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Today's NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 2, #282

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles. Today's Connections: Sports Edition has some oddball categories today. I feel like I could say that several times a week, though. Hope you know your soccer! Read on for hints and the answers. Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That's

Today's NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for July 2, #752

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles. Today's NYT Connections puzzle could be tough. It boasts one of those classic purple categories where you have to hammer out a word (really, part of a word) that's hidden in another word. Read on for clues and today's Connections answers. The Times now has a Connections B

Marvel Rivals Season 3 Banks on Blade, Phoenix and Shorter Seasons Restoring Excitement to the Hero Shooter

Marvel Rivals is gearing up for the start of season 3 next week, and we got our first look at some of the upcoming changes, including glimpses at the two new fan-favorite Marvel heroes, Phoenix (Jean Grey) and Blade. The season trailer also heavily teased that the villain Knull might be making his way to the game in future seasons. Season 3 is a major turning point for the hero shooter, marking the start of its new two-month seasons and the start of the era where we'll be getting new heroes eve

Amazon Reaches Automation Milestone by Deploying Its Millionth Robot

Amazon's fleet of warehouse robots just hit a new milestone. The company announced Monday that it deployed its millionth bot to begin operations at a fulfillment center in Japan. Amazon's ambitions for robot use have long surpassed the company utilizing them for delivery service. The business juggernaut is the world's leading manufacturer of mobile robotics, and aims to sell them to you for use at home as well -- if you have $1,600 to spare. The robotic workers operate in over 300 Amazon wareh

US critical infrastructure exposed as feds warn of possible attacks from Iran

Hackers working on behalf of the Iranian government are likely to target industrial control systems used at water treatment plants and other critical infrastructure to retaliate against recent military strikes by Israel and the US, federal government agencies are warning. One cybersecurity company says many US-based targets aren't adequately protected against the threat. “Based on the current geopolitical environment, Iranian-affiliated cyber actors may target US devices and networks for near-t

How a beer-making process is used to make cleaner disposable diapers

Disposable diapers are a massive environmental offender. Roughly 300,000 of them are sent to landfills or incinerated every minute, according to the World Economic Forum, and they take hundreds of years to decompose. It's a $60 billion business. One alternative approach has been compostable diapers, which can be made out of wood pulp or bamboo. But composting services aren't universally available and some of the products are less absorbent than normal nappies, critics say. A growing number of

Android users can finally edit messages sent to iPhones, but there’s a catch

Ryan Haines / Android Authority TL;DR Google is finally starting to roll out the ability for Android users to edit RCS messages sent to iPhones, a feature previously unavailable cross-platform. Made possible by the new Universal Profile 3.0 specification, users can long-press a sent message to edit and resend it within a 15-minute window. The feature is in limited testing and isn’t perfect yet, as edited texts currently appear as a new message on iPhones and iPhones can’t edit messages sent t

AT&T rolls out "Wireless Lock" feature to block SIM swap attacks

AT&T has launched a new security feature called "Wireless Lock" that protects customers from SIM swapping attacks by preventing changes to their account information and the porting of phone numbers while the feature is enabled. This new feature has been available for some customers for almost a year and has now been rolled out to all AT&T customers. SIM swap attacks are when cybercriminals port, or move, a targeted phone number to a device under their control. This allows them to intercept the

Cloudflare declares war on AI crawlers - and the stakes couldn't be higher

D-Keine/Getty The major Internet Content Delivery Network (CDN), Cloudflare, has declared war on AI companies. Starting July 1, Cloudflare now blocks by default AI web crawlers accessing content from your websites without permission or compensation. The change addresses a real problem. My own small site, where I track all my stories, Practical Technology, has been slowed dramatically at times by AI crawlers. It's not just me. Numerous website owners have reported that AI crawlers, such as Open

Kidney Transplant Patient Got Incredibly Rare Infection from Her Cat

An immunocompromised woman’s cat stirred up a lot more trouble than usual (for a cat). In a recent case report, doctors detail how the feline likely spread a seldom-seen bacterial infection that landed its owner in the hospital. Doctors in Slovenia wrote the report, published in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases. The 56-year-old woman, a kidney transplant recipient, developed a severe, rare bout of Mycoplasma arginini infection that was eventually traced back to her cat. Thankfully

Tuesday Telescope: A howling wolf in the night sky

Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light—a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’ll take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder. In the 1800s, astronomers were mystified by the discovery of stars that displayed highly unusual emission lines. It was only after 1868, wh

Google makes it easier to let friends and kids control your smart home

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. Google Home’s latest update will make it easier to decide who in your household can control your smart home. It comes with a new feature, which Google first started testing last year, that will let you assign people “Admin” and “Member” roles. People with Admin status have full control of all the devices, services, and users within their smart home

Threads gets its own DMs as app distances itself from Instagram

Instagram Threads is rolling out users’ most-requested feature to date: the ability to message people directly, without having to switch to another app, like Instagram. The company said direct messages (DMs) will begin rolling out to users globally beginning on Tuesday, alongside a new visual element called highlighter. The latter will emphasize interesting perspectives and conversations, Meta says, starting with Trending Topics. At launch, Threads DMs offer a basic set of features. They’ll su

‘American Empire? What American Empire?’ You Can Ask With This Reagan-Adjacent Stormtrooper Helmet

To be a kid in the 1980s meant absorbing the last years of the Cold War through pop culture that played into fears about a World War III everyone assumed was coming—think WarGames, Red Dawn, and “99 Luftballoons.” Somehow that script got flipped when President Ronald Reagan announced the “Strategic Defense Initiative,” a system intended to protect the U.S. from missiles that quickly acquired its own pop culture nickname: “Star Wars.” While Reagan’s Star Wars never actually got off the ground, i

A Pro-Russia Disinformation Campaign Is Using Free AI Tools to Fuel a ‘Content Explosion’

A pro-Russia disinformation campaign is leveraging consumer artificial intelligence tools to fuel a “content explosion” focused on exacerbating existing tensions around global elections, Ukraine, and immigration, among other controversial issues, according to new research published last week. The campaign, known by many names including Operation Overload and Matryoshka (other researchers have also tied it to Storm-1679), has been operating since 2023 and has been aligned with the Russian govern

Nothing Headphone 1 launched: Brings the heat, but not without trade-offs

Tom Triggs / Android Authority You should be able to achieve 35 hours of ANC-enabled listening time from the Nothing Headphone (1). TL;DR Nothing has launched Headphone 1, its first pair of wireless headphones with a transparent design and solid features. The headphones cost $299 and are available in Black and White color options. They feature 40mm dynamic drivers, IP52 water and dust resistance, Active Noise Cancelation (ANC), physical controls, including a customizable button, and more. No

You Can Finally Use This Very Basic Threads Feature

Better late than never? Threads, Meta's answer to X (formerly Twitter) and Bluesky, was launched almost two years ago in July 2023, and saw immediate rapid signups after piggybacking off Instagram's user base. Despite being around for that long, it's just now giving us the ability to direct message other users. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg teased the new feature earlier this month as it was rolling out in beta. "We're starting to test DMs on Threads. If you get access to this -- slide through!" Zuc

Two years later, Meta is making DMs on Threads official

Meta announced just a couple weeks ago that it would finally start testing a dedicated inbox for direct messages on Threads. Now, it's making the feature official and rolling out DMs to everyone. As with the earlier test, the update will add a messaging tab to the Threads app where users can access the inbox and exchange DMs with mutuals. Meta says that initially people will only be able to send messages to users who already follow them or mutual followers from Instagram, though it plans to rol

Marshall’s new Middleton II Bluetooth speaker lasts 30 hours between charges

Marshall has launched its latest compact Bluetooth speaker, the Middleton II. A direct replacement for the first-generation Middleton from 2023, the new speaker promises room-filling 360-degree sound from a device that sits comfortably in the palm of your hand and won’t demand too much space in your backpack for trips. The original Middleton offered bright clear sound that belied its diminutive proportions, and with its successor Marshall says it has engineered deeper bass and "more refined per

You can snag T-Mobile's Starlink satellite service on any carrier - how to get it for free

Kaye Marie Christofferson / 500px/Getty T-Mobile will officially launch its public Starlink satellite service on Wednesday, July 23. Currently in beta testing, the service will be available for any mobile phone user with a compatible device, including AT&T and Verizon subscribers. In its Monday news release, the Uncarrier explained what Starlink will offer. From the get-go, iOS and Android users alike will be able to send SMS text messages. Other features include MMS (Multimedia Messaging Serv

Can Sensing Be Safe? Designing Privacy-Aware Wireless Systems

Introduction From fitness trackers to smart speakers, mobile sensing has quietly become ubiquitous, embedding itself into our daily lives. These devices are capable of monitoring motion, detecting presence, identifying user activities, and even inferring health conditions, sometimes without any user interaction. As these applications grow and become central to smart environments, a critical question arises: Can sensing systems be designed to be both safe and ethical? While mobile and wearable

Millions of websites to get 'game-changing' AI bot blocker

Millions of websites to get 'game-changing' AI bot blocker 45 minutes ago Share Save Chris Vallance Senior Technology Reporter Share Save Getty Images Millions of websites - including Sky News, The Associated Press and Buzzfeed - will now be able to block artificial intelligence (AI) bots from accessing their content without permission. The new system is being rolled out by internet infrastructure firm, Cloudflare, which hosts around a fifth of the internet. Eventually, sites will be able to

Brazil’s antitrust watchdog says Apple must face penalties over App Store restrictions [U]

Apple’s week is off to a rough start. First, Proton filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. Almost simultaneously, a judge in New Jersey rejected Apple’s attempt to dismiss a federal antitrust case. And on Monday night, things got a little worse: CADE, Brazil’s antitrust watchdog, formally recommended that Apple be sanctioned for the “imposition of the exclusive use of its payment system by app developers and the restriction on the distribution and commercialization of third-party digital serv

Meta adds business voice calling to WhatsApp, explores AI-powered product recommendations

WhatsApp is adding more AI features to its business suite. The company on Tuesday announced it’s introducing the ability for large businesses to reach customers through voice calls, which will allow the app to explore the use of AI-powered voice agents. The company is also looking into using AI to recommend products to users. WhatsApp Business, which has over 200 million monthly users, has been a notable revenue driver for Meta, as its executives noted in the last few quarterly earnings calls.

Trump’s prospective TikTok buyer reportedly includes Oracle, Blackstone, a16z

In Brief After pushing the TikTok sale date back yet again, President Donald Trump said in an interview on Sunday that he had found a potential buyer for the ByteDance-owned platform. Though the president said he will not reveal the identities of the buyers for another couple of weeks, Bloomberg is reporting that the buyer is a group of investors from Oracle, Blackstone, and VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). According to the report, these investors had made a bid, but it lost momentum amid t

Threads launches its own DM inbox, as app moves further away from Instagram

Instagram Threads is rolling out users’ most-requested feature to date: the ability to message people directly, without having to switch to another app, like Instagram. The company said direct messages (DMs) will begin rolling out to users globally beginning on Tuesday, alongside a new visual element called highlighter. The latter will emphasize interesting perspectives and conversations, Meta says, starting with Trending Topics. At launch, Threads DMs offer a basic set of features. They’ll su

Grammarly Adds Superhuman Email App to Build an AI Suite for Users, Report Says

Tiffany Connors Editor Tiffany Wendeln Connors is a senior editor for CNET Money with a focus on credit cards. Previously, she covered personal finance topics as a writer and editor at The Penny Hoarder. She is passionate about helping people make the best money decisions for themselves and their families. She graduated from Bowling Green State University with a bachelor's degree in journalism and has been a writer and editor for publications including the New York Post, Women's Running magazin

Musk's X appoints 'king of virality' in bid to draw in younger users

Musk's X appoints 'king of virality' in bid to draw in younger users 52 minutes ago Share Save Share Save Getty Images Elon Musk has appointed a product developer responsible for several successful youth-focused social media apps to a senior role at X. Nikita Bier has been made X's head of product three years after publicly suggesting on the platform - then known as Twitter - that it should employ him. "I've officially posted my way to the top," he wrote in a post on X announcing the role. X

Something Hilarious Happens When Potential Customers See That a Product Has AI Features

New research suggests that slapping the "AI" label on products doesn't always go over well with buyers, the Wall Street Journal reports. A new study published this month in Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management found that consumers tended to turn away from products that were promoted as having AI — especially if the items were a high-risk purchase like a car. "When we were thinking about this project, we thought that AI will improve [consumers' willingness to buy] because everyone is p

Alleged Verizon data breach sees 61M customer records offered for sale [U]

An alleged Verizon data breach has seen hackers offering for sale a database of 61 million customer records, which includes personal information useful for both phishing attempts and identity theft. Update: Verizon told us it has checked the data and it is not from its customers – see the end of the piece. The sample data supplied includes name, full postal address, date of birth, email address, phone number(s), tax identification code, and other ID codes. Security researchers at SafetyDetect