Technologies

Apple’s Friday Night Baseball Will Require an Apple TV Plus Subscription This Season

Last year’s free baseball deal will not carry over to 2023.

Apple will once again be airing Friday baseball games this season, but this time expect to pay for it. After its inaugural 2022 campaign, the iPhone-maker will kick off its 2023 Major League Baseball streaming season on April 7 with a doubleheader featuring the Texas Rangers at the Chicago Cubs on Friday afternoon, followed by the San Diego Padres at the Atlanta Braves on Friday night.

The Friday games will continue throughout the season, though this year you’ll need to pay $7 per month for Apple TV Plus if you want to watch. Last year Apple made the games available for free for the entirety of the 2022 season.

Apple’s baseball coverage will continue to include access to MLB Big Inning, a live weeknight show offering look-ins and highlights of games in progress, as well as daily shows like MLB Daily Recap. While the live games will be stuck behind a paywall, Apple is making condensed games and highlights available for free after the contests air.

As before, the Friday Apple games are exclusive to Apple TV Plus and not available on traditional cable or satellite providers, even in teams’ local markets. This year, however, Apple is working with DirecTV to make the games more readily available in bars, restaurants, hotel lounges and other locations around the US over the latter’s satellite service.

Like last year, Apple will be streaming the games in its Apple TV app in 1080p resolution with 5.1 audio, as well as spatial audio if your setup supports it. The Apple TV app is available on a variety of devices, including Apple’s own iPhones (running iOS 16.2 or later), iPads (running iPadOS 16.2 or later) and Apple TVs (running TVOS 16.2 or later), as well as in the Apple TV app that’s available on many modern smart TVs, game consoles, streaming devices and platforms like Roku, Amazon Fire, Google TV or Android TV.

There is still no Android app for phones or tablets, with users of those devices — as well as Apple users who haven’t updated their device’s software — needing to watch via the web at tv.apple.com.

Apple’s MLB deal was the company’s first foray into streaming live sports. It since has expanded to become the exclusive home of Major League Soccer and is rumored to be interested in acquiring more sports rights, including the English Premier League and the NBA.

Technologies

With Apple’s Siri AI Overhaul Delayed, Google Might Help It Catch Up

Siri’s long-delayed overhaul could end up powered by Google’s Gemini AI, a move that shows how urgently Apple is trying to close the gap with rivals.

Apple is reportedly weighing up a potentially major change to its digital assistant: powering a revamped Siri with Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence tool.

According to Bloomberg, the companies are in early discussions about a partnership that could reshape Apple’s AI strategy for the iPhone, iPad and Apple’s other products. While no agreement is in place, the talks signal Apple’s growing urgency to keep up in the generative AI race.

Siri, once a pioneer, has lagged behind its voice assistant rivals. Apple had planned to roll out a smarter, AI-driven Siri in 2025 as part of its Apple Intelligence initiative, but executives delayed the launch until spring 2026, admitting the early version wasn’t reliable enough to ship. That setback has left Apple at a disadvantage while Samsung, Microsoft and Amazon push ahead with AI assistants that are more conversational and capable.

Apple has long prided itself on controlling the technologies that make its products distinct, but generative AI has proven harder to master internally. To bridge the gap, Apple has leaned on partners: today’s Siri can already route certain requests to OpenAI’s ChatGPT when its own models fall short, and later this year, Apple Intelligence is set to upgrade that integration with GPT-5. You’ll be able to call on ChatGPT for writing help, image understanding and complex questions directly through Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence.

That reliance underscores the fact that Apple’s own models aren’t yet competitive at the same scale as its rivals.

Apple is reportedly exploring additional options, including Anthropic’s Claude and, most prominently, Google’s Gemini. A deal with Google wouldn’t just inject advanced capabilities into Siri, it would echo a long-running partnership between the two companies. Google already pays billions annually to remain the default search engine on Safari, and a Gemini deal could extend that relationship into Apple’s core AI experience.

If the talks advance, we may see a very different Siri emerge in the coming years: one less constrained, more conversational and powered by the same AI that underpins Google’s own products.

Apple and Google didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against ChatGPT maker OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Technologies

US Government Makes $8.9B Investment to Take 10% Stake in Intel

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Aug. 23, #804

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Aug. 23, #804.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

The NYT Connections puzzle is often tough, but today’s is next-level tough. The blue category went wild with long, almost archaic vocabulary. See my rant below when I spoil the blue category for you. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Cars get thirsty too.

Green group hint: Place to play.

Blue group hint: Trickery.

Purple group hint: Who thought of that?

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Liquids you put into cars.

Green group: Arena.

Blue group: Skulduggery.

Purple group: Modern inventions.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is liquids you put into cars. The four answers are brake fluid, coolant, fuel and oil.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is arena. The four answers are bowl, coliseum, hippodrome and stadium.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is skulduggery. The four answers are chicanery, deceit, legerdemain and subterfuge.

OK, first, «skulduggery» is one heck of a word, but then … legerdemain? Seriously? The dictionary defines that as «skillful use of one’s hands when performing conjuring tricks.» New one on me.