A wordle that speaks to you
If you’ve gone through our round-up of Wordle clones – there are way more than you think – and you still have time on your hands then you’re in luck. This one is different enough from the other clones but still retains the bits that make Wordle so fun. ‘Heardle’ is Wordle but with songs instead of words. So maybe ‘Songdle’ might’ve been more appropriate but Heardle works too, we guess.
In Heardle, users also have six attempts to guess the song of the day. But here they aren’t given clues based on the letters of the artist’s name. They get progressively longer snippets of the song to listen to. It also introduces a skip function because let’s be honest, there aren’t many songs you know after just one second. This isn’t Noot vir Noot. Incorrect guesses and skips will use one of the six guesses and it only uses the first 30 seconds of the song in total so you’d better listen up.
When you either have no idea or listen to too much pop music and get it in two, you’ll be presented with a share button, same as the other games, so you can brag to whoever will listen. It uses an embedded SoundCloud player to pull from “a list of the most-streamed songs in the past decade”. It should also be noted that not every song will be available in every country so you might need to break out the VPN if you really want to play but are blocked by your location.
Source: The Verge
Razer is trying something different
If you’re a PC gamer and mostly use a mouse and keyboard but are open to trying new things, Razer has released its Huntsman Mini Analog. It’s a new, small form-factor (60%) keyboard with analogue switches. Analogue switches aren’t new. Razer already has the Huntsman V2 Analog keyboard. Analogue mechanical switches work slightly differently from regular mechanical switches. Regular keyboard switches have two states, depressed or not depressed. Analogue switches are pressure sensitive. Think of them more like the joysticks or triggers on an Xbox or Playstation controller.
These switches also allow you to program them to perform two functions with a single press through the software. One function when they reach their actuation point (1.5mm) and another when they bottom out (3.6mm). You’re also able to program each key’s actuation point. This 60% version loses some of the polling rate – the number of times the keyboard sends a signal to the PC – of the larger version. It’s 1,000Hz down from 8,000Hz. These go for $150 (~R2,300) overseas but expect that to be more costly when/if they get here.
Source: Ars Technica
WhatsApp is playing catchup
The WhatsApp update team is back at it again. They’ve presumably been hard at work on new features for the platform so WhatsApp users can finally enjoy features Telegram users have had for ages. Some of those new features include a pause/resume function for recording voice notes, rich document preview, and polls in group chats. These details comes courtesy of the folks at WABetaInfo.
These features are still in development, so don’t expect to start bombarding your community groups with polls about the best street catchphrase or why dogs shouldn’t be allowed. No cares what you have to say, Gerry. While we’re on community groups, WhatsApp is also planning on swapping out the camera tab, found to the left of the status tab, with a community tab. So you can have the numerous groups you were added to against your will in one place and out of your main chats list. Put ’em in the corner, where they belong.
TikTok pulls out of Russia after Putin’s “fake news” law
TikTok is the latest company to suspend activity in Russia. The company cites Russia’s new ‘fake news’ law that was signed into effect as the reason. The new law allows Russia’s government to sentence people up to 15 years in prison for spreading “false information” about the Russian military or for publicly calling for sanctions against the country. We’ll give you three guesses as to who gets to decide what is and isn’t ‘fake news’.
This looks like a thinly veiled attempt to curb public dissent following its invasion of Ukraine. Basically, Russia wants folks to stop saying bad things about it or it’ll send them to the gulag. TikTok tweeted its response, saying “In light of Russia’s new ‘fake news’ law, we have no choice but to suspend livestreaming and new content to our video service while we review the safety implications of this law. Our in-app messaging service will not be affected.”
Source: The Verge