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A group of researchers from Technical University (TU) Berlin have uncovered a vulnerability in AMD-based vehicle infotainment systems that allows attackers to unlock restricted vehicle features.

This is most noteworthy in vehicles that offer premium features behind a paywall, including Tesla which has one of the (if not the) most extensive systems of its type, though the automaker is not alone in charging for optional extras - with BMW also hitting headlines in recent months over subscription models to commodities like heated seats. 

The team says that “hacking the embedded car computer could allow users to unlock these features without paying.”

Tesla jailbreak

There are two distinct concerns at bay. Firstly, an “unpatchable AMD-based Tesla Jailbreak” allows an attacker to run arbitrary software on the in-car display. Secondly, the extraction of a vehicle-unique hardware-bound RSA key allows an attacker to authenticate a car and open it up to Tesla’s services.

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According to those behind the discovery, a voltage fault injection attack was carried out on the AMD Ryzen SoC used in Tesla's MCU-Z.

It’s unclear which chargeable options can be accessed via an attack, however in an email to Tom’s Hardware, the TU Berlin researchers said that not all software upgrades are accessible. Depending on the model and year, upgrades can range from extras like heated rear seats to acceleration boosts, and full self-driving capabilities.

Tesla dissolved its press department in 2020, so much like Twitter, hearing news from the mouth of Elon Musk is about the only way to separate fact from fiction. Still, the automaker has not publicly commented on the vulnerability as yet.

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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 good 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 new 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 #559 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 #559) - hint #1 - Vowels

How many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 5*.

* 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 #559) - hint #2 - total vowels

What is the total number of vowels in Quordle today?

• The total number of vowels across today's Quordle answers is 7.

Quordle today (game #559) - hint #3 - repeated letters

Do any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 0.

Quordle today (game #559) - hint #4 - total letters

How many different letters are used in Quordle today?

• The total number of different letters used in Quordle today is 14.

Quordle today (game #559) - hint #5 - uncommon letters

Do the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

• Yes. One of Q, Z, X or J appears among today's Quordle answers.

Quordle today (game #559) - hint #6 - starting letters (1)

Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?

• The number of today's Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 0.

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 #559) - hint #7 - starting letters (2)

What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• Q

• M

• S

• E

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

Quordle today (game #559) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #559, are…

• QUASH
• MOULT
• STALK
• EDICT

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

---

Daily Sequence today (game #559) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #559, are…

• FREAK
• JERKY
• CLING
• SCRUM

---

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #558, Saturday 5 August: SPASM, TRAWL, LEVER, BIRTH
• Quordle #557, Friday 4 August: SHAKY, OWING, HOMER, PICKY
• Quordle #556, Thursday 3 August: BIGOT, AMPLE, LAUGH, EASEL
• Quordle #555, Wednesday 2 August: SLUMP, FLUTE, RUMBA, REACH
• Quordle #554, Tuesday 1 August: ANNOY, TAPER, TRIAL, HOUSE
• Quordle #553, Monday 31 July: SQUAT, CHOSE, SNORT, THERE
• Quordle #552, Sunday 30 July: SHAWL, WRITE, ALONG, DEMON
• Quordle #551, Saturday 29 July: VALUE, ALONG, ALIVE, LEAST
• Quordle #550, Friday 28 July: TOTEM, BASAL, PULSE, COUCH
• Quordle #549, Thursday 27 July: EVADE, SPICE, FLOAT, ALIGN
• Quordle #548, Wednesday 26 July: INDEX, TAKER, CURVE, PEACH
• Quordle #547, Tuesday 25 July: HAIRY, ROWDY, QUARK, LIMIT
• Quordle #546, Monday 24 July: STUFF, HIPPO, LIVER, BLINK
• Quordle #545, Sunday 23 July: ENTRY, GIDDY, STAMP, VOMIT
• Quordle #544, Saturday 22 July: BEFIT, JIFFY, ARENA, TOUCH
• Quordle #543, Friday 21 July: ROUND, TEPID, LIVER, IRATE
• Quordle #542, Thursday 20 July: ENTER, TRULY, USUAL, CIVIL
• Quordle #541, Wednesday 19 July: WORST, KAYAK, HENCE, ZEBRA
• Quordle #540, Tuesday 18 July: DEBUT, HOARD, SILLY, UPPER
• Quordle #539, Monday 17 July: LUPUS, ALIVE, SALLY, ABLED

Quordle FAQs: Everything you need to know

What is Quordle?

Where Wordle challenges you to guess a new five-letter word each day, Quordle presents you with four puzzles to solve. And rather than complete them in turn, you do so simultaneously. You get nine guesses, rather than the six for Wordle, but the rules are otherwise very similar. 

It's played online via the Quordle website and you can also get to it via the Merriam-Webster site, after the dictionary purchased Quordle last year. 

As with Wordle, the answers are the same for every player each day, meaning that you're competing against the rest of the world. And also as with Wordle, the puzzle resets at midnight so you have a fresh challenge each day.

The website also includes a practice mode - which I definitely recommend using before attempting the game proper! - and there are daily stats including a streak count. You also get Quordle Achievements - specific badges for winning a game in a certain number of turns, playing lots of times, or guessing particularly hard words.

Oh, and it's difficult. Really difficult.

What are the Quordle rules?

The rules of Quordle are almost identical to those of Wordle.

1. Letters that are in the answer and in the right place turn green.

2. Letters that are in the answer but in the wrong place turn yellow. 

3. Letters that are not in the answer turn gray…

4. …BUT the word you guess appears in all quadrants of the puzzle at the same time, so an A could turn green in one square, yellow in another and gray in the final two. 

5. Answers are never plural.

6. Letters can appear more than once. So if your guess includes two of one letter, they may both turn yellow, both turn green, or one could be yellow and the other green.

7. Each guess must be a valid word in Quordle's dictionary. You can't guess ABCDE, for instance.

8. You do not have to include correct letters in subsequent guesses and there is no equivalent of Wordle's Hard mode.

9. You have nine guesses to find the Quordle answers.

10. You must complete the daily Quordle before midnight in your timezone.

What is a good Quordle strategy?

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.

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These 10 High-Yield Savings Accounts Offer 5% APY or More Right Now - CNET

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AMD launched its fastest CPU ever, the EPYC “Bergamo” 9754, in June 2023 and back then it carried a suggested retail price of $11,900. Just weeks later, we managed to track this 128-core processor in the US for well under $9,500 from two respected providers, Wiredzone and Tech-America. 

The latter has the tray version of the EPYC 9754 (100-000001234) on preorder for $9,348, a 21.44% discount or $2,552, which is a lot for a very new product that’s in demand with even higher discounts when purchasing 100 parts or more.

Such big drop in prices do happen more frequently than not. I noted earlier in February 2023 that AMD slashed the price of its Genoa-based EPYC 9654 processor, the predecessor of the 9754 just a few months after it launched. The discount back then was even higher at 30% and back then I called that drop “both surprising and worrying for AMD”.

That’s even more puzzling given that fourth generation AMD EPYC processors have sold like hot cakes according to AMD’s Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results published just a few days ago; revenue associated with the 9004 family doubled while that of the third generation one dropped. 

Data Center segment revenue was $1.3 billion, down 11% year-over-year primarily due to soft enterprise demand and elevated cloud inventory levels for some customers.

I am also keeping tabs on two other AMD EPYC products; the 128-core/128-thread 9754S and the Genoa-X part, 9684X with a gargantuan 1.152GB L3 cache. The former sells for around $8,400 (down from $10,200) from ShopBLT while the latter can be found for about $2,000 more (down from $14,756, at Wiredzone), significant discounts in either cases.

For a foreseeable future, the Intel Xeon Platinum 8490H processor, launched in January 2023, will remain AMD’s biggest rival at the high end of the market, where core and thread numbers count the most. 

The 8490H however lags behind the 9754 with only 60 cores and 120 threads while costing almost twice as much as AMD’s fourth generation 128-core flagship. One Xeon core costs around $300 while one AMD core retails for less than $75, 76% cheaper, a staggering difference however you look at it.

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Save Big on Back-to-School Shopping With Sales Tax Holidays This Weekend - CNET

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A Toronto retail worker has sold a rare Magic: The Gathering card to musician Post Malone for $2 million.

Brook Trafton – who realized his "childhood dream" when he discovered the rare card earlier this year – parted with his prized collectible after what he'd thought was a standard meet and greet with Post Malone turned into an "unexpected" sale.

"I was overwhelmed with joy and emotion," Trafton said, recalling when he first uncovered the card, a one-of-a-kind discovery of such importance that he didn't even tell his father until the card had been safely stored at a bank. 

"How can someone like me actually find something so astronomical?"

After hiring a lawyer and a public relations firm, Trafton was contacted by representatives of Post Malone who said he wanted to meet him and see the card for himself. 

"As soon as he saw [the card] he said: yes," Trafton told the BBC. "I said: 'Pardon?! Like, what do you mean?'

"He's like: 'Yes, I will take this card'. It was so magical. I'm not going to lie. I cried a little bit. I cried a lot."

As for what's so special about this particular card? Hailing from Magic: The Gathering's Lord of the Rings set, the "One Ring" card is completely one-of-a-kind, making it one of the game's rarest finds, particularly as it was discovered in perfect mint condition, too.

ICYMI, Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield has founded a new game studio alongside veteran developers from Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, and Halo. 

The new studio – known as Popularium – has already begun work on its first title, Chaos Agents, and is committed to taking a community-centric approach to the development process, just like beloved ARPG Hades. 

"It solved a lot of the issues which often face games where you have either a constructible element or a strategic element…" Garfield said at the time, explaining his interest in bringing an “auto battler royale” to life. 

"It showed one of the directions you could go. The gameplay is very relaxed, very broad, that is, there’s no twitch in it, there’s no speed element… which [can] often limit your audience."

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This Company Sends You a Box of Hearing Aids to Try at Home - CNET

Bluemoth aims to combine the ease of over-the-counter shopping with prescription-grade devices -- but with a prescription-grade price tag.

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Google is introducing several new privacy changes to its search engine including an alert system that lets you know if personal information suddenly pops up online.

The alerts will be a part of the Results About You tool which is getting an improved dashboard letting “you know if web results with your contact [details] are showing up on Search.” If they do show up, you can request their removal right on the dashboard. Google will also let you know if any new results containing personal details ever crop up in the future. There is an alternate method the company recommends trying out. Google says you can enter your name into the search bar, and if you see your sensitive information anywhere on-screen, click the three dots to the right. You will see a “Remove Result” in the About This Result window.

The image below shows you what it looks like.

Remove Result tool in Google Search (Image credit: Future)

It may take a few days before the tech giant actually pulls the content. Google says it will perform a mini investigation to make sure the request lines up with its “policy requirements for removal”. The company will apparently deny requests to pull information from websites owned by either a “government or educational institution.”

The redesigned Results About You dashboard is currently rolling out to users in the United States where it will be available in English only – at least, for now. There are plans to expand the tool to support more “languages and locations soon.”

Search engine tweaks

As for the rest of the privacy upgrade, Google is making a few tweaks to its search engine. The blurring effect in image searches, something that was first seen earlier this year, is now being made into a default setting to protect families from encountering “explicit imagery”.

Speaking of families, parental controls can now be directly accessed on Search. All you have to do is enter in “google parental controls” or “google family link”. A box offering quick access to parental control management will appear on the right side. 

New parental controls box on Google Search (Image credit: Future)

The last feature is a policy update giving people the opportunity to take down “personal, explicit images that they no longer wish to be visible” on the platform. The company gives the example of removing intimate content “being published elsewhere without approval” or consent. This change, however, “doesn’t apply to content” currently being commercialized. The removal form for this can be found on the Google Search Help website.

It’s unknown if either the blurring effect or policy update will be present outside the United States. The wording is a little vague.  We asked a company representative for more details. This story will be updated at a later time.

Deleting information from Google Search is just one step in being totally anonymous on the internet. If you’d like to learn more, be sure to check out TechRadar’s guide on how to remove yourself from the internet. We’ve put together a list of nine suggested actions you can take right now.  

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Electric Bills Spike Nearly 30% for AEP Ohio Customers. How to Choose Your Energy Provider - CNET

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Messi leads Miami into the Round of 16 Leagues Cup match in Texas on Sunday.

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If you recently updated Windows 11, you may have spotted the following message when trying to open the Cortana app: “Cortana in Windows as a standalone app is deprecated.”

Microsoft is finally cutting off support to Cortana, its Windows Phone-era assistant that first launched with Windows 10 back in 2014, in favor of AI features like Bing Search and Windows Copilot. Cortana was released in response to Apple’s Siri, which had been growing in popularity since its own debut. Microsoft even released a playful commercial poking fun at Siri’s more robotic voice while promoting how human-sounding Cortana was,

But thanks to this update, Siri has outlasted Microsoft’s robotic assistant. Here's the official post from Microsoft: "We are making some changes to Windows that will impact users of the Cortana app. Starting in August 2023, we will no longer support Cortana in Windows as a standalone app.” And for those asking for an assistance program, Microsoft is recommending Windows Copilot which is set to release with the Windows 11 23H2 update. The tech giant has already been testing out first-party and Bing third-party plugins for Copilot.

The app is still working on Windows 10 for now but, according to a source from Windows Latest, Microsoft plans to kill off the app on Windows 10 within a few weeks. For now, Cortana will remain with other apps like Outlook and Microsoft Teams, though it mostly likely won’t be permanent.

Should Microsoft have canned Cortana? 

It’s rather ironic that Cortana, which was made as a fake AI assistant of sorts based on the iconic one that aids Master Chief in the long-running video game franchise Halo series, is getting ousted by actual AI tools. But considering how AI has skyrocketed in popularity and in growth potential, it makes sense that Microsoft would completely drop app support that hasn’t received an update in two years.

But was this the right move for Microsoft? On one hand, it feels obvious to dump tools that haven’t been supported for so long. But maybe there could have been a way to integrate Cortana with AI technology to create a more personalized AI assistant experience. Imagine having Cortana combined with Bing search or Windows Copilot, giving you your results and aiding you.

Of course, this opens up a huge can of worms in regards to using the voice actress Jen Taylor's audio likeness in ways that were never covered by her original contract with Microsoft. Ethically she would need to give her consent and be paid royalties for that purpose.

But with Microsoft officially closing the chapter on Cortana, we’ll never know what could have been.

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The US PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) Education Fund has recently published a letter criticizing Google for its unwillingness to update 13 Chromebook models, leaving many with expired laptops.

Back in June 2023, parents and environmentalists wrote a letter asking the tech giant to provide important software updates to Chromebooks. Back in 2020, school districts in the United States bought a ton of Chromebooks and then distributed them all to students when things shifted to remote learning as a result of the pandemic. Everything was okay at first, but in the years since their purchase, the lack of technical support from Google is causing serious problems even if the hardware runs fine. No new updates mean the laptops are more “vulnerable to attacks and [are] unable to access… websites.” A report from the Mercury News says expired Chromebooks may even involuntarily block those "websites and applications from use.”

Mercury News goes on to explain, “These inexpensive computers are set to expire three to six years after their release.” It’s a short time frame that Lucas Rockett Gutterman, director of the Design to Last initiative, calls “absurd”. 

Still being sold

What’s particularly damaging to Americans is these laptops are not confined to just schools. In fact, Amazon is still selling most of them on their platform. There is a very real chance you own or have recently purchased one of these expired Chromebooks thinking you just scored an awesome deal. The Acer Chromebook 11, one of the affected laptops, costs $64.95 at the time of this writing.

The image below is one to look at for.

(Image credit: Staff/TPIN/PIRG)

The US PIRG has a list of the 13 expired models on their website ranging from the Chromebook 11 to the Samsung Chromebook Plus. It appears only the consumer-level hardware is available for purchase. The work-centric products like the AOpen Chromebook Commercial Tab or the Dell Chromebook 14 for Work are not on Amazon although you can purchase them elsewhere.

We highly recommend checking out the full list on the US PIRG’s website to learn more. Make sure you don’t have one of these faulty laptops.

What Google could do

The PIRG is currently asking Google to “double the life of Chromebooks” by providing much-needed tech support. Doing so could save the US education system as much as $1.8 billion and prevent a ton of e-waste from reaching landfills. Images posted on the US PIRG website show mountains of presumably dead Chromebook 11s stacked high in the backroom of a school. 

(Image credit: Peter Mui/US PIRG)

At the time of this writing, Google hasn’t said anything about this situation. We reached out to the company to see if it would like to make an official statement about the expired Chromebooks. We also asked Gutterman if he or anyone at the US PIRG is aware of any other affected devices. This story will be updated at a later time.

It’s totally understandable why someone would want to buy one of these laptops. $65 is one heck of a deal, but saving money shouldn’t come at the cost of increased vulnerability. Instead, be sure to check out TechRadar's list of the best Chromebook deals for August 2023. We’re confident you’ll find something you’ll like

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