You Can Get This Ninja Phantom MAX 8 Drone on Sale for $80 Right Now

You can get the Ninja Phantom MAX 8 drone on sale for $79.99 right now (reg. $169.99). It’s an excellent beginner-friendly drone featuring a headless mode that makes taking off simple, and obstacle avoidance that helps you dodge trees and walls. You can pair your smartphone with the remote control to see through the drone’s HD front and bottom cameras and take photos or videos, and you can fly for up to twelve minutes before running out of batter. It also has a return function where the drone automatically finds its way back to the control and lands.

You can get the Ninja Phantom MAX 8 drone on sale for $79.99 right now (reg. $169.99), though prices can change at any time.

Microsoft Just Dropped a Bunch of New Copilot Features

After an underwhelming launch in June, Microsoft is retooling Copilot and Copilot+ to make it match up to its competitors a bit more. It's a mixed bag of an update though: It’s losing some of its initial, unique promises—there don’t seem to be any tools for adjusting your Windows settings included in the new version—even as it gains multimodal features (like ChatGPT) and AI generative fill (like Photoshop).

The Copilot chatbot gets a voice

In a series of videos and a blog post, Microsoft revealed that Copilot now comes with a new, more neutral look as well as the ability to chat over voice—and soon, it will also take input from video. It’s similar to what companies like Google are doing with Gemini Live, with a few Microsoft touches.

Most obvious are the cards that pop up when you open the new Copilot app or website, which resemble Microsoft’s live tiles UI from older versions of Windows and give you suggestions for what to do with Copilot based on your past conversations with the chatbot.

More interesting is the Copilot Daily feature, which presents a brief AI-generated summary of recent news headlines. These are taken from approved partners like Reuters or Financial Times, to prevent copyright issues, and are presented in a sort of TV news anchor voice. It could be helpful to quickly get caught up when waking up, although I’d caution against using a freshly developed robot as your only news source.

The new look and voice support are available for iOS, Android, and the web today, while Vision, which will let you point your camera at your surroundings in order to use them when asking the AI questions (say, "What breed of dog is this?"), is currently part of the experimental Copilot Labs program.

Also in Copilot Labs is “Think Deeper,” which will let you give the AI more time to answer your questions, hopefully improving your results. Copilot Labs features will be available to a limited number of Copilot Pro subscribers first—it’s not something you can just sign up for like a Windows Insider account.

At this point in the lifecycle of AI, none of these reveals are especially revolutionary, with even Copilot Daily having similar competition in apps like Perplexity. The unique but controversial Recall feature that will take continuous screenshots of your Copilot+ PC is still in testing, although Microsoft says it will come to testers with Qualcomm’s Copilot+ chips soon.

In the meantime, Copilot+ laptops are getting some additions to Paint and Search to hold them over. 

Copilot+ Laptops may soon finally be worth it

Credit: Microsoft

Building on the existing Cocreator in Paint feature, which uses generative AI to make images based on your sketches, Generative Fill and Generative Erase allow Copilot+ laptop owners to adjust their images without having to draw anything first. Fill will simply let you create and place AI imagery from text, while Erase works a bit like Google’s Magic Eraser, letting you paint over elements you want to remove from a photo with a brush, then watching as they get erased and replaced with imagery the AI thinks is appropriate.

Credit: Microsoft

There’s also AI upscaling in the Copilot+ version of the Photos app, with which on-device AI will fill in the blanks on low-res photos to increase their resolution as much as eightfold. Microsoft says you can get 4K results “within seconds,” although I’ll need to see more examples of its output before I can really recommend the tool.

Credit: Microsoft

Meanwhile, Windows Search on Copilot+ PCs will soon use AI to discern the content of your files, not just their names. That means you could search for “cat” and it could bring up photos of cats, even if “cat” is not in the file name. While Microsoft doesn't say that the feature is in testing, the company seems to think it’s not ready yet, saying it will be coming first to File Explorer next month, and to Windows Search and Settings “in the coming months.”

Perhaps this extra time is to address any privacy concerns that could come from Microsoft snooping through your files, as happened with Recall, although Microsoft does say the feature will work offline.

Credit: Microsoft

One feature that Microsoft does say is in testing is “Click to do.” Click to Do seems sort of like an AI-powered right click, with Copilot analyzing what you’re currently doing on your PC and suggesting appropriate actions in a context menu. It’s a bit more involved, since you’ll need to access the Snipping Tool or Print Screen to do it, but it’s the one new feature that hearkens back to Copilot’s initial promises of, well, helping you pilot through Windows. Click to Do will be available to Windows Insiders on Copilot+ laptops next month.

Overall, today’s changes and announcements are hefty, in the sense that there’s a lot to dig into, but it might be a while until they actually impact your workflows, as some are in testing and you’ll need a Copilot+ laptop to access most of them. Whether that'll make Copilot+ worth the investment remains to be seen, but in a best-case scenario, features like Generative Fill could potentially save you the cost of a Photoshop subscription.

Try ‘Density Sets’ to Actually Do Those Exercises You Keep Skipping

You have an exercise you’re always “forgetting” to do. I know you do. For some of us it’s curls, for some of us it’s everything but curls. If you’re short on time or motivation, let me introduce you to my favorite trick for actually getting everything in: density sets.

What are density sets? 

Density sets, also called density training, refers to timed sets of an exercise, or more often two exercises in a superset. I generally do normal sets-and-reps training for most of my lifts, but add in a few density sets for accessories or anything I otherwise would be tempted to skip. 

In density training, you set a timer, and then do as much of your target exercise as possible in that time. I like to use a five-minute timer for a quick burst of accessories, or 10 minutes for something I need to spend more time on. You can choose the number that works for you, and even increase or decrease the time from one training block to the next.

It’s called “density” because the idea is to do as many reps as possible during that time. You can track how many reps you do, and try to beat it the next time. 

How do you do density training? 

First, choose your exercises. I find this works best with a superset of either antagonistic (opposite) exercises, like bicep curls and tricep extensions, or with exercises that work entirely different body parts, like core work for the abs and grip work for the forearms. Warm up for those exercises, if needed. 

Then you start the timer. Begin doing the exercises, but on each set, you don’t want to go all the way to failure. Get close, but quit while you still have a few reps in the tank. This maximizes how many total reps you’ll be able to do before the timer goes off. 

After you’ve done a set of each exercise, rest for the minimum time possible and then get right back into it. It’s normal for those later sets to be fewer reps than the first set, and that’s fine. And if you do hit true failure, that’s also fine! Just keep going, one way or another. If you end up doing 2-3 reps in each of these mini sets toward the end, so be it. If you want to track progress, make sure you write down the weight you used and how many total reps you did. 

Pros of density training

The absolute best thing about density training is that if you set a five-minute timer, you’ll know it will be over in five minutes. Just think: That exercise you keep putting off? Five minutes from now you will be done. 

It’s also great for bro-style pump work. You know, the kind of thing where you get the blood flowing to the target muscles, make them feel like jelly, and walk away looking and feeling temporarily super jacked (this is the ideal time for a gym mirror selfie). 

You also don’t have time to overthink the minutia. How many reps? Enough. How much rest? Until you’re ready to go again. How many sets? As many as it takes to fill the five minutes. 

Cons of density training

During a density set, you don’t have much time to switch weights or to log the exact weight you used, if you did. 

You also aren’t giving yourself enough rest for quality strength work. Density training can make you stronger, but if strength is your focus, you should really make time for some heavier work with three- to five-minute rest times. 

You can do all your training as density sets, and honestly, if I were really crunched for time—had to get a whole workout in in a 20- or 30-minute session—I’d probably organize it into density sets. But for most of us, density sets work best for a few accessories at the end of the day, not all of our training.

Examples of density training

Supersets are great for density training, since you can rest one set of muscles while doing an exercise with another. Say it takes 30 seconds to do a set of bicep curls, and then another 30 for a set of tricep kickbacks. Rest for 30 seconds in between, and now your biceps get a full minute of rest. (You may even be able to skip that last rest, if the 30 seconds of tricep work was enough.) 

You can also do tri-sets (like a superset but with three exercises). And of course you can do single exercises if you want, but I’d recommend at least doubling up. Here are some good supersets that you can do as density work, with examples of exercises you might choose for each: 

• Biceps (curls) and triceps (kickbacks or overhead extensions)

• Core (ab roller) and grip (wrist roller)

• Push-ups (or dips) and inverted rows (or pull-ups)

• Goblet squats and kettlebell swings

• Band walks (for abductors) and Copenhagen planks (for adductors)

• Front raises, lateral raises, and reverse flies (for the three heads of the deltoid)

Don’t forget that I also have a list of my favorite supersets here. Because of the time crunch, it’s best to choose exercises you can do with the same weight (like squats and swings with the same kettlebell) or on the same machine (that list has some examples of cable supersets you can do with just one station on a cable machine). 

And if you ever have exercises that you’ve been prescribed by a physical therapist but you always hate doing…guess what, those are great candidates for density sets as well. 

The Best Alternatives to Verizon Wireless, If You've Had Enough

Yesterday, a massive outage hit Verizon customers across the U.S., leaving millions unable to make calls or stuck with their phones in SOS mode. The outage is the last straw for some Verizon customers. If you're one of them, and you're looking for a new provider of cell phone service, you have options. Below are the best deals on non-Verizon cell phone service.

Mint Mobile: best overall bargain

If you're going for the overall least expensive plan with your existing phone, Mint Mobile is for you. Mint is currently offering new customers a promotional rate of $15 a month, for the first three months, for any of its data plans. After that, the pricing is based on the tier of service you've chosen and how far you much of a commitment you want to make. Mint's "unlimited" plan is $35 a month if you sign up for six months, and $30 a month if you commit to a year. Check out the site for a full breakdown of plans and prices.

The downside: if you need a new phone, Mint might not be the choice for you. It offers discounts on phones, but they aren't the best you can get.

T-Mobile: best data plan

If your priority is data, and you download and upload a ton of it, consider switching to T-Mobile, specifically its Magenta plan. Magenta comes with perks like discounts to Hilton hotels, Hertz rental cars, and concert venues, but the real draw is an "unlimited" plan that offers the best overall mobile network (according to our sister site PCMag) and 100GB of data usage per month before they throttle you. AT&T's comparable plan offers 50GB—and AT&T is $5 a month more.

The downside: Magenta isn't cheap. The plan costs $70 a month.

AT&T: best new phone discounts

If you're planning on getting a new phone when you switch away from Verizon, consider AT&T. The company is offering a rebate of up to $1,000 toward the purchase of an iPhone 16 when you trade in your old handset. If you're about that Android life, AT&T is offering a Pixel 9 Pro XL for free if you have a decent trade-in. AT&T's network also offers the widest coverage and a lower percentage of dropped calls than either T-Mobile or Verizon.

The downside: According to PC Mag's 2023 survey of user satisfaction, AT&T is sitting at number 10, behind even TracFone and Verizon.

Google Fi: best family plans

Google Fi offers the best deal for multiple phone. Its "Simply Unlimited" plan costs $100 for four people. Of course the "unlimited" part doesn't mean that, but 35GB of data before they put the brakes on it is adequate for most people. Plus, Google Fi uses T-Mobile's excellent network. Google Fi is at the top of PC Mag's user satisfaction survey too.

The downside: Fi is better for Android users. You can use an iPhone on Google Fi, but it won't get 5G service, yet.

Tello: best minimalist phone service

If you want barebones, minimal phone service, pre-paid wireless company Tello offers a no-data plan for only $8 a month. That's cheaper than a hamburger! If you're anything like me, the first time you're stuck in line buying that hamburger, you'll want a data plan. Luckily you can upgrade to plans that include data whenever you want. Tello also offers sweet anti-cool phones like the NUU F4L flip phone for only $89.

The downside: Tello doesn't offer discounts for multiple lines, and you'll pay extra for international roaming.

How to Get Your iPhone Out of SOS Mode

If you are one of the millions of Verizon customers whose phones are currently stuck in “SOS Mode,” there’s some good news and some bad news. The good news: Getting your phone out of SOS Mode is a few steps away. The bad: Solving the underlying Verizon outage, and thus, getting your phone service working again, is another story.

First, some business. This should only be affecting iPhone 14 and above users or Android users with Satellite SOS. It’s a bug of the SOS feature, where once you’ve activated SOS (and yes, I know you probably didn't do so, which is what makes this more painful), the SOS won’t go away until the phone finds service again. Since service is out, that’s a tricky situation. 

Consider first: Do you really want to fix the problem? As long as the outage persists, you can use SOS mode to call emergency services if you need it. It doesn’t help if you need to call your boss, though.

Even once Verizon restores service, it might take a few ticks for your phone to get back on board, so trying these steps might solve the problem. 

• Turn your cellular data on and off. This is usually in your settings, and works like a soft reset, forcing the phone to look for a signal again. 

• Restarting your phone has the above effect, plus resets any cache or apps that were running before. 

• While it’s unlikely to be the fix Verizon rolls out, you might as well see if there’s a software update.  Obviously, this will only work if you’re connected to wifi. Go to Settings > General > About.

• You can actually turn your cellular line off and on if you’re using an eSIM. Go to Settings > Cellular > your phone number and turn the line on and off. If you’re using a physical SIM card, take it out and put it back in. 

• You can try resetting your network settings, but this is a drastic action and since we know the SOS issue is likely related to the Verizon outage, you might not want to do so. If you do, all your networks and passwords for wifi, cellular and VPN will be toast.

Today’s Wordle Hints (and Answer) for Tuesday, October 1, 2024

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for October 1, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is medium difficult; I got it in five. Beware, there are spoilers below for October 1, Wordle #1,200! 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.)

There are three common letters from our mnemonic today. The other two are also pretty common.

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

This computer part dials up.

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

There is one repeated letter today. 

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There are two vowels.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with M. 

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with M. 

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is MODEM.

How I solved today’s Wordle

I started with RAISE and TOUCH, followed by BLEND to eliminate the most common letters. Next I tried PYGMY, which includes consonants found in a lot of possible answers. This left MODEM as the best solution.

Wordle 1,200 5/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
⬛🟩⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟨⬛🟨
⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

---

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle was easier. The hint was "this is found in the sky” and the answer contained four common letters and one fairly common letter.

The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was CLOUD.

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:

• Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after another

• Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.

• Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.

• Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.

• Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.

• Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

The Easiest Ways to Nurse Your Garden Soil Back to Health This Winter

Winter is a time I think about being cozy and doing some restorative work on myself. Daily stretching, face masks, lots of sleep. Surprisingly, your garden desperately wants the same kind of self help, and providing that help to your soil is as easy as doing a little detective work this fall. 

It's easy to think of soil as mere dirt, but it’s so much more complicated. If you garden, both the structure and nutritional content of your soil is the most influential factor in the success of whatever you plant. You want rich soil with good drainage, but the ability to hold onto some moisture. It should be just sandy enough for great root growth, but too much sand won’t have enough nutrients for most plants. It should be rich in nutrients, but not too much of any particular nutrient or else it will send the wrong message to plants. 

Start with a layer of compost

The solution is three-fold. First, every fall you want to top-dress your beds with compost. Not all compost is created equal, so if you’re not creating your own compost, don’t just dump horse manure in your yard. Choose compost that has been tested and is well broken down. It doesn’t have to be expensive—I use city compost and am quite happy with it. 

This top dressing helps restore nutrients, but it also helps restore volume of your bed, since your soil becomes compacted over time and you lose some to erosion and as you pull out plants each year. 

You’re not using enough mulch

People simply don’t use enough mulch. Mulch is natural insulation, so it will keep your bed soil at a more moderate temperature with less fluctuations, and it helps retain moisture in the bed. That means less damage from heat domes and freezing. In fact, for years I used to take my largest outdoor potted plants and just bury them between the rows of berries under two feet of mulch, and they were fine.

Once you’ve composted, if you don’t intend to use a cover crop, mulch your beds with a few inches of chips, leaves, or straw. If you’re going to plant a fall crop, just pull away the mulch, plant, and keep the mulch away from the stem of the plant.  

If you’re not planting a fall crop, plant a cover crop

A cover crop is a seed you broadcast (similar to how you plant grass, densely) that will grow over winter. Come spring, you’ll hack the crop down and allow it to compost in place, either by tilling it in, or by flattening it and covering it with plastic. Not only does this cover crop provide rich nutrients back to the soil, but a number of cover crops can solve really specific problems with your soil.

If you have compacted soil, oil driller radish (a form of daikon) will break it up. If you have a lot of weeds in your bed, plant winter rye. If you had heavy feeder crops in the bed this summer, like corn, which needs a ton of nitrogen, plant hairy vetch or fava beans to replenish the nitrogen levels. If erosion is a problem, white clover will keep your soil safe this winter. To alleviate pests, plant mustards, and if your soil could use more humus, plant cowpeas. 

Your local nursery will have bulk cover crop seed and can help you figure out what would be best for your beds. This is an inexpensive and highly effective way to amend the nutrients and bring your soil back to health.