Tag: Today

Categories
Featured

Quordle today – hints and answers for Tuesday, March 26 (game #792)

[ad_1]

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

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

There are two key things to remember. 

1. Use several starting words

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

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

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

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

2. Narrow things down

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

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

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

[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Bisnis Industri

Wine cellar bet on Newton MessagePad: Today in Apple history

[ad_1]

March 25: Today in Apple history: Apple executive Gaston Bastiaens bets his wine cellar on Newton March 25, 1993: Apple executive Gaston Bastiaens bets a journalist that the eagerly anticipated Newton MessagePad will ship before summer ends. The prize? Bastiaens’ well-stocked personal wine cellar, worth thousands of dollars.

The bet takes place at the CeBit trade show in Hanover, Germany. Bastiaens’ outburst comes in response to a reporter’s needling. The gamble not only gives the Newton a release timetable, but also a price target: less than $1,000.

Newton MessagePad: A brief history (and a wine cellar bet)

The Newton MessagePad was an ahead-of-its-time device. Apple released several versions of the personal digital assistant, which used a stylus for handwriting recognition. It gave users a way to send emails and faxes while on the go, and programs called Names, Dates, To Dos and Notes let them manage their daily tasks. In many ways, the MessagePad predicted the kind of mobile device success Apple would later achieve with the iPhone.

People both inside and outside the company often regarded Apple’s PDA as then-CEO John Sculley‘s answer to Steve Jobs’ Mac. However, the Newton was the brainchild of an Apple engineer named Steve Sakoman. Passionately dedicated to handheld computing, he previously built the HP 110, the world’s first battery-powered portable MS-DOS PC, while at Hewlett-Packard in the 1980s.

The Apple PDA started out as a skunkworks project in 1987. It continued as an R&D investigation until 1991, when Sculley saw it. From this point on, the Newton project pushed full speed ahead.

Problems with handwriting recognition

By 1993, however, the Newton encountered problems. For one thing, the handwriting recognition software did not work as well as planned. The project also experienced tragedy when programmer Ko Isono, who worked on the software side of the Newton, committed suicide in his home in Fremont, California. It was a dark time for all involved.

Nonetheless, the press remained eager to know what Apple planned for its breakthrough device — hence the wine cellar bet in Hanover.

Ultimately, the Newton launched in August 1993, just before the official end of summer. While it later became a worthwhile product in its own right, the first-gen Newton proved disappointing and seemingly unfinished. Some people suggested that Bastiaens rushed its release because he loved his wine cellar so much.



[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Featured

Quordle today – hints and answers for Monday, March 25 (game #791)

[ad_1]

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

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

There are two key things to remember. 

1. Use several starting words

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

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

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

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

2. Narrow things down

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

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

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

[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Bisnis Industri

Newton MessagePad 2000 brings upgrades: Today in Apple history

[ad_1]

March 24: Today in Apple history: Newton MessagePad 2000 takes Apple PDA to new heights March 24, 1997: The Newton MessagePad 2000 brings major upgrades to Apple’s PDA line, including a far better display and a much faster processor.

The best MessagePad yet by a wide margin, it quickly becomes a critical and commercial success. But it won’t be enough to save the doomed product line.

Newton MessagePad 2000: Bigger and faster

Much as the iPhone X brought an OLED screen for the first time, the MessagePad 2000 introduced a major upgrade to the Newton display. Of course, in 1997 that did not mean the arrival of ultra-sharp OLED. Instead, the Newton simply gained a higher-resolution screen (480 by 320 pixels, compared to the previous model’s 320 by 240).

In addition, the screen grew by 20%, measuring 4.9 inches by 3.3 inches, yielding a 100 dpi display. While not color, the MessagePad 2000 for the first time offered 16-level grayscale pixels rather than the simple black-and-white two-tone of the PDA’s predecessors.

The processor got a major upgrade as well. A 160 MHz StrongARM 110 CPU made this model many times faster than previous Newtons while using just one-quarter the power. This meant the MessagePad 2000 could deliver more than 24 hours of continuous battery life.

On top of this, the upgraded Apple PDA packed neat features like dual-mode IrDA-beaming capabilities, which allowed Newton users to wirelessly exchange information with one another. And of course the Newton’s stylus-based handwriting recognition.

Newton MessagePad 2000 software

As far as software went, the MessagePad 2000 came bundled with a calendar app called Dates, a to-do list app called Notepad, a contact manager called Names, as well as the EnRoute i-NET email client, NetHopper web browser, Newton Works word processor and more. For an extra $50, you could buy a spreadsheet app.

Wondering how the MessagePad 2000 got online for email and internet access? This could be achieved by connecting a modem into one of the PDA’s pair of PC Card slots.

MessagePad 2000: Apple’s Newton is not such a failure anymore

The Newton MessagePad 2000's original box.
The Newton MessagePad 2000 came in this box.
Photo: Computers.popcorn

As I’ve noted before in “Today in Apple history,” the Newton MessagePad is criminally underrated as a product line. People frequently write it off as a failure — quite unfairly.

In fact, the MessagePad 2000 showed that the Newton was truly coming into its own.

The Newton had been more than usable since at least 1995, when the Newton MessagePad 120 launched in the United States. Around that time, Apple also released the vastly superior NewtonOS 2.0, which solved many of the problems with handwriting recognition that plagued earlier models.

With its massive boost in power and superior display, the MessagePad 2000 was the best Newton yet. It proved incredibly popular with customers. And that finally laid to rest the notion that the Newton was a commercial bomb.

“The sales we have achieved in our first 30 days and customer response validate our claim that the MessagePad 2000 is a compelling business machine,” Sandy Bennett, vice president of the Newton Systems Group at Apple, said in a press release soon after the product’s launch. “Our bookings rates are running five times as high as they were a year ago.”

Prefiguring the later popularity of the iPod with non-Mac users, an estimated 60% of MessagePad customers used Windows computers. For true believers in Cupertino, it provided proof positive that a mobile revolution was truly underway.

In fact, Apple considered the MessagePad 2000 so successful that the company spun out the device as a separate startup called Newton Inc.

This is (almost) the end, beautiful friend

Sadly, the Newton became one of the casualties of Steve Jobs’ return to Apple in 1997. Given that he needed to cut costs, and that refocusing on the Mac resulted in the massively successful iMac G3 and iBook, it’s hard to say killing the Newton was the wrong decision. Still, it seemed a shame at a time when the MessagePad had finally proven itself.

Apple released just one more device in the series, November 1997’s MessagePad 2100. Jobs canceled the product line early the following year.

The idea of creating a truly great mobile device didn’t go away, of course. Today, the Newton’s legacy is the iPhone, which makes up the overwhelming bulk of Apple’s revenue.

Did you own a Newton MessagePad 2000? Leave your comments below.



[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Featured

Quordle today – hints and answers for Sunday, March 24 (game #790)

[ad_1]

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

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

[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Featured

Quordle today – hints and answers for Saturday, March 23 (game #789)

[ad_1]

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

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

[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Bisnis Industri

PowerCD paves way toward Apple’s future: Today in Apple history

[ad_1]

March 22: Today in Apple history: PowerCD launch March 22, 1993: Apple launches the PowerCD, the first device from the company that doesn’t require a computer to work.

A portable CD player that also works as an external CD drive for Macs, it offers a glimpse of the extremely lucrative path Apple will follow a decade later. However, the PowerCD itself will ultimately fail in the marketplace.

This post contains affiliate links. Cult of Mac may earn a commission when you use our links to buy items.

The bad good old days at Apple

While the 1990s proved the least-profitable period in Apple’s history, I’ve always had a soft spot for the company’s products from that era. Part of this is, admittedly, nostalgia for the Apple devices I saw growing up.

However, the crazy level of experimentation Apple engaged in then also fuels my interest. From the Newton MessagePad to the Macintosh TV to the Pippin game console to the QuickTake camera, Apple clearly didn’t feel afraid to try new things in the 1990s.

True, most of those products flopped. But it’s remarkable how many of them wound up, with a few tweaks, laying the foundations for Apple’s massive success in the following decade.

The PowerCD did exactly that. Launched for $499 in 1993 — the equivalent of more than $1,000 today — the standalone CD player also served as a Mac peripheral. Available alongside the AppleDesign Powered Speakers, the PowerCD reminded some of Sony’s portable Discman CD player. However, the PowerCD did much more. It could read Kodak photo CDs and data CDs as well as playing regular audio discs. It even came with its own remote control.

PowerCD: Apple’s spin on the CD player

Apple PowerCD was a pretty neat product, despite its lack of success.
The PowerCD was a pretty neat product, despite its lack of success.
Photo: Jonathan Zufi

The PowerCD, which worked without a computer when powered by six AA batteries, wasn’t actually manufactured by Apple. Instead, it was a rebranded Philips CDF 100 (which Kodak also sold as the PCD 880).

Still, Apple added a few neat touches that made the PowerCD memorable. If plugged into a Mac via SCSI, the device worked as a peripheral to provide an external CD-ROM drive. At a time when not all Macs came with CD drives, the device provided an easy option for upgrading a Mac’s functionality.

Sadly, like so many of the aforementioned great Apple products from the ’90s, the PowerCD failed to catch on with consumers. It wound up being the only product released by the Apple design subgroup, Mac Like Things, which Cupertino established following the launch of the Newton. Apple discontinued the PowerCD just a few years after the device’s launch.

The photos of the PowerCD were kindly provided by Jonathan Zufi, whose book, Iconic: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation, is available on Amazon.



[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Featured

Quordle today – hints and answers for Friday, March 22 (game #788)

[ad_1]

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

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

[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Bisnis Industri

Apple TV launch fails to impress: Today in Apple history

[ad_1]

March 21: Today in Apple history: Apple launches the Apple TV March 21, 2007: Apple launches the Apple TV, a gleaming white set-top box with a remote control, for bringing iTunes media to the living room.

Unfortunately, the device lacks key features needed to make it a killer entertainment system. It’s something of a missed opportunity for Apple.

Apple TV builds on a solid foundation

A bit like Apple’s move into music with the iPod and iTunes Music Store, producing a streaming video device made perfect sense. Given Apple’s history — and Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ Hollywood contacts, courtesy of his position as The Walt Disney Company’s largest shareholder — the company seemed perfectly poised to straddle the high-tech and entertainment worlds.

Even in the years that Jobs worked outside Apple, Cupertino innovated in this area. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Apple pioneered software for playing video on a personal computer. In the mid-1990s, the company launched the bold-but-unsuccessful Macintosh TV. That weird hybrid machine melded a Performa 520 Mac and a 14-inch Sony Trinitron CRT television.

After Jobs’ return, Apple launched its enormously successful movie trailer website, which became the place to download high-quality teasers for movies like Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, The Lord of the Rings and Spider-Man. Following this, Apple started selling TV shows through iTunes.

With that success in the rearview mirror, a standalone Apple TV seemed primed to take the world’s living rooms by storm.

First look at Apple TV

Right from Apple TV launch, however, it became clear that the device wasn’t Apple’s primary focus. Despite the company’s well-deserved reputation for secrecy and not releasing products until absolutely ready, Cupertino showed off Apple TV as a work in progress at a special event on September 12, 2006. (The company initially referred to the device as the “iTV,” but changed the name later after legal threats from the British broadcaster of the same name.)

Apple didn’t start shipping Apple TV units until March 21 the following year, however. By that time, any excitement had been eclipsed by a little device called the iPhone.

By contrast, the first-gen Apple TV wasn’t a revolutionary product so much as a Mac accessory for slinging downloaded content to your TV. Initially, owners could not order a movie for Apple TV directly through their TV sets, despite the device’s internet connectivity. Instead, users had to download movies to their Macs, then send them to their Apple TVs.

Worse, despite insisting that you own an HDTV to use it, the video played by Apple TV was, in the words of Fortune‘s review, “so low-res that it looks as fuzzy as plain old broadcast TV.”

Apple works to improve its set-top box

Apple quickly improved the Apple TV interface. On January 15, 2008, a major software update transformed the device into a stand-alone gadget. Finally, Apple TV owners no longer needed a computer running iTunes to stream and sync content to it.

A later update let customers use their iPhones, iPods and iPads as remote controls for Apple TV. And subsequent versions of the set-top box continued to head in the right direction.

For the most part, though, observers initially called the Apple TV launch a rare “miss” for Apple. Within the device’s first six months, Apple sold only 250,000 Apple TV units. Even Jobs admitted the product was more “a hobby” than a serious undertaking.

By late 2008, Forbes called it a notable misstep — and labeled it “The iFlop.”

Later versions of Apple TV

A second-generation Apple TV, launched in September 2010, sported a much smaller black enclosure and supported video up to 720p resolution. The third-gen model, which arrived in March 2012, looked the same as its predecessor but bumped up video resolution to 1080p (and added HomeKit support for home automation).

The fourth-gen Apple TV added key features in 2015, including an App Store and Siri voice commands. Plus, it ran on a new operating system, dubbed tvOS, which was based on iOS.

It also came with a sleek, touch-sensitive remote control that looked great but infuriated many users. Two years later, the Apple TV 4K boosted the device’s video capabilities and made the remote slightly more user-friendly.

With the launch of the Apple TV+ streaming service in late 2019, Cupertino finally may have cracked the television formula. And in 2021, the sixth-gen Apple TV 4K arrived, upgraded with a speedier A14 chip and a redesigned Siri Remote.



[ad_2]

Source Article Link

Categories
Featured

Better than Amazon: Best Buy’s gaming laptop deals start at just $699 today

[ad_1]

Looking for a gaming laptop? You may be eying the Amazon Big Spring Sale as a potential option, but let me tell you upfront – today’s best deals are actually at Best Buy.

Don’t get me wrong – Amazon’s deals on gaming laptops today are OK, but they don’t quite match the competition when it comes to outright value, in my opinion.

[ad_2]

Source Article Link