wednesday 3 January: MOUND, STUCK, HOARD, ANGRY
Quordle #708, Tuesday 2 January: MANOR, TORCH, FAUNA, AVAIL
Quordle #707, Monday 1 January: MAIZE, IDIOM, BRAIN, EXERT
Quordle #706, Sunday 31 December: TOXIC, SOLVE, ALBUM, GRAZE
Quordle #705, Saturday 30 December: ACUTE, SALLY, GROAN, GROWL
Quordle #704, Friday 29 December: AGONY, FLAKY, PHONE, AFOUL
Quordle #703, Thursday 28 December: CLERK, BERTH, FINER, SCALY
Quordle #702, Wednesday 27 December: ALIVE, ABHOR, BRACE, CORER
Quordle #701, Tuesday 26 December: TAROT, WRING, OMBRE, CHUTE
Quordle #700, Monday 25 December: RANCH, HAUTE, LEASH, WISER
Quordle #699, Sunday 24 December: FURRY, SKATE, SHARE, WEEDY
Quordle #698, Saturday 23 December: EXULT, WHEAT, SCENE, CRESS
Quordle #697, Friday 22 December: FRUIT, SWEET, MEATY, EMBER
Quordle #696, Thursday 21 December: TENSE, SCALP, QUASI, PRAWN
Quordle #695, Wednesday 20 December: HUMPH, SOWER, WAGON, EDICT
Quordle #694, Tuesday 19 December: CHINA, TRUNK, SUAVE, DETER
Quordle #693, Monday 18 December: FLUNK, TRAIN, SKATE, SPRIG
Quordle #692, Sunday 17 December: SOLAR, GENIE, ENNUI, PLACE
Quordle #691, Saturday 16 December: EXULT, POSSE, FRANK, SPIKY

Quordle FAQs: Everything you need to know

What is Quordle?

Where Wordle challenges you to guess a new five-letter word each day, Quordle presents you with four puzzles to solve. And rather than complete them in turn, you do so simultaneously. You get nine guesses, rather than the six for Wordle, but the rules are otherwise very similar.

It's played online via the Quordle website and you can also get to it via the Merriam-Webster site, after the dictionary purchased Quordle last year.

As with Wordle, the answers are the same for every player each day, meaning that you're competing against the rest of the world. And also as with Wordle, the puzzle resets at midnight so you have a fresh challenge each day.

The website also includes a practice mode - which I definitely recommend using before attempting the game proper! - and there are daily stats including a streak count. You also get Quordle Achievements - specific badges for winning a game in a certain number of turns, playing lots of times, or guessing particularly hard words.

Oh, and it's difficult. Really difficult.

What are the Quordle rules?

The rules of Quordle are almost identical to those of Wordle.

1. Letters that are in the answer and in the right place turn green.

2. Letters that are in the answer but in the wrong place turn yellow.

3. Letters that are not in the answer turn gray…

4. …BUT the word you guess appears in all quadrants of the puzzle at the same time, so an A could turn green in one square, yellow in another and gray in the final two.

5. Answers are never plural.

6. Letters can appear more than once. So if your guess includes two of one letter, they may both turn yellow, both turn green, or one could be yellow and the other green.

7. Each guess must be a valid word in Quordle's dictionary. You can't guess ABCDE, for instance.

8. You do not have to include correct letters in subsequent guesses and there is no equivalent of Wordle's Hard mode.

9. You have nine guesses to find the Quordle answers.

10. You must complete the daily Quordle before midnight in your timezone.

What is a good Quordle strategy?

Quordle needs to be approached in a different way to Wordle. With four puzzles to solve in nine guesses, you can't blindly throw letters at it and expect to win - you'll stand a far better chance if you think strategically.

That's the case in Wordle too, of course, but it's even more important in Quordle.

There are two key things to remember.

1. Use several starting words

Firstly, you won't want just a single starting word, but almost certainly two or three starting words.

The first of these should probably be one of the best Wordle starting words, because the same things that make them work well will apply here too. But after that, you should select another word or possibly two that use up lots more of the most common consonants and that include any remaining vowels.

For instance, I currently use STARE > DOILY > PUNCH. Between them, these three words use 15 of the 26 letters in the alphabet including all five vowels, Y, and nine of the most common consonants (S, T, R, D, L, P, N, C and H). There are plenty of other options - you might want to get an M, B, F or G in there instead of the H, maybe - but something like that should do the trick.

If all goes well, that will give you a good lead on what one or sometimes two of the answers might be. If not, well good luck!

2. Narrow things down

Secondly, if you're faced with a word where the answer might easily be one of several options - for instance -ATCH, where it could be MATCH, BATCH, LATCH, CATCH, WATCH, HATCH or PATCH - you'll definitely want to guess a word that would narrow down those options.

In Wordle, you can instead try several of those in succession and hope one is right, assuming you have enough guesses left. It's risky, but will sometimes work. Plus, it's the only option in Hard mode. But in Quordle, this will almost certainly result in a failure - you simply don't have enough guesses.

In the scenario above, CLAMP would be a great guess, as it could point the way to four of the seven words in one go.

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SpaceX launches first Starlink satellites for direct-to-cell coverage

SpaceX recently launched into Earth’s orbit six “Starlink satellites with Direct to Cell capabilities”. When they come online, these satellites will be able to provide cellular connectivity to every corner of the United States – even to remote locations.

This comes as part of Coverage Above and Beyond, a collaborative initiative that the company entered with T-Mobile back in 2022. It took a little while, but the program is finally bearing fruit. SpaceX explains on its website these satellites essentially function like cell phone towers thanks to an onboard “eNodeB modem”. The ultimate goal here is to effectively eliminate the existence of dead zones allowing for “mobile phone connectivity anywhere on Earth.” Something to keep in mind is the service is primarily meant for far-off locales.

As SpaceX CEO Elon Musk states on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter), the Starlink space towers can’t compete “with existing terrestrial cellular networks” on the same level. It'll be good, but not that good.

Falcon 9 launches 21 @Starlink satellites to orbit from California, including six with Direct to Cell capabilities → https://t.co/FgiJ7LOYdK pic.twitter.com/IKBkTSB63CJanuary 3, 2024

Testing phase

Things will start off small. The ability to send text messages will roll out later this year. Then in 2025, users will be able to make phone calls, send data, and connect IoT (internet of things) devices, such as smartwatches, to the service. That’s assuming everything goes according to plan. Both companies have had to deal with multiple obstacles along the way. Not only were these satellites incredibly difficult to design and build, but government regulators also slowed down the process.

Originally, they had planned a beta test of Starlink’s remote connectivity in 2023. Obviously, that never happened probably due to pending approval from the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). Fortunately, the FCC did give SpaceX the green light to test their direct-to-cell satellites this past December. They have 180 days to complete their trials so we should see testing start soon although it’s unknown exactly when nor do we know if it’ll be open to the public.

Plans for expansion

The future is looking bright for the initiative. Dr. Sara Spangelo, Senior Director of Satellite Engineering at T-Mobile, states the company has plans to “rapidly [scale] up” the program to partners around the world. SpaceX is currently working with telecommunication companies in Canada, Japan, Australia, and more to get the service up and running elsewhere. Direct-to-cell connectivity won’t be exclusive to the U.S., but it does appear users there will receive it first.

SpaceX won’t be alone in this field. Amazon is developing a satellite broadband network called Project Kuiper to take on Starlink. Rockets carrying prototype Kuiper satellites are scheduled to take off within the “first half of 2024.” The European government is also looking to establish a program. Right now, it’s shopping around for the right telecom corporation to take the lead.

If you're looking to improve your internet connection at home, check out TechRadar's roundup of the best broadband deals for January 2024.

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Google Maps just got a major upgrade for drivers in big cities

If you regularly use Google Maps on your Android or iOS phone while driving, you'll soon find it much more helpful in big cities – thanks to the arrival of new graphics for 3D buildings.

3D buildings have been available in the Google Maps app for a while in the layers tab (just tap the Layers icon, then 3D). But they haven't appeared while you're in navigation mode and traveling between two points – until now.

As spotted by 9to5Google and its readers, the Google Maps app for Android and iOS has started showing 3D buildings during navigation for some users – including us. That's a big boon for finding your way around cities, as it gives you another visual marker to help you spot your next turn.

A phone on an orange background showing 3D buildings in the Google Maps app — (Image credit: Future)

To see buildings in 3D, you need to have the '3D' layer turned on in the app's 'Map details' section. To do this, tap the Layers icon (see above), then '3D'. Once you've entered navigation mode by typing in an address and tapping 'directions', you should start to see the buildings appear when you're zoomed in.

Understandably, the feature only seems to appear when you're in cities or highly built-up areas, and you'll need to be zoomed into the map before they appear. But it certainly looks like a handy upgrade if you're driving through an unfamiliar capital – and it's also available for some on Android Auto and CarPlay, too.

Coming to Android Auto and CarPlay?

While we haven't seen 3D buildings appear on Android Auto or CarPlay yet, there is anecdotal evidence that the feature has rolled out for some on both platforms in a few regions.

Some Reddit users have reported seeing the Google Maps feature appear in both Hong Kong (on Android Auto) and Canada (on CarPlay). But so far Google hasn't made an announcement about a global rollout. We've asked Google about this and will update this story when we hear back.

While not a drastic overhaul for Google Maps navigation, the inclusion of 3D buildings certainly looks useful for city driving. The building outlines are roughly to scale but are also transparent (as you can see above), which means that high-rises like The Shard in London won't block your navigation too much.

Once the feature does get a wider rollout, it'll also certainly be one to add to our list of the many things you didn't know Google Maps could do.

https://ift.tt/d1tRKF3

Microsoft renames Edge as an ‘AI Browser’ on mobile – a desperate move to attract users for the unpopular browser?

Microsoft has renamed its Edge browser, adding a reference to artificial intelligence in the name, at least on mobile formats.

As Wccftech reports, Edge for Android and iOS now has a new name: ‘Microsoft Edge: AI Browser’ which is pretty snappy, eh?

Sarcasm mode disengaged, this is a clunky name change, at least in our books, though it’s not a surprising decision – one perhaps made with the intention of trying to attract more users to Edge (we’ll come back to that notion).

The rebrand also reflects an increasing focus on AI with Edge, which has been imbued with more and more artificial intelligence chops since the launch of the Bing chatbot earlier last year.

No changes have been made under the hood alongside the name change, so don’t expect any additional AI functionality in the mobile versions of Edge – this is just a marketing move.

Microsoft has made plenty of AI-related tweaks to Edge in recent times, though, including experimenting with a new AI-generated writing feature – although this is one potential innovation that makes us pretty nervous.

Analysis: Next stop ‘Windows AI’?

While this is just a marketing rebrand for now, it does give us another signal of the importance of AI to Microsoft – if we needed one. We’ve had plenty of these signals about how serious Microsoft is about AI during 2023, as we recently discussed in our in-depth overview of the company’s performance over the past year.

It’s certainly a strong hint that more AI chops are coming to the Edge browser, but that’s hardly a surprise either. This new name, and further artificial intelligence capabilities which are doubtless inbound, are going to be carrots to attempt to recruit new users for Edge in the battle of the best web browsers. Although Google’s dominant Chrome browser will be getting much the same drive forward with AI abilities, naturally.

Microsoft will continue to hammer home the importance of AI, and indeed we’ve been saying for some time now that the next iteration of Windows might not be Windows 12, but rather it could be named after AI in the same way that Edge mobile has just been. (Windows AI might be the actual name of next-gen Windows, or perhaps it could be dubbed Windows Copilot).

Speaking of the AI assistant, in what Microsoft describes as the “first significant change” to the Windows keyboard in almost 30 years, a dedicated Copilot key has just been added alongside the Windows key.

If you needed another clear sign of Microsoft’s AI ambitions for 2024 and further into the future, that pretty much covers it in what the company is already calling the “year of AI-powered Windows PCs.”

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Wednesday, 3 January 2024

Quordle today – hints and answers for Thursday, January 4 (game #710)

It's time for your daily dose of Quordle hints, plus the answers for both the main game and the Daily Sequence spin off.

Quordle is the only one of the many Wordle clones that I'm still playing now, around 18 months after the daily-word-game craze hit the internet, and with good reason: it's fun, but also difficult.

But Quordle is tough, so if you already find yourself searching for today's Wordle answer, you'll probably need some hints for this game too.

I'm a Quordle and Wordle fanatic who's been playing since December 2021, so I can definitely help you solve Quordle today and improve your game for tomorrow. Read on for my Quordle hints to game #710 and the answers to the main game and Daily Sequence.

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

Quordle today (game #710) - hint #1 - Vowels

How many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 4*.

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

Quordle today (game #710) - hint #2 - total vowels

What is the total number of vowels in Quordle today?

• The total number of vowels across today's Quordle answers is 8.

Quordle today (game #710) - hint #3 - repeated letters

Do any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 1.

Quordle today (game #710) - hint #4 - total letters

How many different letters are used in Quordle today?

• The total number of different letters used in Quordle today is 13.

Quordle today (game #710) - hint #5 - uncommon letters

Do the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

• Yes. One of Q, Z, X or J appears among today's Quordle answers.

Quordle today (game #710) - hint #6 - starting letters (1)

Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?

• The number of today's Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 0.

If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you're not ready yet then here's one more clue to make things a lot easier:

Quordle today (game #710) - hint #7 - starting letters (2)

What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• M

• C

• I

• J

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

Quordle today (game #710) - the answers

Quordle answers for game 710 on a yellow background — (Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #710, are…

MAJOR
CHOSE
IDEAL
JELLY

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.