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.

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 #1705) — hint #1 — Vowels

* 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 #1705) — hint #2 — repeated letters

Quordle today (game #1705) — hint #3 — uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #1705) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)

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 #1705) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)

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

Quordle today (game #1705) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1705, are…

• SWEAR
• FLOOD
• GUPPY
• GROAN

A close call today.

Even though I only had nine letters left — and four of them were J,Q, X and Z — I still made very hard work of getting GUPPY. In my defense, though, “gummy” is a far more likely word, isn't it?

Daily Sequence today (game #1705) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1705, are…

• CAROL
• RAVEN
• PARER
• PERKY

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1704, Thursday, 24 September: TOPIC, METRO, SCALP, FREED
• Quordle #1703, Wednesday, 23 September: SHEET, BLAND, JOIST, GUAVA
• Quordle #1702, Tuesday, 22 September: COMFY, LOBBY, DRESS, PANEL
• Quordle #1701, Monday, 21 September: WAXEN, HIPPO, PETAL, LEASH
• Quordle #1700, Sunday, 20 September: DERBY, LIMBO, GAWKY, REIGN
• Quordle #1699, Saturday, 19 September: SCOPE, HEIST, PULSE, CHAMP
• Quordle #1698, Friday, 18 September: MUCUS, MIRTH, APPLE, TILDE
• Quordle #1697, Thursday, 17 September: CRIER, CHIRP, NEIGH, FREER
• Quordle #1696, Wednesday, 16 September: SPEAR, PRICE, BLUNT, FISHY
• Quordle #1695, Tuesday, 15 September: SHUSH, LITHE, DELTA, BUGLE
• Quordle #1694, Monday, 14 September: ZEBRA, LEGAL, RATIO, TROLL
• Quordle #1693, Sunday, 13 September: LUCID, SPRAY, MANGE, EMAIL
• Quordle #1692, Saturday, 12 September: SUPER, BRUSH, RESET, SOWER
• Quordle #1691, Friday, 11 September: PLUSH, PAINT, RIVAL, AFOUL
• Quordle #1690, Thursday, 10 September: AGENT, EXILE, TITAN, PUREE
• Quordle #1689, Wednesday, 9 September: HAPPY, GONER, SMACK, MOTIF
• Quordle #1688, Tuesday, 8 September: FLUNG, DIARY, HALVE, BERTH
• Quordle #1687, Monday, 7 September: VISIT, CLANK, FEVER, OCEAN
• Quordle #1686, Sunday, 6 September: PILOT, HONOR, BOWEL, TAUNT
• Quordle #1685, Saturday, 5 September: GNASH, GEEKY, WHELP, PUTTY

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 #936) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #936) - hint #2 - clue words

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

• BEST
• REST
• FARE
• BARE
• THEY
• STIR

NYT Strands today (game #936) - hint #3 - spangram letters

NYT Strands today (game #936) - hint #4 - spangram position

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

NYT Strands today (game #936) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #936, are…

• NINE
• TWENTYFIVE
• FOUR
• EIGHTYONE
• THIRTYSIX
• SPANGRAM: SQUARENUMBER

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

Is it just me or is this game missing a few words?

We have FOUR, which is the SQUARENUMBER of two, and NINE (the square of three), but then we miss sixteen (the square of four) before jumping back in again with TWENTYFIVE (the square of five) and THIRTYSIX (the square of six). However, we then skip seven and eight, before resuming with EIGHTYONE, the square of nine.

Maybe I'm overthinking this…

Anyway, this quibble aside, the hardest aspect of this game was trying to find the non-game words for this column. There really were barely any, so I hope you didn’t need hints.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Thursday, September 24, game #935)

• SANDBOX
• TREEHOUSE
• SWINGS
• POOL
• TRAMPOLINE
• FORT
• SPANGRAM: BACKYARD

RAM prices have become increasingly painful during the 2026 memory crisis, making discounts on higher-speed DDR5 kits welcome. The 32GB TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan ECO offers DDR5-6400 speeds and support for both Intel and AMD performance profiles.

• Best for: Desktop builders who want 32GB of relatively fast DDR5 memory with support for both major performance-profile standards.

• The deal: The TeamGroup 32GB T-Force Vulcan ECO DDR5-6400 kit is now $429 (was $479) at Newegg when you use code TEF395.

• Why it matters: DDR5-6400 provides much more theoretical bandwidth than slower DDR5 standards. You'll need compatible hardware and the appropriate XMP or EXPO profile enabled to reach the 6,400MT/s speed though.

Today's TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan ECO DDR5 deal

Why we recommend it

The T-Force Vulcan ECO gives you two 16GB DDR5 modules running at up to 6,400MT/s, with CL38 latency and 38-46-46-84 timings at 1.35V. It supports for both Intel XMP 3.0 and AMD EXPO, giving you flexibility when choosing a platform.

The modules include heat spreaders to help manage temperatures, and their silver finish is a stylish alternative to the usual black and white designs that dominate the desktop memory market.

Price context & historical value

Applying promo code TEF395 drops the price from $479 to $429, saving you $50, or around 10%. That's not an enormous reduction, but any money off is welcome in today's expensive memory market. This kit has been slightly cheaper at Newegg in the past though. Not so long ago it was available to buy for $415.99.

Should you buy it?

✅ Buy the 32GB TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan ECO DDR5 kit if...

You're building or upgrading a DDR5 desktop and want a fast 32GB kit with support for both major performance-profile standards. At 6,400MT/s, the Vulcan ECO offers considerably more memory bandwidth than entry-level DDR5-4800 or DDR5-5200 kits, although the real-world benefit will depend on your setup.

❌ Skip the 32GB TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan ECO DDR5 kit if...

Your current PC already has enough memory for everything you do, or your motherboard and processor can't take advantage of DDR5-6400. Given today's RAM prices, there's little reason to spend $429 unless you need the upgrade.

Also consider

CyberLink has long been one of our favorite alternatives to Adobe's creative suite, and currently there's a big sale on standalone alone apps as well as CyberLink Director Suite, which bundles the photo, video, and audio editor software alongside an audio editor and large royalty-free stock library.

• Best for: Content creators who regularly edit video, photographs and audio and want their main creative applications bundled into one subscription.

• The deal: CyberLink Director Suite is now $110 (was $150) for an annual subscription, and £95 (was £130) in the UK. Standalone apps are also discounted in the US here (click here) and in the UK here.

• Why we like it: CyberLink's creative tools have consistently reviewed well during our tests, offering an excellent all-rounder entry-point into video and photo editing. They're surprisingly advanced but beginner-friendly, and this is a good way to get the full suite.

Why we recommend it

Director Suite combines three powerful creative tools. PowerDirector 365 handles video production, PhotoDirector 365 covers photo editing and graphic design, and AudioDirector 365 provides tools for audio restoration, recording and mixing.

All three core apps have reviewed well in our tests.

In his 4-star review of PowerDirector, our expert Steve said it "remains one of the best video editing software for beginners, as well as intermediate editors." He gave PhotoDirector 4.5-stars and called it a "powerful multi-faceted beast, which not only allows you to organize and improve the quality of your photos, but also offers Photoshop-like compositing tools, as well as numerous generative AI features."

In her 4-star review, our audio expert Angel said AudioDirector "goes from strength to strength using powerful AI tools to separate elements giving even total novices to recording control over their material."

The applications are designed to work together, so projects can be passed between them without repeatedly rendering files. There's plenty of AI features too.

Price context & historical value

At $109.99 a year instead of $149.99, you're saving $40 on Director Suite, equivalent to 27% off. The annual subscription works out at just $9.17 per month, compared with $29.99 if you pay monthly, which would add up to $359.88 over a year — $249.89 more.

UK buyers can save 27%, with the price of Director Suite reduced from £129.99 to £94.99, equivalent to just £7.92 per month.

For more choices, check out our roundups of the best photo editors, and best video editing software.

Should you buy it?

✅ Buy CyberLink Director Suite if...

You regularly work with video, photographs and audio and would prefer to have an integrated collection of creative applications than subscribe to different products. Director Suite also provides access to millions of royalty-free videos, images and music tracks from iStock by Getty Images and the Meta Sound Collection.

❌ Skip CyberLink Director Suite if...

You only need one type of editor. If almost everything you create is video, for example, paying for a suite containing dedicated photo and audio tools may not be necessary.

• US: Shop discounted creative software at CyberLink
• UK: See the full sale at CyberLink

One of the advantages of having written about tech for as long as I have is that you start to notice when the same ideas come around decade after decade, in different shapes and sizes. Especially the bad ones.

12 years ago Google invented something called Google Glass — a set of glasses complete with a camera so you could record what you were looking at — and it was so roundly hated by everyone that we all breathed a collective sigh of relief when they went away.

But now it's 2026 and smart glasses are back, powered by AI, and tied in with a world-famous fashion brand, but fundamentally they still have exactly the same problem, which still hasn't been fixed: they enable people to record other people without their consent.

The problem is that none of this should have come as a surprise. The privacy risks of putting a camera on somebody's face weren't merely predictable — they were predicted. Women were raising concerns about men using Google Glass to record them more than a decade ago.

And yet here we are again.

The curious case of Google Glass

Let’s remind ourselves what happened the first time that smart glasses arrived.

Google Glass arrived in 2013. It puts a small heads-up display and camera on the wearer's face, allowing them to take photos and record video from their point of view. Almost immediately, privacy became one of the defining controversies around it.

By 2014, women were explicitly raising issues of abuse. Wired reported that women were particularly interested in technology that could detect and block Glass because of concerns about men covertly recording them in nightclubs. "Even if they didn’t know if the device was recording, they felt threatened by its presence", said Oliver, the creator of the detection device.

Google Glass wearers were being called “Glassholes,” businesses were banning the device, and Google itself was publishing etiquette guidance because of complaints about people creepily filming others without permission.

By 2015, consumer Glass effectively died. Privacy wasn't its only problem — its price, awkward appearance, and lack of compelling everyday uses all played a part — but by January 2015 Google had stopped selling the consumer Explorer Edition. Glass survived as an enterprise product before Google finally discontinued the Enterprise Edition in 2023.

Smart glasses didn’t die with Google Glass. They had simply retreated to a lab to lick their wounds and wait for that vital next piece of technology that would make them relevant again. That technology was AI. In 2023, AI-powered smart glasses, partnered with leading fashion brands, started to emerge, with Meta leading the charge with its Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

This time they looked much more like ordinary glasses. Meta had also found the compelling use cases that Google Glass struggled to provide: its glasses could use AI to answer questions about what you were looking at, give you directions, and translate signs and conversations. But they could also still record what, or more importantly, who, you were looking at without needing that person's consent.

It’s like women don’t exist

Frankly, I don’t think Meta should have released them with that ability, but here we are. It’s like we’ve learned nothing from the Google Glass debacle. Almost as soon as the next generation of smart glasses emerged they were being used to harass women and record them without their consent or knowledge.

Researchers at the University of Sydney have been studying hundreds of social-media videos involving smart glasses and found men using them to approach and record women without their knowledge, including at gyms, workplaces and beaches. Australia's eSafety Commissioner says the technology can amplify gendered harms because recording can be almost undetectable, and specifically highlights pickup-artist content in which women often don't know they're being filmed.

The researchers analysed 350 publicly available Instagram videos from 2023–2026. In a subset of covert POV videos, around 60% of interactions were classified as potential harassment. And in about 43% of the videos, women were subjected to further abusive online commentary, sometimes exposing personal information.

These are real victims. CBS interviewed a woman who discovered she'd been secretly recorded only after the resulting video went viral, attracting more than 200,000 views. Her reaction said it all: “I had no say.”

And France has now opened an investigation involving alleged sexual harassment and discreet smart-glasses recording.

I don't think these products were designed to harm women. That's almost the point. Too often, the technology industry seems to design products around what the person using them can do, without giving enough consideration to the person standing on the other side of the technology. And when the potential for abuse disproportionately affects women, that's a particularly serious blind spot. Women have historically been underrepresented in the data and testing used for product design, with designers still describing the male body as the implicit default.

Meta clearly did think about privacy. The glasses have a recording LED specifically designed to tell people nearby when the camera is being used. But if your safeguard against covert recording is a tiny light on the front of the glasses — one that people have found ways to conceal or disable — is that really enough?

Did it consider what happens when a man wearing an almost invisible camera approaches a woman who's alone?

Meta's audio-only smart glasses

Yesterday at Meta Connect, Meta announced a new version of its smart glasses called the Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses, which don’t have a camera. They got barely a mention in Zuckerberg’s keynote, but I wonder if they were released because of the existential threat to its business that the now commonly used “perv glasses” moniker poses.

Ray-Ban Meta Audio has no camera. You can still listen to music, make calls, translate conversations, and talk to Meta's AI, but the person sitting opposite you no longer needs to wonder whether they're being secretly recorded.

Meta hasn't said the Audio glasses exist because of the privacy backlash, and removing the camera inevitably removes some genuinely useful features too. For visually impaired people in particular, a camera combined with AI can be transformative.

But Ray-Ban Meta Audio proves something important: smart glasses don't have to contain a camera.

Twelve years ago, women were already warning that putting inconspicuous cameras on people's faces could enable men to record them without their knowledge, and today researchers are documenting precisely that behavior.

Google Glass users became known as “Glassholes” because people hated that the person they were talking to was recording them. Twelve years later, we're having the same argument about “perv glasses.”

That's what makes me angry. This wasn't an unforeseeable consequence of some revolutionary new technology. We'd already run this experiment and realized that these should never have got out of the lab in the first place.

• WordPress Core flaw CVE‑2026‑87902 (path traversal, 8.1 severity) enables PHP file inclusion and possible RCE
• Patch released in v7.1.2 and backported to 4.7+; exploitation began within hours, now widespread
• Admins must urgently update; interim mitigations include blocking traversal sequences and disabling risky ARP/PHP settings

Hackers are actively exploiting a high severity vulnerability in WordPress that can lead to full website takeover, researchers are saying. A patch is available, and WordPress users are urged to upgrade immediately or risk losing access to their assets.

Discovered by security researcher Robert Ressl, the vulnerability in question is tracked as CVE-2026-87902. It is an 8.1/10 (high severity) unauthenticated path traversal flaw affecting WordPress Core. According to WordPress itself, as well as the National Vulnerability Database, the bug can lead to local PHP file inclusion and, in certain scenarios, remote code execution (RCE).

"An unauthenticated attacker can make get_page_template() page-template resolution include a chosen readable local .php file outside the active theme directories," it was said in the official security advisory.

Achieving RCE

WordPress is the world’s number one website hosting and builder platform, powering more than half of all websites active on the internet right now. However, that doesn’t mean all of them are susceptible to RCE. Only websites ticking these boxes are at risk:

Sites with parent or child themes that have a top-level directory with a name starting with ‘page-’ (for example, ‘page-templates).

Threat actors must target a local .PHP file that exists and is readable by the web server

The web server account must be able to read the included file (for example, pearcmd.php, if PHP’s register_argc_argv setting is active)

WordPress said that both the official PHP image for Docker, and the default cPanel configuration, are affected (users must be running a PHP version before 8.5, though).

The issue was fixed in version 7.1.2, which is now available for download. Fixes were also backported to older versions up to 4.7. Releases before 4.8 are not supported, it was said, and will not be getting a fix.

Attacking vulnerable websites

Wordpress security company Patchstack said the first exploitation attempts started roughly five hours after the patch was released, and these were primarily reconnaissance efforts. In the hours to follow, malicious activity increased tenfold, it was said, as crooks started attempting to deliver malicious payloads to vulnerable websites, as well.

“When this post first went up, every request we had seen was reconnaissance against harmless core files,” Patchstack said. “That is no longer true. Attackers are now including pearcmd.php and using it to write PHP files to disk, and public scanning tooling for this CVE is in circulation.”

At first, Patchstack said the attacks were coming from a handful of IP addresses, and advised website admins to simply block them. However, the attacks have now become rather widespread, meaning blocking individual addresses is no longer a viable strategy. They urge everyone to apply the patch without delay:

“The first evening came from a small cluster of addresses. It is now spread across a few hundred, so blocklisting individual sources is not a strategy. The heaviest talkers at the time of writing:

43.250.53.42

180.251.159.243

195.178.110.247

107.189.14.87

45.61.184.170

92.246.130.76

The file write attempts specifically come from a much smaller subset of those addresses, which is the usual pattern of a few operators acting on results that a much larger scanning population produced.”

Those that cannot update immediately should reject traversal sequences in the pagename parameter, Patchstack added. A real page slug never contains one, they added, meaning it can be blocked without affecting normal traffic. Furthermore, disabling register_argc_argv does not fix the inclusion but it does break the pearcmd chain, which is the difference between an information leak and code execution.

Via BleepingComputer

Among the host of new products that Meta unveiled at its Connect event this week — an AI Tamagotchi, anyone? — we got the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 3 smart glasses. Here we're going to break down all the key specs of the new specs, and in particular how they compare to the model that launched this time last year.

In our Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 review, we praised the AI-powered glasses for bringing with them improvements in camera quality, battery life, and design, and there are upgrades to talk about with the third-generation too.

Whether you already own a Gen 2 pair and are thinking of making the switch to the new models, or you're considering getting involved in smart glasses for the first time, here's how the 2025 and 2026 versions compare.

Pricing and design

The Meta Ray-Ban Gen 3 are out now and yours for a starting price of $449 / £409 / AU$679, which is a modest price bump over the previous versions. Meta says the overall design is slimmer and more comfortable to wear compared to the Gen 2, though the weights listed on Meta's store suggest there isn't much change there (at least in terms of the Wayfarer, which is the only style carried over).

There are three different styles to choose from. You've got the Wayfarer we saw with Gen 2 (also available in large), and two new additions: the iconic Aviator design, plus the Zena, which Meta describes as "a bold new cat-eye frame that makes a confident statement". A total of 27 lens and color combinations are available across these frame shapes, with colors including Black and Havana (a mix of dark and light brown).

When the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 launched, they were available for $379 / £379 / AU$599 and up, and at the time of writing, that price hasn't dropped with the arrival of the Gen 3 models. All three styles are still available to buy too: the Wayfarer (in standard or large), the cat-eye Skyler, and the more rounded Headliner.

At launch time, Meta mentioned 27 lens and color combinations for the Gen 2 glasses, but those combinations aren't exactly the same as they are for the Gen 3, and they changed over time with seasonal offerings — something that's likely for the new models too. So the takeaway is that there's about the same range of design choice, though the specific options are different based on which generation of smart glasses you choose.

Battery life and specs

You don't want your smart specs dying during the day, and Meta says the Ray-Ban Gen 2 are capable of lasting 8 hours between battery charges. Assuming you take a fully charged case out with you as well, you're getting an extra 48 hours (or six full recharge cycles) on top of that before you need to find a power socket.

With the Ray-Ban Gen 3, Meta is promising up to 9 hours of battery life on a single charge, with an extra 50 hours supplied by the charging case. There's also mention of charging the glasses from zero to 50% in a mere two minutes, which is the same claim made with the previous Gen 2 models.

When it comes to the camera, it's all the same: both the Gen 3 and the Gen 2 have a 12MP ultrawide camera capable of shooting up to 3K resolution video (just be respectful of other people's privacy). There is a boost for voice input though, because the Gen 3 has a 6-mic array compared to the 5-mic array of the Gen 2.

The loudness and bass of the speakers is listed as the same between generations — 76.1 dB(C) — so there's no difference there, while the 32GB of internal storage matches as well. The headline upgrades as far as key details go are better battery life and improved mic inputs, though we're basing that on spec sheets rather than any testing.

Features and AI

In terms of what you can actually do with the Gen 3 smart glasses, everything is more or less the same as before. The only exception is an extra 'action' button you get on the new models, alongside the existing photo/video capture button, which can be customized to launch a specific feature: the AI assistant, sending a text to a favorite contact, or activating the on-board translation, for example.

Besides that, you get access to the same Meta AI on your glasses, and it's the same companion Meta AI app running on your phone too. All the core functions are the same, including audio calls, video calls (where the caller sees what you're seeing), live assistance through the AI about anything you're looking at, and audio playback for your music, podcasts, and audiobooks.

The upgrade isn't quite as dramatic as it was from Gen 1 to Gen 2 — you might remember there were significant improvements to video capture quality, and big leaps in battery life too — so if you already own a pair of Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 smart glasses then you don't really need to upgrade immediately, unless you're a big fan of the new designs.

If you're still on the Gen 1 models or you're looking at smart glasses for the first time, however, the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 3 are a much more compelling proposition. After the latest round of Meta announcements, you've also now got the choice of the Meta VR Glasses and the camera-free Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses as well.

• Microsoft had blocked posts that used the term 'Microslop' on its Copilot Discord channel
• This was a "temporary anti-spam measure," apparently
• The policy is no longer in place, but if Microsoft thinks the word will die off, that seems highly unlikely

Microsoft is apparently letting go over the 'Microslop' affair and is no longer policing its Discord channel to block the term.

You may recall that at the start of this year, the Microslop nickname came about after a comment from Microsoft's CEO – relating to 'AI slop' – and the company cracked down on the word by blocking posts that used it on the Copilot Discord channel.

Windows Latest noticed that this is no longer the case, and the term is now being openly used in the general chat channel. Searching for 'Microslop' produces over 200 results in posts that go back weeks.

In short, Microsoft has moderated its moderation, come to its senses, and realized that cracking down and censoring in this manner is only going to inflame passions against AI, if it achieves anything.

I should make it clear that Microsoft has never said anything official on this matter, in terms of admitting any ban in the first place, let alone the lifting of it. Windows Latest reports that it did hear from Microsoft back at the time, though, and was told that the filtering was a "temporary anti-spam measure" rather than a permanent policy. It seems this is indeed the case.

Analysis: Streisand effect

The writer of the Windows Latest article further observes that they've noticed that on Reddit, X, and Windows forums, there are fewer mentions of the Microslop term these days. It happens "much less often" we're told.

I'm not so sure about that. I still see Microslop mentioned with some regularity, although I concede that the popularity of the term has diminished. This is a subjective matter, of course, and it may reflect that I visit more negative posts about Windows 11 than the Windows Latest writer has done in the past few months – who can say?

The writer acknowledges that the "criticism is still very much there" in terms of 'AI slop' in Windows 11, but that it has died down since Microsoft started fixing the OS, and made some moves to minimize the presence of AI in certain areas.

I think what Microsoft has done so far is more about not mentioning or actively pushing AI, rather than stripping it out of Windows 11, although it's true some work has been done on the latter front. It doesn't amount to a whole lot, though, in the grand scheme of things.

There has been a change of attitude, yes, but that was absolutely necessary considering the whole 'fix Windows 11 campaign' was embarked upon after Microsoft was blasted for focusing on adding AI trimmings to the system rather than getting the fundamentals right with the OS.

I still see a lot of chorusing of 'Microslop' particularly when a Windows 11 bug emerges. Commenters are very quick to jump on Microsoft and fire criticisms along the lines of 'this is what you get when AI does your coding', and the term Microslop is inevitably included in these kinds of threads. (Microsoft has admitted that it uses AI for coding to a substantial extent, and Windows 11 users won't let the firm forget that in a hurry).

I personally don't think the term Microslop is going anywhere, and it'll be hanging around Microsoft's neck for the rest of the company's existence in all likelihood. While it's obviously a positive step that any 'temporary' censorship has been rescinded, it's a bit late now. Any attempt to curtail negative talk about AI was always only going to further highlight grievances, cause more bad feeling, and yet more damaging chatter.

As one Redditor put it: "How many times do companies need to learn about the Streisand effect?"

• Nvidia Smooth Motion has been modded onto RTX 3000 series GPUs
• The experimental mod allows driver-level frame generation in unsupported games
• Nvidia hasn't officially implemented this and other features on older RTX hardware yet

Modders continue to find new ways to implement Nvidia's latest technologies on older hardware, and now it's been done with Team Green's driver-level frame generation.

As reported by Wccftech, Nvidia Smooth Motion has been unofficially made to work on RTX 3000 series GPUs, with a new NVSmooth30 mod available on GitHub, confirmed to work on an RTX 3050 laptop and an RTX 3080 desktop GPU.

Nvidia's Smooth Motion functionality is essentially identical to AMD's Fluid Motion Frames, meaning that it enables frame generation in games that don't have official support for it — a tool that is most useful for older games or games running in emulators.

The mod works by modifying Nvidia's driver-level frame generation DLL (Dynamic Link Library) file, labeled NvPresent64, bypassing the usual compatibility checks that would stop it from working on Ampere GPU hardware, aka RTX 3000 series GPUs. It also works by "conservative metadata retargeting" from Ada Lovelace (RTX 4000 series) and targets Ampere instead.

The creator says that all users need to do is place the DLL file into the relevant game's folder and use the Nvidia Profile Inspector app to enable Smooth Motion. The process is very simple, but this is an experimental project, so it runs the risk of game bugs and crashes, or potentially other issues — and must not be used in online games using anti-cheat (doing so could result in a ban).

Gamers want new features, but new GPUs are unaffordable

Nvidia has been quite impressive with its latest technologies, notably with DLSS 5 Neural Rendering (which I saw at Gamescom 2026), and Smooth Motion has been one of many over the last few years.

The GPU market is in complete disarray due to the RAM crisis, which means prices for GPUs for both AMD Radeon and Nvidia GeForce GPUs are way too high for most people to consider an upgrade. Features like Multi-Frame Generation, Dynamic Frame Generation, and Smooth Motion are those that PC users would love, but can't use on older hardware.

Modders have consistently proved that these features can be backported in some way, with some even going as far as porting DLSS 5 onto the RTX 4080 (despite the performance hit).

DLSS 5 Neural Rendering coming to older hardware in the immediate future is unrealistic — but Nvidia has previously told me that it does plan on adding backwards compatibility at some point, though it's likely to come to 4000-series models first, and then we'll have to hope for 3000-series later in the future, if it's even possible.

But it feels as though features such as Frame Generation, and specifically Smooth Motion, deserve backporting attention now more than ever, as users are stuck with older GPUs.

Doing so would put Team Green in the good books of many PC gamers, and keep players from relying on unofficial mods to achieve better performance and enjoy GeForce hardware to the fullest extent.

• Gambit researchers uncovered ongoing AI‑driven skimming campaign stealing 600,000+ payment records since July 2026
• Attackers used three autonomous harnesses (Strix, Cairn, Hermes) to compromise dozens of retail sites cheaply
• Victims include major US firms; campaign shows AI enables faster, persistent, low‑cost cyberattacks at scale

In July 2026, a hacker tasked autonomous AI agents to attack retail organizations around the world, deploy credit card skimmers, and steal payment data.

Since then, the bots launched hundreds of attack projects, compromised dozens of organizations, and stole at least 600,000 payment records - and to make matters worse, the campaign is still live, attacking and breaking into websites as we speak.

All of this was reported by security researchers Gambit, who said they managed to recover the operator’s staging server and through it - reconstruct the ongoing campaign. They also saw the skimmers live on victim websites, and sifted through logs and AI claims found on the attacker’s server. In just five days, between September 10 and 15, the agents made 105 attack waves and compromised 27 organizations “to varying degrees.”

Among the victims are a Fortune 500 hospitality company, a “major” US airline, a large private US industrial supplies distributor, and a US online fashion retailer. One of the AI tools would use a website ranking service to produce a list of potential targets, focusing primarily on those running custom-built software.

A fistful of dollars

But the victims are not the “interesting” part of this story - the attackers are. Gambit believes they are financially motivated Chinese threat actors. They are using three AI “harnesses” (frameworks, essentially), which can run almost the entire attack chain autonomously, striking around 10 companies a day, for a handful of dollars per company.

In four weeks, the attackers spent around $7,000, meaning that their entire cost for the operation so far was no more than $18,000. Breaking it down, it means that the attacker spent around $25 per target.

“Spread over the companies attacked, this is a marginal cost of a few US dollars to a few tens of US dollars for each targeted company,” Gambit’s researchers said. “The operator’s own cost review gives a similar figure, a mean of $25.46 over 101 completed scans, from $3.13 for the cheapest target to $79.31 for the most expensive.”

“Where access was achieved, it usually took less than a day, and in many cases just a few hours. We also detected instructions in the attacker’s playbook that could disrupt the operations of a company as a result of data deletion or cleanup procedures run by the agent - and this has indeed happened in some of the breaches,” Gambit said.

The three harnesses

The three harnesses are called Strix, Cairn, and Hermes.

Gambit describes Hermes as an open source autonomous AI agent with a persistent memory, skills that the agent wrote and edited itself, a searchable archive of past sessions, scheduled jobs, and a web console. On the staging server the researchers analyzed, it loaded a Chinese system persona called “SOUL - Red Team Operator”, which contained 121 skills (78 attack skills).

“Hermes is the operator’s console for orchestrating the activity and for direct hacking activities,” Gambit explained. “It used Anthropic’s opus-4.6 (after newer models refused its requests), with 1,951 prompts typed by the human across 260 sessions - only a few prompts per target. The human prompts are short instructions in Chinese, usually launching an attack, tasking the agent with a general next step, or what to do next after achieving access.”

Strix is an open-source AI pentest tool, while Cairn is an autonomous pentest engine. It receives target domains and an objective, such as to get a shell or admin access, then runs for hours until it achieves the objective, times out, or is stopped. Cairn used DeepSeek v4.1 Flash, it was said.

Gambit’s researchers seem to be rather impressed with the campaign. They described it as very low cost, with a level of patience, persistence, and creativity that most human attackers would be “unlikely to sustain”, managing to achieve “far greater results, far faster.”

They have also called to arms, urging organizations to “adapt to a reality where attacks are significantly faster and more comprehensive.” To do that, they must adopt a resilience-first mentality and deploy a security stack that can match the AI on speed.

Many of the affected organizations were notified, and the skimmers were removed, they said.

• $1.6 billion has been claimed by scammers impersonating police and government officials
• The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received almost 61,000 complaints concerning such scams between January 2025 and July 2026
• Some scams targeted foreign nationals and immigrants, threatening to cancel passports or impose extradition, unless payment is made

Between January 2025 and July 2026, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received almost 61,000 complaints concerning scams using police and government official impersonation tactics. As a result, around $1.6 billion is believed to have been scammed and extorted.

Tactics used by scammers included unsolicited phone calls and in some cases video calls, with victims losing an average of $26,000 per scam.

Particularly concerning is the targeting of foreign nationals, international students, and immigrant citizens, often with threats to cancel visas and home country passports. Incredibly, 10% of all losses were traced to a single scam, one that targeted fewer than 3% of the victims.

Foreign national victims

According to the FBI, the fake cop/fake government official scam has various angles, from alleging missed jury duty to threatening arrest due to circumstantial links to an alleged crime.

The demand from the scammers, inevitably, is payment.

Making a commitment to extreme lengths of scamming and extortion, the criminals took things to a new level when it came to targeting victims. International students, visiting foreign nationals, and other immigrant citizens were given special treatment. Not only were they threatened with extradition, there was also the implication of victims losing their home country passport.

To convince the target, scammers built actual studio sets, donned uniforms or suits, and appeared in video calls to the victims, who were convinced they were talking to foreign law enforcement agents or US-based diplomats. Creating the illusion of officialdom to sell the scam, victims paid whatever necessary to stay in their adopted country.

How to spot the scam

It is important to note that not all fraud of this type takes place in the US. These may be online or offline, but the so-called fake cop scam is an international criminal phenomenon. So, how do you avoid it?

We’ll assume you’ve answered a call inadvertently rather than having spam calls blocked (that should be set already).

First, remain calm. These situations are designed to impose stress and heightened anxiety. Scammers rely on these factors to cloud their victim’s judgement and force the narrative they are selling (“you missed jury duty”/“your presence in the country is illegal.”)

Second, it is vital to request credentials. Failure to provide these is the first red flag that the person communicating with you is not what they seem. That’s your cue to end the conversation.

Third, check the credentials. It doesn’t matter how long this takes – a legitimate caller will not mind waiting for you to do the necessary background check, even if it means them calling back.

Finally, and most importantly: neither law enforcement, security services, nor the FBI will demand money. If that is happening, it’s time to end the call.

All eyes were on Meta Connect 2026. The annual hardware showcase is where the company debuts its latest wearables, and this year’s event comes at a time when anti-smart glasses sentiment seems to be at an all-time high — though that didn’t stop Meta showcasing several brand new pairs of specs.

Smart glasses are getting banned from offices, event spaces, pubs, and courtrooms (among other venues), and folks are expressing their uneasiness at being under the gaze of camera-equipped specs — especially given the potential for wearers to film those around them covertly.

Perhaps that’s why Meta has debuted, for the first time, smart glasses that entirely lack cameras, in the shape of the Ray-Ban Meta Audio — though in the pre-Connect briefing I had for the glasses (I’m writing this ahead of the showcase, so can’t speak for what Mark Zuckerberg will say in his version of the keynote) Meta didn’t attempt to link its Audio glasses with the privacy backlash.

Instead, Meta focused on the advantages of these glasses — chiefly their longer 12-hour battery life. We’ll need to see how this figure holds up in our day-to-day testing, though it sounds like these glasses will be able to provide AI assistance and music playback for much longer stretches of your day than previous models.

You’ll be able to enjoy wearing them for longer too. The specs now weigh just 43g (down from 49g for the lightest Gen 2 design), and they also boast some of the Ray-Ban Meta Optics’ (Meta's prescription glasses line) fit adjustments, like ergonomic hinges and adjustable temple tips. Based on my time wearing the Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses, these features help to make them some of Meta’s comfiest yet — though my demo was only for about 20 minutes or so which isn’t the same as all-day wear.

Audio performance is also getting a boost thanks to Dolby Atmos support. The glasses' microphones are much better at picking up an immersive soundscape, and the speakers are better at playing it back to you.

I heard a few examples in my demo where the video swapped between Atmos and standard Stereo playback, and the difference was night and day. With Atmos I felt so much more immersed.

If you’ve wanted to pick up a pair of smart glasses, but don’t want ones with a camera, these could be the specs for you when they launch on October 13, priced at $349 / £319 / AU$529.

Problem solved?

Of course, Meta hasn’t abandoned its camera glasses — it just announced its Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 model — and in my briefing Meta pushed back on claims its specs can be used covertly.

It described the recording indicator as being “a light you can’t miss,” and noted how it has improved its glasses’ tamper-protection features in recent updates. It didn’t provide details on if or how it will make the indicator more obvious (many I’ve spoken to would disagree with Meta’s “can’t miss” claim), though given the existential threat to its business the ‘perv glasses’ moniker poses, I expect more protections and safeguards are on the horizon (assuming they aren’t announced at Connect).

Audio-only glasses present a partial solution to the issue. They can still capture audio of yourself and those around you, and aren’t as useful as camera-equipped glasses — you can’t provide visual context to the Muse AI, for example — but the lack of snappers also means they’re a lot less invasive.

And despite being more limited, the glasses can still offer some useful support. Meta has announced a new Hearing Enhancement feature for its specs. The feature is designed to help people with mild or moderate hearing loss enhance the audio of the world around them. It's not free, however, as it'll cost $149.99 a month (pricing outside the US TBC), or it'll come as part of a Meta One subscription.

Possible added costs aside, this feature is an incredible tool — and a showcase for the good things new tech like smart glasses can provide — and some of the Meta employees at the event told me it's the best thing they've worked on while at the company.

Besides the new Meta VR Glasses, the Ray-Ban Meta Audio are probably the glasses I’m most excited to experience, although camera-less specs aren’t my favorite, as they often lack audio capabilities and use a display — Meta’s specs are the opposite, with no display and Dolby Atmos audio, and that’s much more my style.

I want a casual audio experience with the occasional AI assistance, not a constant HUD that feels mildly useful at best, and annoyingly distracting at worst. I’ll be interested to see what others think, though.

Will this camera-less design face less backlash, will it be widely accepted? Or has the negativity around smart specs gone too far for brands to be able to win people back?

I think there’s still time for smart glasses to be saved, though ignoring the cameras problem is only a half step. Better privacy protections are still needed, but we’ll have to wait and see who acts next — will Meta and others properly regulate themselves, will the court of public opinion continue to rule against 'perv glasses', or will government regulators take the decision out of everyone else’s hands?

Meta Connect just ended, and the biggest announcement of the night for me was easily the debut of Meta’s VR Glasses — even if they were leaked ahead of schedule by Meta’s own prescription tutorial.

Ahead of their official reveal, I got to spend 30 minutes with the new tech, experiencing a wide range of demos that might have convinced me this isn’t merely Meta’s best VR headset yet — it could be the best VR headset I’ve used yet.

The only downside is we’ll be waiting a little longer to wear it. The headset isn’t due to launch until “Spring 2027” (March, April or May), but at least we know it’ll cost just $1,299 when it does land (price elsewhere TBC).

Slimmer than ever

Let’s start with the design.

Slimmer and lighter than anything that has come before (the actual headset part you wear is down to just around 100g); this headset looks like a pair of glasses. They even swap the headstrap for glasses stems to stay on your head.

The bulk of the weight is instead housed in a puck you carry in your pocket — a lot like the puck used by the Apple Vision Pro or Samsung Galaxy XR. The big difference here is Meta’s isn’t just a battery pack, it also houses all of the headset’s compute. It’s tethered to the headset via an optical cable, but this wire never got in the way while I used the headset — whether I was up and moving, playing a game like Beat Saber Flux, or sitting being productive with multitasking across multiple windows.

The headset can support controllers; however, it doesn’t come with any in the box. Instead, you’ll need to rely on hand controls: either reaching out and grabbing, or the look and pinch controls popularized by Apple’s Vision Pro and Samsung’s Galaxy XR.

Lastly, I should note that, despite being called glasses, this is a headset. They have an opaque front cover that only appears to be see-through to the wearer because of passthrough. This live video feed of the real world isn’t yet perfect (it’s still a little grainy and there’s a slight delay), though it seems at least as good as the competition based on my experience so far.

They do support pescription inserts too. They connect magnetically to the display lenses and don't disrupt the slimness of the headset at all based on my experience.

The device is just so supremely comfortable to wear. My demo was only around 30 minutes, but at one-fifth the weight of a Meta Quest 3 or Samsung Galaxy XR, the difference is immediately noticeable — this is a headset I don’t see myself needing to take off, even after multiple days of working with it on.

Plus, it’s so portable you can easily take this everywhere in whatever bag you have on hand. No dedicated carry case required. I can’t wait to travel with this thing.

An all-round powerhouse

While this can be used for all existing Meta Quest 3-compatible apps (though you will need controllers for those that don’t support hand tracking, either as a new paid add-on or by commandeering your Quest’s handsets), where this headset truly shines is static experiences: productivity and entertainment.

We know VR headsets are excellent for multitasking. You can arrange virtual project app windows around you, and even bring your PC screen into XR to create the perfect setup. Meta’s headset boasts two useful additional features.

First, you aren’t limited to the number of displays your physical setup has when you connect it to your headset. Each laptop or PC can be extended to up to three virtual monitors, a tool that some previous iterations of virtual desktop apps haven’t been able to offer (You could open multiple VR app windows, but only as many connected device windows as you had physical monitors).

Secondly, Meta’s headset can turn any surface into a keyboard. It just scans the surface in front of you — be it a cafe table, a seat tray on a plane, or a bench at the park — and then virtually projects a keyboard and trackpad you can type and swipe on. It works seamlessly. In my demo, I was able to type as swiftly and accurately as I could on a physical accessory, and in terms of portability, this is yet another win for Meta’s VR Glasses.

Moving on to entertainment, it seems Disney Plus’ Apple exclusivity has ended as the app and its library of 3D films are hitting Meta’s new headset. Because it’s an app, you can download content to watch on the go, which includes brand new immersive watching experiences.

While it was still just a demo, I got to experience watching a clip of Avengers: Endgame that extended beyond the screen in a souped-up version of Philips Ambilight.

It’s the scene where Thor is forging his new axe, I was sitting in that same forge. The room lit up and reacted as events unfolded in the film, ending with lightning flying out of the screen as Stormbreaker helped Thor return to full strength. It was a bit gimmicky, but also fun — not something I’d want for every movie, but an experience I’d want when returning to a big tentpole.

All of this content, be it immersive movies, a VR game, or a work document, looks beautiful on the 5K micro-OLED screen. It boasts a 37 pixel-per-degree resolution, which is around the PPD that its rivals, the Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR, boast (Samsung and Apple haven’t revealed these figures, but they have been estimated during product teardowns).

This is significantly better than the Quest 3’s mere 25PPD, and it meets the standard of being able to deliver the IMAX Enhanced Format — with superb audio and visuals. I got a taste of this in my demo, and I’m keen to experience more.

I need this yesterday

I’m about to jet set to LA for a press trip, and I so desperately wish I could be taking the Meta VR Glasses with me for the flight — both for getting work done and for immersing myself in a movie on a big screen rather than the back of the chair in front of me.

Alas, the VR specs aren’t due to land until 2027, though we know how much they’ll cost: $1,299. Much less than a Vision Pro, or a Galaxy XR, and cheaper than the highest price Xreal has said its Aura glasses — the closest thing I’ve tried to the Meta VR Glasses — could be.

At the time of writing, Meta hasn’t revealed too much in the way of specs (I’m writing this up based on a pre-Connect briefing). The Meta VR Glasses can run any Quest 3 app and can multitask across six windows at once, so it must be at least somewhat capable. I expect it boasts at least 12GB of RAM and the latest Snapdragon XR chipset.

I’m just impressed Meta can commit to such a relatively low price, especially months in advance. There are so many unknowns over trade and RAM demand that we’ve seen companies not reveal prices until as close to the last second as possible. Meta has bucked a trend here, but I expect it would only do so if 100% confident the cost won’t budge — if it doesn’t, I’ll be very, very happy.

At the time of writing Meta hasn’t revealed too much in the way of specs (I’m writing this up based on a pre-Connect briefing). The Meta VR Glasses can run any Quest 3 app, and can multitask across six windows at once so it must be at least somewhat capable — so I expect it boasts at least 12GB of RAM, and the latest Snapdragon XR chipset.

I’m just impressed Meta can commit to such a relatively low price, especially months in advance. There’s so many unknowns over trade and RAM demand that we’ve seen companies not reveal prices until as close to the last second as possible. Meta has bucked a trend here, but I expect it would only do so if 100% confident the cost won’t budge — if it doesn’t I’ll be very, very happy.

Even as public opinion turns against camera-equipped smart glasses, Meta is pushing forward with its generally well-received and quite popular Ray-Ban Meta line. Alongside the much-anticipated Meta Ray-Ban Audio glasses, which skip cameras entirely and come in two styles, Clubmaster and Burbank, there's also the next generation of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

Like the previous generation, the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 3) still features onboard cameras with the all-important glowing LED ring that alerts you when a photo is being taken or a video is being recorded. It's an important safeguard, and Meta has added more protections against folks who try to disable or conceal it, but concerns remain.

Meta's pushing forward with the Gen 3, even if the audio-only models prove more popular. They're launching today in three styles: Ray-Ban Meta Aviator, Ray-Ban Meta Zena, and a new version of the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer. Pricing starts at $449 in the United States; we're working to confirm UK and Australia pricing.

The story across the board is better hardware, all tucked into smart glasses that more closely resemble real glasses, with lighter and thinner builds where possible. The Aviators are particularly exciting to see adopted for the AI and smart era. The frames are thicker than the classic wire ones, but they still frame the face well. Zena is decidedly modern and sleek as a cat's eye, while Wayfarer is still the iconic, cool frame that Ray-Ban introduced years ago.

I'm testing the Ray-Ban Meta Aviator in a brown shade, and you can see my unboxing video embedded below. I like this color, especially compared with my speckled brown Gen 1 Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarers.

There are 27 total combinations when you account for colors and lens types, and if you're willing to pay for it, you can fit these with transition lenses and even prescription lenses.

Regardless of frame style or lens type, you benefit from improved tech onboard. For starters, the cameras — if you choose to use them, and as mentioned, the ring will glow when you do — can take 12-megapixel photos and record 3K Ultra HD video, with Dolby Atmos support for a more cinematic audio experience during playback. There's also a Dynamic Photo mode, similar to Live Photos on iOS, which snaps a few shots so you can pick the best one.

Battery life is also improved. It isn't quite at the 12 hours of the new Meta Ray-Ban Audio models, but the Gen 3s last up to nine hours on a full charge. That's an hour longer than the Gen 2s, and the included charging case lets you recharge on the go.

Finally, just like the Meta Glasses — including the Kylie edition — that launched earlier in 2026, the Gen 3s get more microphones. Six of them improve voice pickup, whether you're drafting a message, asking Meta AI a question, or on a call. Meta promises they cut over 90% of background noise, and we look forward to putting that to the test.

While it's not a night-and-day difference over the second generation, the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 3) shows that Meta has settled on the core feature set it wants for its AI glasses. Now, in a move likely to broaden their appeal, it's focusing on offering more styles, and its partnership with Ray-Ban is clearly still evolving. The Gen 3s continue the quest for smart glasses that feel closer to the regular versions of these frames, while adding the latest tech for a compelling experience.

Just how compelling will be weighed against the added privacy concerns, but let's hope Meta keeps adding more privacy features and keeps cracking down on those who try to block out the LEDs.

We'll be back soon with our full thoughts — and if you ask us, the Aviators look pretty, pretty nice — but if you're already sold, the Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 3) are up for order right now, starting at $449 in the US, from Meta, Ray-Ban, and other authorized sellers.

Meta Connect 2026 is busy. Alongside the next-generation Meta Glasses, a camera-free version of the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, and a new collaboration with Korean pop star Lisa, Meta is adding a significant new capability to its glasses: hearing enhancement.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the feature, which turns a pair of Meta Glasses into a hearing aid for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. It amplifies sound based on your hearing profile and uses machine learning to boost voices and suppress background noise.

Meta isn't the first here, though. Apple's AirPods Pro 2 are already cleared as over-the-counter hearing aids and Nuance offers a pair of smart shades with a similar function. Meta, though, is betting on its form factor: glasses sit outside the ear, and many people already wear them all day.

It's not free, though. The feature launches with a free 30-day trial, after which it costs a one-time payment of $149.99, or comes as part of a Meta One subscription. In the US, it's also FSA/HSA eligible, with Meta saying it will share more details closer to the launch, which in the US is set for later in 2026. Even including the price of compatible glasses, Meta says it's significantly cheaper than traditional hearing aids.

The feature is launching in the US first, with Meta planning to expand to other countries as it works through each region's medical device regulations.

I spoke with Ravish Mehra, Director of Research Science at Meta, about why Meta thinks glasses are the right home for hearing enhancement. Mehra, who has spent nearly 12 years at the company, says the work started more than five years ago.

"We have a very unique audio platform that has microphone arrays, that has glasses, is socially acceptable in terms of people wearing glasses, and we have onboard compute," he says.

According to Mehra, one in six Americans have mild to moderate hearing loss, yet only around 15% of them do anything about it. He notes that hearing aids are expensive, uncomfortable to wear all day, and signal to others that you have a hearing impairment. So people "put the issue under the rug," Mehra says, telling themselves, "Okay, it's just people are mumbling, and that's why I'm not able to hear."

Glasses sidestep the stigma in his view: "Nobody else can tell just by looking at your glasses that you have hearing impairment.”

A hearing test at home

"Every person's hearing loss is slightly different," Mehra says. Instead of a clinic visit and multiple fittings, Meta's hearing test takes around one to two minutes with your phone, through the Meta AI app, and your glasses. You listen to sounds at different frequencies, indicate when you can barely hear them, and the system builds a hearing profile showing where you need amplification.

"You don't have to go anywhere to get these glasses fit for your hearing profile," Mehra says. "You just do a very simple test at home, and whenever your hearing needs change, you just redo the test."

That test was central to the FDA clearance. Meta tested the feature with a group of people with mild to moderate hearing loss, and its results showed the phone-based test was equivalent in performance to a professional fitting, within an acceptable margin.

"We are actually the first self-fitting hearing aid on glasses in the market," Mehra says.

How it works

The glasses' six microphones capture sound around you — currently being used on Meta Glasses — which is then amplified where your profile shows a deficit. That also amplifies noise, so a machine learning model trained to recognize voices brings the background down. It all runs on-device, and speed is critical. "All of this has to happen in a very short latency, because otherwise you start hearing echoes or start hearing distortions," Mehra says.

There are two modes: 360 mode amplifies sound all around you, while Focus mode suits environments like a restaurant, where you want to hear the person across the table.

"We actually use the microphones to first do beamforming, which is like focusing in the forward direction more," Mehra explains. "And then […] we train the system to enhance the voices while not enhancing or suppressing the noise."

The frame helps, too. "Because the glasses have a much wider baseline, you can put the microphones much farther away," says Mehra. This makes it easier to isolate speech from noise than with microphones placed millimeters apart in the ear.

I got a brief demo: Meta had us put in earplugs to simulate hearing loss, then wear the glasses. They did properly amplify the people directly around me, and even those a bit farther away. Focus mode noticeably singles out the person in front of you, but it wasn't perfect, and of course earplugs are no substitute for real hearing loss.

The feedback problem

Amplifying sound isn't the hardest part, though. "One of the issues that any kind of real-time amplification feature faces is called feedback," Mehra says. "When you amplify something through the speakers, they feed back into the microphones."

On glasses, with their open-ear design, nothing separates the speakers from the microphones. Meta's system has to detect feedback before it builds, suppress it, and still deliver enough amplification. "If you're not able to cancel that feedback, then you hear these very sharp noises," Mehra says.

Then there's processing, which is added on top of a broader feature set the glasses offer, so Meta had to squeeze the feature into what Mehra calls "a very small envelope" of onboard compute power.

Meta hasn't confirmed which glasses will support it, only that they must meet a minimum performance bar, or confirmed a rollout schedule other than late 2026. Given the processing involved, I'd be surprised to see it on older models like the first-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses; all of the demos at Meta Connect have been on the more recently released Meta Glasses.

Meta isn't just trying to make its glasses hear for you; it's trying to help you hear, too. It's a new category for the company, but Mehra is in no doubt about the bet, telling me: "We strongly feel like glasses is the ideal form factor."

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.

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 #1704) — hint #1 — Vowels

* 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 #1704) — hint #2 — repeated letters

Quordle today (game #1704) — hint #3 — uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #1704) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)

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 #1704) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)

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

Quordle today (game #1704) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1704, are…

• TOPIC
• METRO
• SCALP
• FREED

I should have known better than to risk using a rare letter, but after the letter J appeared yesterday I followed a hunch and guessed “toxic”.

Fortunately, my hunches paid off after getting TOPIC, although I did come close to incorrectly submitting “retro” instead of METRO.

Daily Sequence today (game #1704) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1704, are…

• BLURB
• KRILL
• ENEMY
• QUART

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1703, Wednesday, 23 September: SHEET, BLAND, JOIST, GUAVA
• Quordle #1702, Tuesday, 22 September: COMFY, LOBBY, DRESS, PANEL
• Quordle #1701, Monday, 21 September: WAXEN, HIPPO, PETAL, LEASH
• Quordle #1700, Sunday, 20 September: DERBY, LIMBO, GAWKY, REIGN
• Quordle #1699, Saturday, 19 September: SCOPE, HEIST, PULSE, CHAMP
• Quordle #1698, Friday, 18 September: MUCUS, MIRTH, APPLE, TILDE
• Quordle #1697, Thursday, 17 September: CRIER, CHIRP, NEIGH, FREER
• Quordle #1696, Wednesday, 16 September: SPEAR, PRICE, BLUNT, FISHY
• Quordle #1695, Tuesday, 15 September: SHUSH, LITHE, DELTA, BUGLE
• Quordle #1694, Monday, 14 September: ZEBRA, LEGAL, RATIO, TROLL
• Quordle #1693, Sunday, 13 September: LUCID, SPRAY, MANGE, EMAIL
• Quordle #1692, Saturday, 12 September: SUPER, BRUSH, RESET, SOWER
• Quordle #1691, Friday, 11 September: PLUSH, PAINT, RIVAL, AFOUL
• Quordle #1690, Thursday, 10 September: AGENT, EXILE, TITAN, PUREE
• Quordle #1689, Wednesday, 9 September: HAPPY, GONER, SMACK, MOTIF
• Quordle #1688, Tuesday, 8 September: FLUNG, DIARY, HALVE, BERTH
• Quordle #1687, Monday, 7 September: VISIT, CLANK, FEVER, OCEAN
• Quordle #1686, Sunday, 6 September: PILOT, HONOR, BOWEL, TAUNT
• Quordle #1685, Saturday, 5 September: GNASH, GEEKY, WHELP, PUTTY
• Quordle #1684, Friday, 4 September: QUICK, BEEFY, TRUCK, SNAIL

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 #935) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #935) - hint #2 - clue words

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

• HOBO
• WINK
• WINGS
• TRACK
• FAME
• TRAP

NYT Strands today (game #935) - hint #3 - spangram letters

NYT Strands today (game #935) - hint #4 - spangram position

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

NYT Strands today (game #935) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #935, are…

• SANDBOX
• TREEHOUSE
• SWINGS
• POOL
• TRAMPOLINE
• FORT
• SPANGRAM: BACKYARD

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

The first word I saw on the board was “tree”, but fortunately I wasn’t switched on enough to see the adjoining word “house” and put them together.

I say 'fortunately', because in the absence of spotting a game word I did see the spangram and gave a little whoop of joy as the letters turned yellow.

This was also quite a melancholy game for me, as it reminded me of all the clutter that used to fill up my BACKYARD that is no longer there — a sign that my kids have grown up and no longer need a SANDBOX or SWINGS or the safety nightmare that is a TRAMPOLINE.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Wednesday, September 23, game #934)

• BYGONE
• ARCHAIC
• ANCIENT
• PRIMEVAL
• TIMEWORN
• SPANGRAM: THATSOLDNEWS

• Meta's glasses can no longer record if the capture LED is covered at any time, says independent test
• But the light is too hard to see if you're not very close, says German data protection agency
• EU bodies recommend actively getting full consent from anyone recorded, not assuming it

Detailed testing confirms that the Meta Glasses firmware update, designed to stop a potential privacy problem with surreptitious recording, does what it's supposed to do — but Germany's privacy enforcement agent says it's not enough, because the light itself is insufficiently visible.

The update was designed to address a simple exploit that bypassed the "no recording when the recording light is covered" feature.

In theory, that feature meant that it was impossible to secretly record someone or something by hiding the camera capture LED. The glasses could detect if the light is covered, and wouldn't record if that was the case.

In reality, it was immediately defeated by the kind of people who've helped earn the 'pervert glasses' label for the smart glasses: they discovered that the glasses only checked the light at the very beginning of recording, so you could simply start capturing, cover up the light and keep recording with the light now hidden.

The new update prevents them from doing that by re-checking the light every few seconds — but privacy watchdogs say it doesn't make much difference: even uncovered, the capture light on current models isn't good enough when it comes to privacy, consent or potential illegality.

Why a little LED isn't enough to protect other people's privacy

In a detailed report by the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, which involved a tear-down of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses and a detailed privacy analysis (via Notebookcheck.net), the Commissioner found that the LED light "is not easily visible in many environments, particularly outdoors and in direct sunlight". Meaning that even if you're using them as intended, that doesn't mean people can necessarily see (or recognize) the recording light

It's not just the lack of brightness. The beam angle is very narrow too, the report says, and that means you need to be pretty close and looking almost directly at the wearer to be able to see if the light is on.

The report also notes that the second-gen glasses behave differently to the first generation when the wearer asks about something or someone nearby. With the first generation, the LED "glows, very dimly". But in the second generation it doesn't glow at all.

The report argues that in most cases, if you're not recording friends or family only, then you can't assume informed consent. It recommends additional steps such as text notifications or signage, or actively speaking to the people you intend to film.

That ties in with a recent report by the French e-Enfance association, which reported this month that simply assuming someone saw the capture light does not necessarily mean they've consented to the storage, processing and distribution of their image.

A person needs to not only to have seen the light, but they must also understand what it indicates and be able to withhold their consent. And if minors are being filmed, e-Enfance says parents must provide permission.

It's wise to pay attention if you'll be filming in the country: French privacy laws are notably strict, with prison sentences and five-figure fines for deliberately invading someone's private life.

It's worth noting that these reports are based on European law, whereas US law is much more lenient: the US doesn't have the data protection and privacy protections members (and former members, such as the UK) of the European Union have, and its lawmakers are much more tech-friendly.

But no matter where you live, if you're a smart glasses wearer and could be recording others who aren't part of your close circle, it may be wise to ensure you can demonstrate that the people you're filming knew you were doing it, were able to opt out, and provided their consent.

There's a growing backlash against the use of smart glasses by various bad actors, and simply assuming consent, or even assuming that people are aware of what your glasses are doing just because they have a light, may not be enough to protect wearers from future legal consequences.

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• Microsoft has revealed a new Surface Pro 12-inch tablet and Surface Laptop 13-inch
• Both consumer devices are built around a 6-core Snapdragon X2 Plus processor
• They go on sale on October 13, 2026, starting at $1,149.99 / AU$1,999 for the Surface Pro and $1,199 / AU$2,099 for the Surface Laptop

It seems like Microsoft might be getting its mojo back for its Surface line-up of products, with Brett Ostrum, Corporate Vice President, Surface Devices, announcing at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit that the company will be releasing a new Surface Pro 12-inch tablet and Surface Laptop 13-inch. Both will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Plus chips, which explains the venue choice. (I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that the Snapdragon Summit is held in Hawaii).

According to Microsoft, the two new Surface devices with Snapdragon X2 Plus CPUs will be up to 17% faster for Office workloads, up to 18% more battery efficient, and offer over 60% faster graphics performance.

As these are Microsoft products, there is also the now-customary boasting about AI performance, with the Qualcomm Hexagon NPU offering 80 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second) resulting in a claimed 95% faster local AI performance.

The Surface Pro 12-inch (2026) is a Windows 11 tablet built around the 6-core Snapdragon X2 Plus processor, partnered with either 16GB or 24GB of LPDDR5x RAM, and 256GB or 512GB storage. The 12-inch LCD display has a resolution of 2196 x 1464 and a refresh rate of up to 90Hz. The screen of this new model is, according to Microsoft, 25% brighter than the previous model, and there’s a new black color. Microsoft estimates around 15.5 hours of local video playback and 13 hours of web use on a single charge. It’ll start at $1,149.99 / AU$1,999 (around £900) and goes on sale on October 13, 2026.

The Surface Laptop 13-inch (2026) features the same 6-core Snapdragon X2 Plus chip and is available in the same memory and storage configurations as the Surface Pro. The 13-inch touchscreen has a resolution of 1920 x 1280 and a refresh rate of 60Hz, which I’m not going to lie, is a bit disappointing in a laptop these days, although Microsoft claims the 500-nit display is 25% brighter than the last model.

It also has two USB-C (USB 3.2) ports and a USB-A port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. Microsoft claims up to 22.5 hours of battery life, which if accurate is very impressive.

The Surface Laptop will start at $1,199 / AU$2,099 (around £920) and will also go on sale on October 13, 2026.

Ready to take on the MacBook Air?

Microsoft’s announcement of two new consumer Surface devices is definitely welcome. Surface Pro tablets and Surface Laptops used to be Microsoft’s flagship products and showcases for cutting-edge Windows features. They certainly felt like Microsoft’s attempts to create a MacBook Air. The problem is, they never reached that potential, and when Apple switched to using its own Arm-based M series chips in 2020, the gap widened even further.

Surface devices also had a larger than life cheerleader in the form of Panos Panay, who had a major role at Microsoft and whose passion for the Surface line-up, that he helped create, was infectious (even if that infection didn’t translate into sales). After Panay left Microsoft for Amazon, it felt like the wind had been taken out of Surface’s sails, which wasn’t helped when Microsoft aimed recent Surface devices at commercial and business users, rather than mainstream consumers.

So, it’s good to see that these new Surface devices are firmly pitched at consumers, and the price points are around the same as the MacBook Air since Apple increased prices earlier this year. It also pits them against new Googlebooks, which are going on sale soon as well, and are priced similarly.

Will this mean Microsoft finally has a MacBook Air rival? While I’m glad it’s trying again, I’m not too sure. The Snapdragon X2 Plus is a decent mid-range chip, but the 6-core variant in the new Surface devices falls short of the 10-core CPU in the M5, especially as the M5 offers better single-core performance.

My main concern with the Surface Laptop is that the 1920 x 1280 screen just won’t compare to the display of the MacBook Air, which offers a 2560 x 1664 resolution for a much sharper image.

I’ve also seen the first five new Googlebook laptops, and they all come with higher resolution screens, and some also feature OLED.

The screen of the Surface Pro 12-inch (2026) is more promising, though if you want to use it as a laptop, you’ll need to buy a keyboard accessory, which adds to the price. However, it should still come in at under the price of Apple’s 13-inch iPad Pro.

So, I’m not entirely sure that these will be the MacBook Air/iPad Pro killers Microsoft needs them to be, but I’m glad Microsoft is at least trying again, and I could be proved wrong when we get the new Surface devices in for review soon.

In a Pier 57 auditorium filled with YouTubers of all ages and stripes, I felt a bit out of place. I haven't posted a full-length YouTube video to my channel in years, but listening to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, other execs, and especially YouTube creators enthuse about new AI-boosted viewer and creator tools, I felt inspired again to, if not create, get back to my regular YouTube viewing habit.

The yearly Made on YouTube event, a confab on all the latest notable YouTube platform updates from creators and video consumers, featured a cavalcade of young, energetic YouTubers like Happy Kelli (Kelli Erdmann), Gremlita (Mina Le), and Derrick Gee, each of them introducing some fairly significant updates to the video platform, which Mohan claims has supported over half a million full-time jobs and contributed $60B to the US GDP in 2025.

Most notable for those who can't get enough of the creator videos and shorts are the new AI-powered Custom Feeds. While your current YouTube homepage is probably filled with subscriptions and algorithmic recommendations for your next watch, custom feeds are built via a prompt ("I want to see videos of tuxedoed cats playing jazz on pianos") and then live in a tab at the top of your feed. According to YouTuber Mina Lee, who gave the demo, the feeds constantly update with the latest videos that fit your request. Custom Feeds is expected on desktop and mobile this Fall (before the end of this year).

Just months after Google CEO Sundar Pichai unveiled "Ask YouTube" at Google I/O, YouTube is enhancing the AI-powered chatbot with stronger conversational skills and the ability to see inside videos. As we saw in the demo, you can go on quite a conversational journey with Ask YouTube, which can dig into the video's content and return time-stamped, contextual results, even pulling information from the comments.

Naturally, this journey could continue all the way to results with product specs and even the ability to buy a product directly. For now, the video creator who first talked about the product might miss out on affiliate revenue unless someone clicks from the Ask YouTube result to the original video. YouTube execs later told us they want to ensure that the affiliate connection still works.

Putting the agentic in video editing

Even if some of the AI tools YouTube is unveiling might appear to temporarily undermine creators, the new agentic editing tools look like a game changer.

Mobile App users will soon find "Ask Studio", a conversational editing assistant that lets you use natural language for edits. In the demo Happy Kelli ran, we saw how a series of prompts, each one building on the next without restating the initial task, turned a collection of clips into a complete video. She called it an "infinitely patient helper." YouTube says the tool will help creators edit a first draft, add typography, find the right music, and even sync it to the video action. And yes, it'll help you decide on the perfect hook: the thing people first see after the Thumbnail that might drag them into your video.

AI will also help build audio consumers a new "Your Podcast" lineup, which will basically be a short audio overview of podcasts you might like. YouTube creator Derrick Gee described it as "a personalized podcast about other podcasts, chosen for you — very meta."

YouTube Music is also getting its own chatbot, naturally called "Ask Music. Gee showed us how it can dig deep into the minutiae of an artist or song. In his example, he asked about the musical influences on Troye Sivan's new single She's the Best. One of the songs turned out to be Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side. As with other demos, the contextual journey can continue. In this case, Gee quizzed Ask Music about the bassist on Reed's song I(Herbie Flowers). Later, Sivan, who got his start on YouTube in 2007, joined Gee on stage (he did not sing).

Other updates include:

• YouTube Shorts being turned into Shorts Series with dedicated seasons, episodes, and automatic sequential playback
• GIFs in comments
• Custom thumbnails for different audiences
• Analytics adding rich insights and the ability to A/B test entire videos with live YouTube viewers
• Auto-dubbing for Live video, which is essentially realtime translation

Google Gemini's fingerprints are all over many of these updates, and I wondered how YouTube is navigating the choppy waters of AI sentiment.

Aparna Pappu, who leads YouTube Shorts, told me they're building these new tools and capabilities based on what creators need. Video creation remains, she said, a co-creative and collaborative process where the creator is always in charge. As for AI, "One of the ways [AI] serves us well: we only succeed when creators succeed.”

Amjad Hanif, VP of Creator Products, said that there was a time when creators were apprehensive about how AI might help them. "Now," he said, "it's hard to meet anyone who isn’t using it in their workflow."