Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Nov. 20 #627

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Nov. 20, No. 627.

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

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle has a fun theme. (Think Gladys Kravitz from the classic Bewitched sitcom.) Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Busybody buzz.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Did you hear?

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

DATE, SCUTTLE, BUTT, CUTS, PORT, PORTS, WORD, HEAR

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

GOSSIP, SCUTTLEBUTT, RUMOR, REPORT, HEARSAY

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is SPREADTHEWORD. To find it, start with the S that’s two letters up from the bottom on the far-right row, and wind up, over and back.

Technologies

Your Next Vacation Starts in a Chat: TripAdvisor Debuts App Inside ChatGPT

You can tap AI and TripAdvisor for your travel planning.

You may already use artificial intelligence for planning vacations, but now you can use a new TripAdvisor app inside of ChatGPT to book hotels. The app puts TripAdvisor’s reviews and hotel insights directly into ChatGPT. It’s «a new AI-powered way to experience the best of TripAdvisor,» according to the travel company.

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

Using the app, trip planners can see top-rated TripAdvisor hotels on an interactive map. They can also read TripAdvisor review summaries, access details about hotels, including images and amenities, and refine results with conversational follow-ups.

Once a would-be traveler selects a hotel, they’ll see available deals from booking sites. When they choose one, they will be redirected to TripAdvisor or one of its partners to complete the booking.

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The new app is available to logged-in ChatGPT users in the US on Free, Go, Plus and Pro plans. You can start using it by opening ChatGPT, navigating to Settings, then Apps & Connectors, and Browse Apps and connect to TripAdvisor. (You should only have to follow these steps once.) Then, and on subsequent visits, simply start your message in ChatGPT with the word TripAdvisor.

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Technologies

Group Chats With ChatGPT Are Rolling Out Globally

OpenAI wants you to collaborate with its chatbot in a group setting.

Last week, OpenAI — always looking for opportunities to put its chatbot into new spaces — introduced Group Chats with ChatGPT baked right in. Based on early feedback, it’s now expanding the feature to all logged-in users on ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus and Pro plans globally over the coming days.

The feature is pitched as a new way to use ChatGPT with other people, especially in collaboration efforts, like planning a big event.

Up to 20 people can be added to a group chat, and messages between individuals don’t count against the rate limit to ChatGPT — only when it responds.

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

Group chats use ChatGPT-5.1 Auto. OpenAI has also introduced some new implementations of how and when the chatbot responds. It’s been taught new social behaviors for group chats and will apparently follow the flow of the conversation and stay quiet or chime in based on what’s being said.

Adding «ChatGPT» to a message you send will always yield a response from the AI chatbot. You can also provide custom instructions to ChatGPT for the entire chat if you want it to reply in a certain tone or personality, and it can react to messages with emoji.

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

Group Chats don’t use memory from your existing personal chats, and new memory isn’t created from group conversations, though OpenAI says it’s exploring a way for you to opt in to use existing memory in the future.

If you’re concerned that you’ll be thrown into a dozen chats without your permission, then you’ll likely be happy to hear that you must accept an invitation before you can be added to a group chat with ChatGPT. Additional safeguards are also in place for users under the age of 18, which will reduce sensitive content to all within the group chat.

OpenAI says Group Chats are the beginning of its effort to make ChatGPT more of a shared and collaborative space for people.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Nov. 21, #424

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Nov. 21, No. 424.

Looking for the most recent regular 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 and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a fun one. If you know a Gen Z person, you might be familiar with their favorite nonsense phrase, «6-7.» The puzzle editors throw a 6 and a 7 into the puzzle today just to see if we’re paying attention. Do the numbers end up in the same group? I bet you know the answer to that one. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

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

Yellow group hint: Splish-splash.

Green group hint: Football score.

Blue group hint: Colorado QB.

Purple group hint: Not small.