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, around 18 months after the daily-word-game craze hit the internet, and with good reason: it's fun, but also difficult.

What's more, its makers (now the online dictionary Merriam-Webster) are also keeping it fresh in the form of a variant called the Daily Sequence, which sees you complete four puzzles consecutively, rather than concurrently. 

But Quordle is tough, so if you already find yourself searching for Wordle hints, you'll probably need some for this game too. 

I'm a Quordle and Wordle fanatic who's been playing since December 2021, so I can definitely help you solve Quordle today and improve your game for tomorrow. Read on for my Quordle hints to game #619 and the answers to the main game and Daily Sequence. 

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 #619) - 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 #619) - hint #2 - total vowels

Quordle today (game #619) - hint #3 - repeated letters

Quordle today (game #619) - hint #4 - total letters

Quordle today (game #619) - hint #5 - uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #619) - hint #6 - 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 #619) - hint #7 - 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 #619) - the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #619, are…

• STRAW
• TILDE
• MINER
• CARVE

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Daily Sequence today (game #619) - the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #619, are…

• ROWDY
• EAGLE
• CEASE
• DROLL

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #618, Wednesday 4 October: WHIFF, CREEP, BLUNT, SPELL
• Quordle #617, Tuesday 3 October: QUALM, CAULK, VOILA, GOING
• Quordle #616, Monday 2 October: GUAVA, FLORA, LEGAL, ONION
• Quordle #615, Sunday 1 October: LEAST, ARRAY, BOWEL, MATEY
• Quordle #614, Saturday 30 September: MELEE, CHECK, SHONE, GLIDE
• Quordle #613, Friday 29 September: PARER, CLASP, SHARD, JERKY
• Quordle #612, Thursday 28 September: SAUCY, PEACH, SURER, STRIP
• Quordle #611, Wednesday 27 September: NOISY, CLEAT, EAGER, CARAT
• Quordle #610, Tuesday 26 September: SEDAN, CHARD, CHASM, GUSTO
• Quordle #609, Monday 25 September: LEASH, GAZER, GUILE, KNEED
• Quordle #608, Sunday 24 September: LUCKY, ANGRY, QUIET, LUCID
• Quordle #607, Saturday 23 September: HEARD, LOATH, GUEST, SIGMA
• Quordle #606, Friday 22 September: CHILI, METRO, PUREE, KIOSK
• Quordle #605, Thursday 21 September: AWARE, SHONE, SHADE, SHELF
• Quordle #604, Wednesday 20 September: TAMER, SNOUT, BLAND, SLEEP
• Quordle #603, Tuesday 19 September: WACKY, LAYER, FRUIT, MINER
• Quordle #602, Monday 18 September: SWEAR, LOWLY, STAND, UPSET
• Quordle #601, Sunday 17 September: SCRUB, DUSTY, QUOTH, UNCLE
• Quordle #600, Saturday 16 September: FLAIL, ALTAR, YACHT, HAUNT
• Quordle #599, Friday 15 September: FISHY, DRAKE, TORUS, SMOTE

Quordle FAQs: Everything you need to know

It makes sense for the generative AI engine Google Bard to add some of its smarts to the Google Assistant tool that's been setting alarms and looking up facts on the web for years – and that's exactly what Google has just announced at its Made by Google 2023 event.

Assistant with Bard is described as "a step towards a more personal assistant" by Google exec Sissie Hsiao, and it builds on the recently added integrations between Bard and other Google products like Gmail and Google Drive.

So, for example, you could ask Assistant with Bard to highlight the most important emails you've had this week for you, or get the tool to write a social media post for you, to accompany a photo of your very cute puppy.

Another demo Google ran through was checking where a party was (based on a Gmail invite), finding out how long it would take to get there (via Google Maps), and then sending a text offering to travel there with a specific friend.

Personalization and reasoning

"[Assistant with Bard] combines Bard's generative and reasoning capabilities with Assistant’s personalized help," writes Hsiao. "You can interact with it through text, voice or images – and it can even help take actions for you."

So you get all the creativity of Bard, plus the functionality of Google Assistant, plus the personalization offered by the integrations with other Google products. It's a pretty comprehensive package, and it's going to be available on Android and iOS over the next few months.

It looks as though some features will be exclusive to Android, because of Assistant's deeper hooks into apps and settings on that platform. Google has also emphasized that the product will be "built with your privacy in mind" and have individual privacy settings – so we'll wait and see what that means.

Generative AI was a big part of the multiple announcements at the Made by Google 2023 event today, from photo editing tricks on the Google Pixel 8 Pro to clearer voice calling on the Google Pixel Buds Pro. You can catch up on everything that happened on our Google Pixel 8 liveblog.

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Microsoft has recently introduced its newest major addition to Windows 11, an AI assistant named Windows Copilot. So far, it's seen a lukewarm reception due to bugs, and now users have noticed something else - Microsoft is putting ads into Copilot’s Bing Chat function. 

As you might have guessed, many users aren’t happy about this. Copilot is still under development and available as an optional update feature, and I would speculate that users who were excited by its introduction are hoping to see improvements and changes rather than advertisements.

Windows Latest reports that Microsoft has added ads that show up when users make certain queries in Copilot, giving the example of “compare Amazon Prime with Netflix.” This apparently prompts Copilot to show you an ad for Amazon Prime within its interface. Oh boy. 

This is possible because Copilot’s Bing Chat makes use of Microsoft Edge’s WebView2, a program that enables developers to render web content for apps within the browser. In recent times, Microsoft has seemingly followed Google’s lead and integrated ads more and more into its own platforms and programs. This isn’t even entirely unacceptable to users who use Bing, either. 

Many users are okay with ads in Bing and its applications in exchange for being able to use powerful AI tools like ChatGPT equipped with GPT-4 (the latest version of the tech powering ChatGPT - OpenAI’s own website only allows access to GPT-3 for free, although this might change soon) and DALL-E via Bing Image Creator. This doesn’t automatically extend to tolerating ads within Windows Copilot, however, especially with it being more deeply built into the Windows 11 interface. 

Windows Copilot: currently a work in progress

Windows Latest calls the current version of Copilot “boring and slow” (ouch) and many users are hoping that big changes are still to come. Users hope for developments like plugin support and being able to use Copilot in more Microsoft apps, like using it for tasks within Microsoft Office.

Microsoft did also present its Copilot assistant for enterprise users, Microsoft 365 Copilot, to assist in apps like Word and Excel. It’s unclear if regular Copilot will also assist non-enterprise users in this way at some point, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen.

Microsoft promoted Copilot as its state-of-the-art AI assistant product, integrating Bing Chat and the latest developments to ChatGPT from its collaboration with OpenAI. The initial reveal looked very promising and advertised Copilot as a pretty intelligent assistant, allowing it an understanding of context (such as what apps are open on your screen when you submit a query). So far, these kinds of promises look like they’re yet to be fulfilled, as apparently Copilot can’t open apps from your voice or text input just yet. 

This might not be what Copilot is for, compared to its predecessor Cortana, which could help open up apps and folders. It’s supposed to be more than an administrative assistant, and has many AI functionalities yet to be added. In its current form, it takes up a small amount of disk space and is an optional install. If you do install it and wish to turn it off, you can do so using the Group Policy editor.

Will users be able to remove ads in Copilot?

That said, you can’t simply turn off ads within Copilot if you want to continue using it, meaning that if you want to use Copilot, you'll have to tolerate ads. Bing Chat and Microsoft’s big bet on OpenAI and ChatGPT is arguably its biggest challenge to Google’s dominance in a while. It wants to convince as many people as possible to try the newly AI-charged Bing Search, and maybe even consider replacing Google Search with it. It’s not cheap to run an AI-powered search engine, though, and as long as Google Search still reigns supreme, ads are a way to generate revenue while Microsoft continues to experiment. 

Bing Chat does see some demand and even popularity among experts and enthusiasts in the AI community, especially those who want to try out GPT-4 and DALL-E for free. Most users understand that ads are an everyday part of our lives, especially online; a small price to pay to be able to use services and apps.

However, ads are also annoying and sometimes disruptive, and Microsoft has a lot of work to do in finding a balance between including ads to recoup its massive investments and not pushing away users with ad-based irritation - especially since the latter would mean that they don’t see the ads in the first place, thus potentially losing Microsoft its revenue. 

For me personally, if Copilot means there could be ads surfacing in the deeper levels of Windows 11, like in my local file browser or right in the search bar on my taskbar, I’ll probably be reluctant to use it.  If it keeps ads to more internet-centered apps and programs like Edge (or extensions on other browsers like Google Chrome), I’ll be more likely to try it and continue using it. The ball’s now in Microsoft’s court to hear user feedback and hopefully try something different with Copilot’s ads.

Intel has leaked some of its own marketing bumph pertaining to incoming next-gen desktop processors, Raptor Lake Refresh, giving us details on specs for some key models.

The material comes from Intel Japan, as discovered by VideoCardz, and these would represent the official specs (assuming, naturally, that the tech site hasn’t been duped somehow and these are fakes – though that seems unlikely, and they’d be elaborate ones, for sure).

Intel’s spilled slides show a trio of 14th-gen CPUs without naming them, but it’s obvious enough which processors they correspond with – and they align fully with previously leaked specs on the rumor mill.

The models are simply referred to as Core i9, Core i7 and Core i5. The Core-i9 is shown with 24 cores (8 performance, 16 efficiency) and a boost of up to 6GHz, and this is the flagship 14900K, of course.

The Core i7 is the 14700K, shown with 20 cores (8 performance, 12 efficiency) and a top boost speed of 5.6GHz. Finally, the Core i5 corresponds to the 14600K with 14 cores (6 performance, 8 efficiency) and a 5.3GHz boost.

Analysis: All the leaks are coming together now

We’ve seen a lot of leakage around the Core i5-14600K of late, and the 5.3GHz boost speed was rumored in those reports – it’s a solid 200MHz step up from the 13600K, of course. Performance rumors around the 14600K make this chip look like one to watch, as we discussed earlier this week.

The other Raptor Lake Refresh CPU making waves as a potentially tempting upgrade is a second processor mentioned here, namely the 14700K. This is the only one to up the core count from its Raptor Lake predecessor, according to very persistent rumors, and indeed the spec from the Intel slide confirms (caveats around possible fabrication aside) the purported 20-core loadout, with an extra four efficiency cores.

While those are the chips that have generated much of the excitement thus far – along with Raptor Lake Refresh’s overclocking potential, which looks robust – the 14900K also has more pep in its step thanks to that 6GHz boost speed. It’s the first time that model has reached this level (the 13900K featured a boost up to 5.8GHz, so again, the Raptor Lake Refresh successor is 200MHz faster, and that’ll be the uplift across most of these processors, rumor has it).

The other point to bear in mind here is that presentation materials like this tend to leak out when a launch is imminent, plus we’ve seen spillage of retail boxes recently too, all of which backs up the strong rumor that Intel is about to release Raptor Lake Refresh. The theory is an October 16 reveal followed by the 14th-gen desktop processors going on sale the next day.

Pricing will of course be a major factor as to how well these key models perform in challenging for a place on our list of the best processors. We remain cautiously hopeful on that front.

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It appears Apple has a new Mac waiting in the wings to unleash on the world later this month, according to some fresh chatter on the grapevine.

This comes from MacRumors which tapped a source for info relating to Mac trade-ins and how this could indicate the emergence of a new device later in October.

The story is that this is a trusted source who flagged up imminent changes to Apple’s trade-in scheme, namely that the company will start accepting new models for trading in later this month.

The dots are connected here because Apple applied similar changes to trade-ins back in June, with various new Macs being accepted for trade-ins which happened alongside the launch of new models from Apple (including the super-sized ‌MacBook Air 15-inch).

So, the expectation is that these fresh tweaks to trade-ins herald the arrival of something new on the Mac front.

There were a bunch of new machines involved with trade-in eligibility back in June, mind, and this time round Apple’s plans are apparently more modest, indicating that the October launches will be on a smaller scale – indeed, perhaps only one device.

Analysis: What Mac, or Macs, might be inbound, then?

As ever with rumors, we should be pretty cautious around just accepting them at face value, although MacRumors is a generally reliable news outlet for all things Apple-related, and makes it clear this is a trusted source as noted.

Still, even if the buzz on the grapevine is correct, and Apple is planning this, there’s no telling if it will follow through. (Although in this case, the timeframe of later this month is pretty tight, so any cancelation and change of plans would certainly be very last-minute).

MacRumors reckons the new Mac (or Macs) might arrive as soon as mid-October, so given that, accompanying trade-in adjustments really are imminent if they are happening, no doubt.

If we’re looking at one new Apple computer, what’s the most likely candidate to hit the shelves? That’s a difficult call to make, but whatever the machine that’ll be aiming for a spot on our list of the best Macs, it’s likely to be powered by an M3 chip.

Ever-present Apple leaker Mark Gurman has previously said that Apple could launch a ‌MacBook Air‌ 13-inch, a MacBook Pro of the same size, or a new iMac 24-inch, in October – or maybe even all three?

As noted, though, the launch plans for this month are likely to be more modest, as the source who spoke to MacRumors pointed out, and a single piece of hardware seems the most likely bet. From what we’ve heard elsewhere, there may not be a new MacBook for 2023, so by a process of elimination, the iMac 24-inch could be the most probable product launch from Apple in October.

An M3-powered Mac mini is also in the cards, by the way, but that isn’t due anytime soon, and the word is that it won’t emerge until next year.

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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, around 18 months after the daily-word-game craze hit the internet, and with good reason: it's fun, but also difficult.

What's more, its makers (now the online dictionary Merriam-Webster) are also keeping it fresh in the form of a variant called the Daily Sequence, which sees you complete four puzzles consecutively, rather than concurrently. 

But Quordle is tough, so if you already find yourself searching for Wordle hints, you'll probably need some for this game too. 

I'm a Quordle and Wordle fanatic who's been playing since December 2021, so I can definitely help you solve Quordle today and improve your game for tomorrow. Read on for my Quordle hints to game #618 and the answers to the main game and Daily Sequence. 

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 #618) - 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 #618) - hint #2 - total vowels

Quordle today (game #618) - hint #3 - repeated letters

Quordle today (game #618) - hint #4 - total letters

Quordle today (game #618) - hint #5 - uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #618) - hint #6 - 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 #618) - hint #7 - 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 #618) - the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #618, are…

• WHIFF
• CREEP
• BLUNT
• SPELL

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Daily Sequence today (game #618) - the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #618, are…

• ALONE
• SOOTY
• TORCH
• CRAFT

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #617, Tuesday 3 October: QUALM, CAULK, VOILA, GOING
• Quordle #616, Monday 2 October: GUAVA, FLORA, LEGAL, ONION
• Quordle #615, Sunday 1 October: LEAST, ARRAY, BOWEL, MATEY
• Quordle #614, Saturday 30 September: MELEE, CHECK, SHONE, GLIDE
• Quordle #613, Friday 29 September: PARER, CLASP, SHARD, JERKY
• Quordle #612, Thursday 28 September: SAUCY, PEACH, SURER, STRIP
• Quordle #611, Wednesday 27 September: NOISY, CLEAT, EAGER, CARAT
• Quordle #610, Tuesday 26 September: SEDAN, CHARD, CHASM, GUSTO
• Quordle #609, Monday 25 September: LEASH, GAZER, GUILE, KNEED
• Quordle #608, Sunday 24 September: LUCKY, ANGRY, QUIET, LUCID
• Quordle #607, Saturday 23 September: HEARD, LOATH, GUEST, SIGMA
• Quordle #606, Friday 22 September: CHILI, METRO, PUREE, KIOSK
• Quordle #605, Thursday 21 September: AWARE, SHONE, SHADE, SHELF
• Quordle #604, Wednesday 20 September: TAMER, SNOUT, BLAND, SLEEP
• Quordle #603, Tuesday 19 September: WACKY, LAYER, FRUIT, MINER
• Quordle #602, Monday 18 September: SWEAR, LOWLY, STAND, UPSET
• Quordle #601, Sunday 17 September: SCRUB, DUSTY, QUOTH, UNCLE
• Quordle #600, Saturday 16 September: FLAIL, ALTAR, YACHT, HAUNT
• Quordle #599, Friday 15 September: FISHY, DRAKE, TORUS, SMOTE
• Quordle #598, Thursday 14 September: CHEST, RIVER, THERE, EMCEE

Quordle FAQs: Everything you need to know

Meta has been struggling with the European market for its two major apps, Facebook and Instagram, due to the region’s strict privacy regulations. In fact, the tech giant had been hit with a record $1.3 billion fine for how it mishandled European user data back in May 2023 and since then Meta has been trying to avoid directly tussling with regulators.

But in a new and exclusive report from The Wall Street Journal (via TechCrunch), Meta has seemingly gone through with a solution to its regulation woes first brought up back in September – offer an ad-free subscription to European users, which would let them opt out of having their data harvested. 

According to the plan, Meta would charge €10 (about $17) a month for desktop Facebook and Instagram users and €6 (about $14) for each additional linked account. That price would go up to €13 a month for mobile device users due to Meta factoring in commissions charged by Apple and Google app stores. And what about those who can’t or won’t pay up? Then most likely they’ll be ‘opting in’ for ads and for having their social media usage tracked by the tech giant. 

TechRadar reached out to Meta for comment in order to both clarify the reported deal as well as confirm that users would have to pay up for free users. We received the following statement from spokesperson Matt Pollard: “Meta believes in the value of free services that are supported by personalized ads. However, we continue to explore options to ensure we comply with evolving regulatory requirements. We have nothing further to share at this time.”

The statement, though neither confirming nor denying the WSJ report, did point to the Court of Justice of the EU’s recent judgment that users shouldn’t be denied the use of a service if they don’t consent to data processing. But “users are to be offered, if necessary for an appropriate fee, an equivalent alternative not accompanied by such data processing operations.” This does hint at Meta at least being interested in charging for opt-outs.

More evidence pointing in that direction comes from a previous Meta blog post about intending to move to consent for tracking ads in the EU. However, that was followed by this statement: “Once this change is in place, advertisers will still be able to run personalized advertising campaigns to reach potential customers and grow their businesses.”

Which of course begs the question — could the US see this sort of ad-free subscriptions in the future? On one hand, it's unlikely since this is only a possibility in the EU in the first place due to its much stricter privacy regulations. But if the US government ever decided to tighten its own reigns on how data is collected and used by social media giants (and not just TikTok), then Meta might have to bring this concept across the pond.

So where does Meta stand in all this? Officially, we only have word from WSJ that Meta is trying to move forward with this subscription plan, but nothing confirming or denying from the tech giant itself. But going by past and present evidence, it’s definitely possible. The only thing we can really do is wait for any official confirmation from Meta.

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Nvidia’s RTX 3060 graphics card has made a big leap to take the top spot in the ranking of the most popular GPUs used on Steam, according to the latest hardware survey conducted by Valve.

The survey data for September shows that the RTX 3060 rose from 4.87% the previous month, where it was in second place behind the GTX 1650, to hit 6.27% and claim the number one slot (the 1650 dropped a touch to 4.78%).

That’s a pretty remarkable rise of 1.4% month-on-month for the RTX 3060, the kind of gain that isn’t seen often.

Mind you, we must take the Steam hardware survey with some caution, as the PCs included in the breakdown change from month to month, and that can cause some variance in itself as you might imagine. And there have been incidents where really weird things have happened in the past, as you may recall – let’s dig into that a bit more.

Analysis: A case of a skewed survey (again)? Perhaps…

A few times in the past with the Steam survey, we’ve seen a large uptick in Chinese PCs skew results quite badly. We know they’re PCs from China because when looking under language, simplified Chinese will see a big rise in these cases (and English inevitably has a similar shift in the other direction).

Notably, this has happened with the RTX 3060 in the past, with the GPU leaping to almost 10% adoption on Steam before levels returned to normal the following month. In that case, the rise did correspond with a big shift to more PCs in China getting included in the survey.

What about this time? Well, there is a slight rise in the percentage of PCs that use simplified Chinese of just over 5%, but that’s nothing like the tilting that has been observed in the past. As another example, we’ve witnessed an increase of 25% of Chinese PCs surveyed which caused a big swing in the percentages of Windows 10 and 11 users – and this was the size of the shift when the 3060 hit 10%, too.

So, a 5% uptick for Chinese PCs won’t make nearly as much in the way of waves – though it could possibly explain the gain made by the RTX 3060 GPU (which is clearly popular over in Asia, based on previous survey results). Or at least partly explain it, anyway.

The only way we’ll know for sure is if the RTX 3060 holds the top spot next month, or whether it reverts to more like previous percentages (just under 5%) – but we certainly can’t rule out that Nvidia’s GPU is making progress in terms of becoming more popular at this point.

As you may be aware, Nvidia very much owns the Steam GPU rankings, with Team Green taking the top 11 spots. The first AMD GPU seen, at number 12, is integrated graphics (meaning laptop gamers), and the top desktop graphics card for Team Red doesn’t even show up in the top 25 (the RX 580 is at number 26).

Via Tom’s Hardware

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The TechRadar Choice Awards 2023 are here, where we reward the best and most-loved tech available today – with some help from you.

Just below here, you can vote in our Computing and Gaming categories, though there are over 70 categories in the awards in total, and you can vote in them all right here if you prefer.

Our own computing and gaming experts produced the shortlists for these categories, but when it comes to choosing the final winners, we need your help!

You'll need to vote before 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on Tuesday October 3rd, 2023 for it to be counted.

UPDATE: We've extended the voting deadline to 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on Saturday October 7th, 2023! Don't miss your chance to vote!

At that time, we'll count your votes and then combine your choices with the votes of our expert judges to get the final results, and we'll announce the winners in our TechRadar Choice Awards Week, starting Monday October 23rd.

This is your chance to help the games and products you love the most to get some recognition for how good they are, so give them your support, and help us to honor the best of the best!

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