Life

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Three New AI Features Rumored to Be Coming to Pixel 9

Google is set to unveil its Pixel 9 lineup of smartphones in August, a full month earlier than usual. Along with new hardware, which, of course, has already leaked, the company is likely to reveal new software features for the new Pixel devices, and unsurprisingly, much of that will be AI. Lucky for us, we don’t have to wait to learn about some of these features.

In an exclusive report, Android Authority details new AI features allegedly coming to Pixel 9. Android Authority says a source inside Google provided the outlet with a list of five features the company plans to highlight with the release of its new smartphone this year, via a screenshot titled “Discover Google AI at its best.”

We know about two of these features already. One is Circle to Search, which, as the name implies, lets you draw a circle around an element on your smartphone’s display to start a search on it. The other is Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, which you can already use to replace the traditional Google Assistant on your Pixel if you want to.

While Google may push these two existing AI features as part of its Pixel 9 launch, there are three new AI features the company may also rollout in tandem with the new smartphone:

Add Me

According to the alleged screenshot from Google Android Authority shared, “Add Me” is a feature that lets you “make sure everyone’s included in a group photo.” While that isn’t particularly descriptive, one can infer that Android will use AI to edit you into a picture if you didn’t make it in frame in time.

That would be a compliment to Google’s existing Best Take feature, which, after taking multiple photos of a group of people, lets you choose the “best” face of each subject from each photo.

These are useful features in theory, but they do challenge the idea of the photograph itself: What’s really the point of a photo if it doesn’t actually represent reality? “Let’s all look at that group photo we took on our trip last year. Although Greg wasn’t actually there…and Melissa definitely wasn’t looking at the camera…At least we’re all smiling!”

Studio

“You imagine it. Pixel creates it.” That’s how Google describes “Studio” in Android Authority’s screenshot. By the description, it sounds like a built-in AI image generator on your Pixel. That tracks, since Google is reportedly building an app called Creative Assistant, primarily for making stickers.

It’s par for the course these days for tech companies to offer AI art generators, so this isn’t a surprising development. I’m sure Google will inject some Pixel or Android-specific features with Studio, but for now, this is all we know.

Pixel Screenshots

It’s “Pixel Screenshots” that’s by far the most interesting new feature outlined here. Based on the screenshots of the feature shared by Android Authority, Pixel Screenshots is essentially Microsoft’s Recall feature, but for the screenshots saved on your Pixel.

Recall, as you may recall, was designed to save a snapshot of your entire screen every few moments, so you could search for quite literally anything you ever did on your PC. It was met with widespread concern and criticism, especially once it appeared to be quite vulnerable to hacking. Microsoft has since delayed the feature’s rollout.

Pixel Screenshots, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to take a screenshot of your display every few seconds; rather, it scans your existing screenshots to turn them into a “searchable library.” If you know you screenshotted a pair of shoes you wanted to buy, or a receipt you need to reference, you can use the feature to search for it.

When you turn the feature on, Android will save extra data for screenshots you take going forward, including web links, the names of apps, and the date and time the screenshot was taken, all to make it easier to search for those data points in the future. Interestingly, the feature says all data access and processing happens on-device, so none of your data should make its way to Google’s servers.

On the surface, it sounds much more secure than Microsoft’s solution, although it also serves a much different purpose. That said, there’s a slight risk to the feature: Allowing AI to make searching screenshots a breeze opens the door for anyone with access to your phone to do the same: If you save screenshots of sensitive information, like credit card numbers, banking info, or passwords, anyone with access to your phone could search for this data.

That said, Google hasn’t actually announced any of these features yet. We’ll just have to see which features, if any, the company does decide to bundle with the Pixel 9 when it launches later this year.

Today’s Wordle Hints (and Answer) for Tuesday, July 2, 2024

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for July 2, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is harder; I got it in five. Beware, there are spoilers below for July 2, Wordle #1,109! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!

Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

Four of today’s letters are from our mnemonic. The other is uncommon.

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

Can be made of ivory or gold and embedded.

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

There are no repeated letters today. 

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There are two vowels and one “sometimes” vowel.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with I. 

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with Y. 

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is INLAY.

How I solved today’s Wordle

I started with RAISE followed by LATCH and POUND to eliminate likely consonants (and remaining vowels). My next guess was FINAL, which left several possible words but INLAY as the most common. 

Wordle 1,109 5/6

⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
🟨🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
⬛🟨🟨🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle was easier. The hint was “synonym for proverb” and the answer contained four common letters and one fairly common letter.

The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was ADAGE.

A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word. 

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)

  • Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)

  • Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

  • CRANE

  • TRACE

  • SLANT

  • CRATE

  • CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

  • SALET

  • REAST

  • TRACE

  • CRATE

  • SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:

Make These Fancy Crackers in Your Air Fryer

I’m not a wild spender when it comes to dining out, but a girl does like to be pampered sometimes. A few times a month, I don some “real clothes” (instead of my WFH duds) and I expect to be rewarded for it with an interesting cocktail and tasty morsels. These were provided recently at a Tom Colicchio spot I went to with friends, and the most amazing thing happened—we got a cheese board with salty, crunchy, seed-studded bread crackers. The amazing thing wasn’t that the crackers were expensive, flavorful, and interesting, but rather the realization that anyone can make very similar high-end crackers at home, for a fraction of the price, in an air fryer. 

The air fryer makes quick crackers

Whether you’ve come to terms with this or not, the air fryer stinks for toasting toast, but it’s excellent for drying bread to a shattering crisp. The mini convection oven with its hot, high velocity winds is the ideal setting for drawing out moisture, and it does this much faster than a conventional oven. This is excellent news if you have any seeded loaves, especially stale ones you don’t see much of a future for. 

I’ve noticed that whether they’re packaged in stores or on wine bar cheese boards, the fanciest of crackers are often “rustic”—thick brown bread and chock full of whole grains, seeds, or nuts. While you can turn most loaves into pretty good crackers with this technique, I like using ones with a more dense crumb (few big air pockets), and plenty of seeds and nuts. Both have natural oils that toast up nicely to reveal lots of flavor in the finished cracker, and that’s more than a lot of other crackers can say for themselves.

How to make fancy crackers in the air fryer

As an added bonus, there’s very little technique required to making a bangin’ bread cracker. The only challenge is ensuring the slice is thin enough but not so papery that it burns. I’ve found the best size is splitting the average factory slice in half. That’s about a quarter-inch thick if you’re cutting an unsliced loaf of bread. 

1. Slice the bread

Cutting a thin slice of bread to be even thinner isn’t something you should rush. Using the same technique as you would to safely slice a bagel, slice horizontally using a serrated knife and keep your fingers up and out of the way. 

2. An optional salty swipe

I snatched this idea from the same Tom Colicchio experience because crackers can be bland, and salt is good. Dissolve a quarter-teaspoon of salt in a tablespoon of hot water. Use a pastry brush to swipe the salty water over one side of each slice. The water will evaporate, leaving behind a thin layer of salt. 

3. Air fry your slices

Lay the slices of bread in your air fryer basket and air fry at 325°F for 10 to 15 minutes. Flip the slices halfway through the cooking time, and check on them every now and again to see how they’re drying out. 

Depending on the hydration of the bread, its thickness, and your air fryer, give or take a few minutes. Mine is an Instant Vortex and the sunflower seed bread was finished in about 12 minutes. The crackers should feel crisp, and if it’s a light colored bread it should be evenly and slightly browned. Cool them briefly on a wire rack before enjoying with your favorite cheeses, meats, spreads, and dips. Keep any leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature for about a week. 

How to Use Your Steam Deck’s New Built-in Recorder

On modern consoles like the PlayStation 5, recording gameplay is as easy as pressing a button. But on PC and Steam Deck, it’s always been a bit of a chore. In the past you’ve had to resort to a third party tool (or the the Windows Game Bar), but now Steam finally has an official screen recorder of its own.

Called Game Recording, the tool is currently in beta and is capable of recording in the background, recording only on demand, and even playing back your gameplay just for you so you can determine what went wrong when you died. It comes with a lightweight editor and timeline display for making clips, and can share footage directly to other devices or through a temporary URL. Users can also simply save an MP4 file of their recording for their own use.

Valve says the feature works with any game that supports the Steam overlay, even non-Steam titles (that is, games that the player doesn’t own on Steam, but is still using Steam to launch). The company is also releasing tools to allow game developers to interact with Steam’s recording features, letting them automatically mark the timeline to show where key events happened. 

To try out Steam’s Recording features, you’ll need to enable beta features. Here’s how:

How to try out Steam Recording on a PC

Opting into game recording on PC is simple. Just open Steam, click on the Steam button in the top-left corner next to the logo, and pick Settings from the dropdown menu.

Screenshot of Steam

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

In the pop-up, click on Interface next to the icon of a computer display, then click on the dropdown menu next to Client Beta Participation. Select Steam Beta Update and restart Steam.

Screenshot of Steam

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

You’re almost there—from here, open any game that supports recording (most will) and press Shift+Tab to open the Steam Overlay.

Click the REC logo to open your Steam Settings to the Game Recording Tab. Choose whether you want Game Recording turned off, whether you only want to record on demand, or whether you want recording constantly running in the background.

Screenshot of Persona 4 Golden in Steam

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Recording on demand will automatically save recordings as clips. Clicking it will let you select where on your PC you want them to save to and how high quality you want the footage to be. There’s also an option to record your microphone. And even though the recordings are saved as clips, you’ll still be able to edit them later.

Recording in the background will instead allow you to set a max length for your recordings before they turn off, plus how high quality you want them to be. Together, this will allow you to set a limit for how much storage space automatic recording will use. Old gameplay will be overwritten as you reach your limit. As with recording on demand, you can choose whether or not to record your microphone.

Once you’ve made your selection, actually recording footage is easy: When recording on demand, simply press Start Recording in the Steam Overlay to begin capturing your clip, and Stop Recording to finish. There’s also a keyboard shortcut to do this while in-game (defaulted to Ctrl+F11). Once you’ve saved your recording, you can edit and share it from the overlay.

Screenshot of Monster Hunter Rise in Steam

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Meanwhile, pressing Shift + Tab at any time with background recording active will allow you to scrub your recording’s timeline in real-time, letting you view your saved gameplay even while it’s still recording. Press the Clip button next to the scissors icon to start editing a clip, and press the marker button (it looks like a pin) in the bottom left of the timeline to add a marker to help you edit. Alternatively, press Ctrl+F12 while playing to place a marker at the current point (this also works when recording on demand).

Screenshot of Persona 4 Golden in Steam

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Once you close your game, you’ll also see your recorded footage on that game’s page in your library, where you’ll be able to edit it as well.

Conveniently, turning off background recording at any point will also give you a pop-up box where you can quickly delete any previously recorded footage to save space. 

How to try Steam Recording on a Steam Deck

Recording on the Steam Deck works much the same as recording on a PC, but you’ll have to take a few extra steps to get started.

From the Steam Deck’s main menu, press the Steam button on your device. Navigate down to Settings next to the cog icon and click System. From here, click into the dropdown menu under Beta Participation, and next to System Update Channel. Click Beta and restart your Steam Deck. Open the Settings menu again, then click Apply next to Software Updates. Restart one more time.

Now, press the Steam button again and scroll down to Game Recording under Settings. You’ll see the same menu as on PC and be able to make the same adjustments. To fit the Steam Deck’s controller, your keyboard shortcuts will now be set to Steam + A to start/stop a recording and Steam + Y to place a marker. As on PC, you can adjust these as you wish.

Sonic Mania running on a Steam Deck

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Open a game, press the Steam button one more time, and scroll down to Game Recording. Here, you’ll be able to start/stop a recording (if you’re not already recording in the background), place a marker, and view previously recorded footage, where you’ll see the same interface as on PC, down to sharing settings. And just like on PC, recorded footage will still show up on your game’s library page, so you can view and edit it even while the game is closed.

And that’s it—Steam’s Game Recording feature is surprisingly robust for a beta, and it’s definitely worth giving it a shot, if only because of how easy Valve makes it to place caps on storage and delete unneeded footage. I also didn’t notice much of a hit to performance while testing; Valve says it’s designed Game Recording to use your graphics card to take “as little computer resources away from the game you are playing as possible.”

Seven New Copilot Features in Microsoft 365

Copilot has changed quite a bit since the start of this year. Not only does the bot have an official app, but now anyone with a Microsoft 365 account can access Copilot in apps like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Before, it was exclusive to business users.

If you have Microsoft 365 and Copilot Pro, or your company uses this suite of tools, there are some new Copilot features you can access right now. Microsoft announced a list of 14 new Copilot features rolling out this month, but seven of those really apply to admins and management. For the rest of us, the other seven are key new features to look out for:

You can generate images directly in Word and Powerpoint documents

This month, both Word and Powerpoint will let you generate images and search for stock images using Copilot via Microsoft Designer. If you prompt Copilot to generate you an image, it will create and present the usual series of options, which you can choose from to insert into your doc. When using the feature in Powerpoint, Designer will incorporate it in a “compelling slide design.”

designer in copilot

Credit: Microsoft

Reference PDFs, emails, and meetings in Word

Starting last month, Microsoft rolled out the ability to reference PDFs and encrypted Word docs using Copilot in Word. This month, the company will also add the ability to reference Microsoft Cloud info, which includes your emails and meetings. Those updates add on to the data types you could reference previously, including Word and PowerPoint files.

Going forward, you will be able to pull these files types into your prompts with Copilot in Word. If you call on Copilot and ask it to write you a project proposal, you can have Copilot base it on one of these files from an expanded menu. If you discussed the project in depth in a meeting, or if the notes are laid out in a PDF, Copilot will be able to analyze that doc or file and generate a report from it.

referencing docs in word

Credit: Microsoft

Expanded support for creating PowerPoint presentations from PDFs and encrypted Word files

Similarly, Microsoft rolled out the ability to create PowerPoint presentations from new PDF and Word file types in June. You can also reference Word docs and PowerPoint presentations in PowerPoint itself.

However you create a PowerPoint presentation with Copilot, you should notice three key improvements to how the AI handles the PowerPoint doc, including improved titles, sections, and slides; presentation structures with slides for your agenda, sections, and conclusion; and new transitions and animations.

In addition, PowerPoint chat can answer questions using Microsoft cloud, Microsoft Graph, and Bing.

New features in Excel

Microsoft announced three new Copilot features for Excel, all of which are rolling out this month:

  1. Copilot now works with data ranges “resembling tables” with headers along a single row. Microsoft says this is more efficient than before, as you won’t need to format data before calling in Copilot.

  2. The edit box is available no matter which cell you have selected, so you can use Copilot without needing to worry about where you are in your spreadsheet.

  3. Copilot will be more conversational with its responses to questions about Excel data, including offering step-by-step instructions for certain tasks.

copilot in excel

Credit: Microsoft

Copilot in Teams

Do you know who you’re chatting with at work? You may think you do, but the more AI features take over our work programs, the less you may be interacting with a real human being.

A new Teams features rolling out right now is Copilot integration in Teams chats and channels. After typing out your message, you can prompt Copilot to adjust your words in any way you want. Microsoft suggests prompts like “add a call to action,” “make it persuasive,” or “convert my message into a list and add inclusive language.”

You might think your boss sent the team a hand-written message, or that you’re having a fun chat with a coworker. But, for all you know, they used Copilot to change their words. You may, in fact, be chatting with an LLM.

copilot in teams
If you’re using Copilot to write a joke for your coworkers, please don’t.
Credit: Microsoft

Copilot lets you rewrite content in SharePoint

Copilot rewriting has come to SharePoint: If you use the app to create websites for your organization, you’ll be able to use familiar Copilot tools to rewrite text. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything particularly innovative here, mind you. It seems like these are the usual rewriting tools you’d expect from generative AI. However, now you can use them directly in SharePoint. This is rolling out this month.

Copilot in Loop

Loop is Microsoft’s collaborative workspace app, allowing team members to work together on a project in real time. While you can start a project from scratch with a blank canvas or from a template, Microsoft wants you to use Copilot to generate a “structured document ready for team collaboration.” If you use Loop, you can try asking Copilot to set up your workspace based on whatever parameters you need. Microsoft introduced this feature in May.

copilot in loop

Credit: Microsoft