Technologies

You Can Now Have Uber Eats Drivers Deliver Your Best Buy Purchases

Hungry for tech? The app will let you shop the tech retailer’s full selection of products for same-day delivery.

Lo mein, or a laptop? Best Buy is teaming up with food delivery app Uber Eats to bring its tech products straight to your doorstep. Starting Tuesday, Uber Eats allows app users to browse Best Buy’s goods, allowing you to purchase headphones, laptops, gaming peripherals and more.

The initial rollout will provide Uber Eats delivery services for more than 800 Best Buy stores, so you’ll need to check if your local store is involved.

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It is not immediately apparent what the delivery fees will look like for tech products on the Uber Eats app.

Representatives for Uber and Best Buy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

This isn’t the first time Best Buy has partnered with a third-party food delivery service. The company maintains previous partnerships with Instacart and DoorDash to deliver same-day tech orders.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, Sept. 3

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Sept. 3.

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

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? 7-Across made me laugh, and I didn’t get the answer right away, but my high-school-senior daughter knew immediately. Want the answers? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: On this spot
Answer: HERE

5A clue: =
Answer: EQUAL

7A clue: Organisms that sound like someone you’d enjoy hanging out with
Answer: FUNGI

8A clue: Where the North Base Camp for Mount Everest can be found
Answer: TIBET

9A clue: Combustible funeral structure
Answer: PYRE

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Serious weight
Answer: HEFT

2D clue: Furnish with supplies
Answer: EQUIP

3D clue: Bring up to in order to get a quick opinion
Answer: RUNBY

4D clue: Like the proverbial beaver
Answer: EAGER

6D clue: Miller ___ (beer)
Answer: LITE

Technologies

Judge Rules Google Can Keep Chrome but Must Stop Exclusive Search Deals

Google scores a major win in a huge antitrust suit.

Google doesn’t have to sell its wildly popular Chrome web browser, but it can’t engage in exclusive search deals, US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled on Tuesday. Google must share limited search data and user-interaction data with «qualified competitors,» but the company doesn’t have to share its most valuable ads data.

This remedy is a long-awaited moment after a landmark 2020 antitrust case against Google from the Department of Justice, in which a federal court ruled the internet giant was illegally maintaining a dominance in online search. It did so by inking expensive contracts with companies like Apple, Mozilla and Samsung that made Google the default search platform on various services and devices.

The Justice Department argued that a potential remedy to the case would require Google to sell off its Chrome web browser, which currently maintains 69% global market share, according to GlobalStats. Chrome gives Google valuable user data that it uses to improve search and better focus online advertising.

«Google will not be required to divest Chrome; nor will the court include a contingent divestiture of the Android operating system in the final judgment,» according to the ruling. «Plaintiffs overreached in seeking forced divesture of these key assets, which Google did not use to effect any illegal restraints.»

Additionally, Google can’t make exclusive contracts for Search, Chrome, Google Assistant or Gemini but the company can still pay to have apps pre-loaded. In regards to Android, Google doesn’t have to divest its mobile operating system either. The ruling said, «plaintiffs overreached in seeking forced divesture of these key assets.»

«The Court has imposed limits on how we distribute Google services, and will require us to share Search data with rivals. We have concerns about how these requirements will impact our users and their privacy, and we’re reviewing the decision closely,» said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs in a blog post. «The Court did recognize that divesting Chrome and Android would have gone beyond the case’s focus on search distribution, and would have harmed consumers and our partners.»

Mulholland also maintained Google’s argument that, thanks to the advent of AI, competition remains strong in the online information space. Granted, former Googler’s say that Google’s late start to the AI race had more to do with it not wanting to usurp its core money-making product, Search (along with safety concerns), despite the company being the maker of the key transformer technology powering the AI revolution.

The ruling is a reprieve for Google as it was facing a major restructuring of its core business model. Google makes a majority of its revenue from online search and advertising. Because Google Search is the world’s most popular search engine and Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser, it gives the search giant troves of user data and behavior, which it sells advertising against. Google also owns YouTube and Android, both of which have billions of users worldwide. Despite the increasing popularity of AI chabots like ChatGPT, which has 700 million weekly users, Google Search is still 373 times bigger. Last year, Google Search saw a 20% increase in search queries. At the moment, Google maintains a near 90% dominance in the online search market, according to GlobalStats.

Google has also been ruled to be maintaining a monopoly in online ad sales earlier this year, although that’s a separate case. Google currently controls the world’s largest online ads auction platform. This ruling forces Google to «publicly disclose material changes to promote greater transparency» in ad auctions to prevent it from secretly manipulating them in its favor.

Interestingly, the ruling excludes Google from giving publishers more choice in how Google uses their content. Google uses the corpus of published content online to not only train its Gemini AI model but also to feed automatic results into AI Overviews, the AI-generated results that increasingly appear at the top of Search. Publishers have been arguing that AI Overviews are eating into their search traffic, an assertion Google continually denies.

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

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Sept. 3, #815

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Sept. 3, #815.

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.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle started out with a tease. WED, NES and DAY were three of the clues. But no, we’re not assembling days of the week, here — that would be way too easy. 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 the 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: Not the end.

Green group hint: Come together.

Blue group hint: Boob tube.

Purple group hint: Not April, but…