Technologies

Like Word Games Like Wordle? Try These 10 Others

There are plenty of word and puzzle games out there to try.

Wordle is a popular word game that asks players to figure out a five-letter word in six or fewer guesses (we have a two-step strategy to help you solve the puzzle every time). After each guess, the game shows gray blocks for the wrong letters, yellow blocks for the right letters in the wrong spot and green blocks for the right letters in the correct spot. CNET’s Gael Cooper has loads of tips and tricks to tackle each Wordle puzzle, but if you’ve completed today’s game — or just love puzzle games — these alternatives are well worth your time.

You’ve likely already learned some tips, tricks and lessons from the popular word game, so why not apply your newly honed problem-solving skills to other puzzles, too? After all, Wordle isn’t the only game in town. Here are 10 other puzzle games like Wordle you’ll probably enjoy.

Connections

Another New York Times-owned puzzle, Connections is a tricky word game. «Players must select four groups of four words without making more than four mistakes,» the New York Times wrote on X, formerly Twitter. There are also four color-coded difficulty levels for each game; yellow is the easiest, then green, the blue and finally purple. The game is also similar to the BBC quiz show Only Connect, and the show’s host took to X to point out the connection. See what I did there?

You can play Connections on any web browser, but you need a New York Times subscription (which starts at $1 a week) to play.

Strands

Strands is another New York Times-owned puzzle, but this game resembles a word search more so than Wordle and Connections. This game presents a theme every day to help you find words in a grid. In Strands words can appear forwards, backward, top-to-bottom or any number of ways in a traditional word search, and words can also form in the shape of an «L» or have a zigzag in them. When you find a word, tap the first letter and drag your finger to the other letters. Every letter in the puzzle is used, so if you still have letters that aren’t connected to words, you aren’t finished yet.

You can play Strands on any web browser, but you need a New York Times subscription (again, $1 a week) to play.

Quartiles

Quartiles is a new word game Apple News Plus subscribers can access on their iPhone or iPad that’s running iOS 17.5 or later. In this word game, you’re given 20 tiles with letters on them, and you’re trying to put them together to form different words. The longest words are four-tiles long, and these are called Quartiles. The game can be tough, but finding just one of the Quartiles is as satisfying as remembering something that was just on the tip of your tongue.

You can play Quartiles on an iPhone or iPad, but you need an Apple News subscription (which starts at $13 a month) to play.

Multiple Wordle spinoffs: Dordle, Quordle, Octordle and Sedecordle

Are you up for a challenge? If you love Wordle and want puzzle games that take more brain power, you’ll want to check out either Dordle, Quordle, Octordle or Sedecordle. Each of these word games resembles Wordle, but they add more rows, columns and words to solve. Each game requires you to simultaneously solve a different number of words at once: Dordle has you solving two words, Quordle four at once, Octordle eight at once, and Sedecordle a whopping 16. Good luck.

You can play Dordle, Quordle, Octordle or Sedecordle on any web browser.

Lewdle

«Lewdle is a game about rude words,» this game’s content advisory reads. «If you’re likely to be offended by the use of profanity, vulgarity or obscenity, it likely isn’t for you.» Translation: It’s Wordle, but with bad words. The words range from mild — like poopy — to words that would make a sailor blush. Thankfully, despite this game’s content warning, slurs are not included. Like Wordle, gray, yellow and green blocks are used in the same way and there’s only one puzzle per day. So go forth and let the bad words flow!

You can play Lewdle on any web browser. You can also download this game from Apple’s App Store or the Google Play store.

Antiwordle

Tired of seeing those grey, yellow and green blocks plastered all over your social media feed? Give Antiwordle a try. While Wordle wants you to guess a word in as few tries as possible, Antiwordle wants you to avoid the word by guessing as many times as possible. When you guess, letters will turn gray, yellow or red. Gray means the letter isn’t in the word and can’t be used again, yellow means the letter is in the word and must be included in each subsequent guess and red means the letter is in the exact position within the word and is locked in place. If you can use every letter on the keyboard without getting the word correct, you win. Honestly, I’ve found this version of Wordle to be much harder than the original.

You can play Antiwordle on any web browser.

Absurdle

Absurdle bills itself as the «adversarial version» of Wordle. While Wordle nudges you in the right direction with each guess, Absurdle is trying to avoid giving you the correct answer. According to the game’s website, «With each guess, Absurdle reveals as little information as possible, changing the secret word if need be.» Absurdle doesn’t pick a word at the beginning of the game for the player to guess. Instead, it uses the player’s guesses to narrow its list of words down in an effort to make the game go as long as possible. The final word might not even include a yellow letter from one of your earlier guesses either. You can guess as many times as you want, which is helpful, and the best score you can get is four. Have fun!

You can play Absurdle on any web browser.

For more word game fun, check out CNET’s Wordle tips, the best Wordle jokes and everything you need to know about the word game. You can also cehck out what to know about the other New York Times-owned games, Connections and Strands.

Technologies

GFiber Is Merging With Astound Broadband, Likely Expanding to More Areas

Technologies

Your iPhone Has a Hidden Flight Tracker. Here’s How to Use It

Apple quietly built a real-time flight tracker into iOS.

Flying can introduce an entirely new layer of stress to any trip. Flight delays, cancellations and everything that could go wrong can keep you on edge, so staying up to date with your flight’s status is never far away from your mind.

Luckily, we’re in a world where finding the information for your flight is easily accessible. You can check your airline’s mobile app or even Google your flight number and the latest information is readily available. But did you know there’s a secret way to get your flight information on your iPhone?

The iPhone has had a built-in flight tracker for some time now, but you’d never know it existed if you weren’t specifically looking for it — or searching for the correct terms to pull it up.

Below, we’ll show you how to access the flight tracker so you’re just a tap away from the latest flight stats, giving you a little more peace of mind before your trip.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source on Chrome.

How to track your flight via iMessage

Before we start, there are a few prerequisites you must meet:

Make sure iMessage is enabled (it doesn’t work with SMS/MMS).
You’ll need your flight number somewhere in your text messages, whether you’ve sent that information to someone (even yourself) or it’s been sent to you.
The flight number must be sent in this format: [Airline] [Flight number], for example, American Airlines 9707.

Launch the native Messages app on your iPhone and open the text message thread that contains your flight information. You’ll know the flight tracker feature works when the text with the flight information appears underlined, which means it’s actionable and you can tap on it.

If your flight is still several months away or it’s already passed, you might see a message that says, «Flight information unavailable.» You might also see another flight that’s not yours because airlines recycle flight numbers.

You can check your flight status from Spotlight Search, too

If getting your flight information from Messages wasn’t easy enough, you can also grab the details right from your iPhone’s home screen by swiping down and adding your flight number into Spotlight Search. This works with Spotlight Search on your Mac computer, too.

How to access the hidden flight tracker

Although the airline name/flight number format highlighted above is the best way to go, there are other texting options that will lead you to the same result. So let’s say we stick with American Airlines 9707, other options that may bring up the flight tracker include:

AmericanAirlines9707 (no spaces)
AmericanAirlines 9707 (only one space)
AA9707 (airline name is abbreviated and no space)
AA 9707 (abbreviated and space)

I would suggest you keep the airline name spelled out completely and add a space between the two pieces of information — like in the previous section — because for some airlines, these alternative options may not work.

Real-time flight tracking

Once everything is set, tap on the flight information in your text messages. If the feature works correctly, you should see the following two options appear in a quick-action menu:

Preview Flight: View the flight’s details. Tap this to view more information about the flight.
Copy Flight Code: Copy the flight code to your clipboard (in case you want to send your flight details to someone else via text or email).

If you select Preview Flight, at the top of the window, you’ll see the best part of this feature: a real-time flight tracker map. A line will connect the two destinations, and a tiny airplane will move between them, indicating where the flight is at that exact moment.

Underneath the map, you’ll see important flight information:

Airline name and flight number
Flight status (arriving on time, delayed, canceled, etc.)
Terminal and gate numbers (for arrival and departure)
Arrival and departure time
Flight duration
Baggage claim (the number of the baggage carousel)

If you swipe left on the bottom half of the flight tracker, you can switch between flights, but only if there’s a return flight.

For more travel tips, don’t miss our test on whether AI can help you fly more sustainably.

Technologies

Copilot Health Is Microsoft’s Doctor-Built Spin on Medical AI

Microsoft doesn’t want its AI to be your doctor. It wants to make you better prepared when you do see them.

Microsoft is taking a major swing at health AI. The company announced on Thursday that it’s introducing Copilot Health, a new experience inside its chatbot that will bring together all your medical records and wearable data with an AI that’s designed to help you understand it all.

«We are really on the cusp of building a true medical superintelligence,» said Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft AI CEO. «One that can learn everything about you, all of your health conditions, from your wearable data, your electronic health records, and use that to provide support and insights and intelligence at your fingertips.»

A recent Microsoft survey found that mobile Copilot users ask the chatbot health-related queries more than for any other topic. Copilot Health was built to answer those questions. Microsoft’s health AI was fine-tuned by its in-house clinicians and an external panel of hundreds of clinicians in more than 24 countries. It uses the National Academy of Medicine’s framework for evaluating credible medical sources and information from Harvard Medical School via a 2025 licensing agreement.

Copilot Health is inside the regular, consumer version of Copilot. But it’s an entirely separate experience, designed that way to keep your health information separate from your usual chats. Because it’s been specifically trained for health questions, it ought to be more helpful and accurate than the regular version of Copilot or another chatbot. ChatGPT introduced a similar experience earlier this year.

Your health information won’t pop up in responses from the regular Copilot, only in the new health tab. You can delete your data at any time by simply toggling off a setting — something so easy it raises the question why all AI companies don’t make it that simple to delete your data.

Your information isn’t used to train Microsoft’s AI models, the company says. But your medical information in AI tools like Copilot is not protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

The benefit of using Copilot Health is having a place where all your medical and health information lives, with an AI that’s trained to help answer your questions about it. You can connect data from your smartwatches and rings, as well as upload your medical records. Through a third-party program called HealthEx, you can upload files from multiple doctors’ offices, hospitals and labs at one time.

Copilot Health is not a doctor

If you choose to share your electronic health record, the AI can make more informed recommendations and reference specific doctors’ visit notes and lab results. But don’t use Copilot Health as a replacement for a physician. What the AI can do is discuss your health concerns, help you prepare for upcoming appointments and help you build healthier habits.

«Copilot Health is not meant to give you a definitive diagnosis or a formal treatment plan, but it’s certainly here to support you in getting to the right answers,» said Dr. Dominic King, vice president of health at Microsoft AI. The former surgeon led the team that built Copilot Health.

For example, it can help you come up with a list of questions to ask your doctor, break down lab results and find a provider that accepts your insurance. Copilot Health can discuss your health concerns, like understanding any new symptoms, but it can’t diagnose or prescribe medication.

Microsoft is doing a slow rollout, beginning with adults (ages 18 plus) in the US, with English as the only language. You can sign up to join the waitlist for Copilot Health now.

There are some existing uses of AI in health care today, but they’re disparate. Wearables have new AI-powered data insights and coaching. Some doctors are using AI scribe tools to take notes during appointments with patients. Administrative and insurance work also has its own AI tools, particularly around claims processing (including making denials, in some cases). The common thread is that none of the AI is without flaws, and it should never be used to make important decisions without human oversight.

For AI believers, the tangled, bureaucratic web of American health care is the perfect place to prove that AI intervention can make a real difference. But AI in health care is like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound — a halfway measure that doesn’t fix the underlying problems.

It’s too soon to tell if Microsoft’s goal of a medical superintelligence is viable. But for now, Copilot Health illustrates a more productive use of AI — more than filling the internet with slop.

«I think it is perhaps the most important and most positively impactful contribution that AI can make in the world,» Suleyman said. «And it’s enormously important to us.»