Technology

If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.

There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it'll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.

An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.

If you find yourself stuck at any step of today's Hurdle, don't worry! We have you covered.

SEE ALSO: Hurdle: Everything you need to know to find the answers Hurdle Word 1 hint

To drench.

SEE ALSO: Apple’s new M3 MacBook Air is $300 off at Amazon. And yes, I’m tempted. Hurdle Word 1 answer

DOUSE

Hurdle Word 2 hint

Drunk.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for August 4, 2025 Hurdle Word 2 Answer

BOOZY

Hurdle Word 3 hint

An objection.

SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for August 4 SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for August 4, 2025 Hurdle Word 3 answer

DEMUR

Hurdle Word 4 hint

A path.

SEE ALSO: NYT Strands hints, answers for August 4 Hurdle Word 4 answer

TRAIL

Final Hurdle hint

Opposite of left.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Games available on Mashable Hurdle Word 5 answer

RIGHT

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

We're getting closer to this month's full moon, but let's take a look at where we are in the lunar cycle first.

The lunar cycle is a series of eight unique phases of the moon's visibility. The whole cycle takes about 29.5 days, according to NASA, and these different phases happen as the Sun lights up different parts of the moon whilst it orbits Earth. 

So, what's happening with the moon tonight, Aug. 4?

What is today’s moon phase?

As of Monday, Aug. 4, the moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. According to NASA's Daily Moon Observation, the moon will be 77% lit up tonight, the 11th day of the lunar cycle.

With each night we progress through the lunar cycle, there is more visibility for us on Earth. With just your naked eye tonight, you'll be able to spot the Copernicus Crater, the Mare Tranquillitatis, and the Mare Crisium.

Pull out the binoculars to see the Posidonius Crater, the Mare Nectaris, and the Endymion Crater. With a telescope, you can also see the Rima Arladaeus, the Descartes Highlands, and Apollo 12.

When is the next full moon?

The next full moon will be on August 9. The last full moon was on July 10.

What are moon phases?

According to NASA, moon phases are caused by the 29.5-day cycle of the moon’s orbit, which changes the angles between the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Moon phases are how the moon looks from Earth as it goes around us. We always see the same side of the moon, but how much of it is lit up by the Sun changes depending on where it is in its orbit. This is how we get full moons, half moons, and moons that appear completely invisible. There are eight main moon phases, and they follow a repeating cycle:

New Moon - The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The moon starts losing light on the right side.

Last Quarter (or Third Quarter) - Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Companies have slowly been hiking the prices of games from the time-honored $60 to $70 or even $80, eliciting much grumbling from gamers. However, games should probably cost more than that, and I'd still pay for them anyway.

The emails I now send arrive in my recipients’ inboxes at 9 AM sharp. Not because I’ve started waking up early, but because I’ve learned to use the Schedule Send feature in Outlook Web.

It seems to happen at least once a year. I’m enjoying the warmer Pennsylvania temperatures after a cold winter and spring, and my iPhone starts acting up thanks to the higher temperatures. That’s when I know it’s too hot outside and when I need to take extra measures to protect my handset so I don’t encounter significant issues.

The best part about Windows is that you'll find dedicated applications for almost any task you can imagine. For instance, there are applications like Google Chrome for browsing the internet and Adobe Reader for managing PDF files. Likewise, I’m going to share three lesser-known Windows apps you’ll wish you had started using sooner.

Are you frustrated with your laptop's poor sound output? If so, then I would recommend using the FxSound app to improve your laptop's sound quality.

Finding a small luxury crossover that’s genuinely fun to drive under $40,000 can be a challenge, but one model stands out as the clear choice for enthusiasts. It combines playful handling, premium touches, and everyday usability, all at a price that won’t stretch your budget.

It seems OpenAI has been caught with its hands in the proverbial cookie jar. Anthropic has reportedly cut off OpenAI’s access to Anthropic’s APIs over what Anthropic is calling a terms of service breach. 

SEE ALSO: OpenAI pulls ChatGPT feature that let user chats appear in Google Search results

As reported by Wired, multiple sources claim that OpenAI has been cut off from Anthropic’s APIs. Allegedly, OpenAI was using Anthropic’s Claude Code to assist in creating and testing OpenAI’s upcoming GPT-5, which is due to release in August. 

According to these sources, OpenAI was plugging into Claude’s internal tools instead of using the chat interface. From there, they used the API to run tests against GPT-5 to check things like coding and creative writing against Claude to compare performance. OpenAI allegedly also tested safety prompts related to things like CSAM, self-harm, and defamation. This would give OpenAI data that it could then use to fine-tune GPT-5 to make it more competitive against Claude. 

Unfortunately for OpenAI, this violates Anthropic’s commercial terms of service, which ban companies from using Anthropic’s tools to build competitor AI products. 

“Customer may not and must not attempt to access the Services to build a competing product or service, including to train competing AI models or resell the Services except as expressly approved by Anthropic,” the terms read.

OpenAI responded by saying that what the company was doing was an industry standard, as all the AI companies test their models against the competing models. The company then went on to say that it respected Anthropic’s decision but expressed disappointment in having its API access shut off, especially considering that Anthropic’s access to OpenAI’s API remains open. 

A spokesperson told Wired that OpenAI’s access would be reinstated for “benchmarking and safety evaluations.”

It’s not the first time this year that Anthropic has cut off API access. In June, the company cut off Windsurf’s API access after rumors that it was being sold to OpenAI. That deal ultimately fell through, but Anthropic’s cofounder, Jared Kaplan, told TechCrunch at the time that “it would be odd for us to be selling Claude to OpenAI.”

Anthropic has also tweaked its rate limits for Claude, which will take effect in late August, with one of the reasons being that a small number of users are violating the company’s policy by sharing and reselling accounts. 

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

It’s the end of another quarter, which means it’s time for yet another earnings call with concerning ideas for generating more revenue. This time around, it's Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who told shareholders on Thursday that there’s “significant financial opportunity” in delivering ads through Alexa+, the company’s new AI-powered voice assistant.

“I think over time, there will be opportunities, you know, as people are engaging in more multi-turn conversations to have advertising play a role — to help people find discovery and also as a lever to drive revenue,” Jassy said, per the investor call transcript.

SEE ALSO: Amazon invests in 'Netflix of AI' startup that lets you make your own shows

Since launching earlier this year, Alexa+ has reportedly reached millions of users. Unlike the original Alexa, which mostly turns off lights and sets timers, Alexa+ is designed to be more conversational, context-aware, and AI-driven. It can help you plan your date night, entertain your kids, and even dabble in basic image and video generation — all under the banner of your $14.99/month Prime subscription.

But so far, Amazon Alexa has been an ad-free experience. It's also more than 10 years old, and it doesn't make money; thus, it's been deemed a "colossal failure" by those within the company.

Of course, Amazon isn’t alone in trying to figure out how to make AI pay for itself. Both Google and OpenAI have explored ad integration in their AI products as a way to generate revenue. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in particular, has made a notable pivot: once firmly against advertising in his chatbot, he’s since reversed course, possibly opening the door for ads in future versions of ChatGPT.

Whatever the motivation, injecting ads into Alexa+ would mark a major shift in both user experience and Amazon’s strategy, especially given the assistant’s long history of being expensive to maintain and hard to monetize. Ad-supported Alexa+ could be Amazon’s attempt to finally turn its once-money-burning smart assistant into a revenue machine, without hiking the subscription fee (at least for now).

Alexa+ is still new, and what an ad-supported experience would actually look like remains unclear. According to Jassy, the idea is to frame ads as helpful, something to assist customers in discovering products they might be interested in buying.

A lot of people would frown on the idea of buying a pre-built PC instead of building your own from scratch. I might have done that in the past, too. But it's become abundantly clear lately that there are plenty of reasons to buy a pre-built PC: it's not lazy, it's just smart.

It’s no secret that Apple is falling behind in the AI space. Other companies like Google have embraced things like AI search, whereas Apple has taken its sweet time tooling around with some AI-powered tools that make up the core of Apple Intelligence. Per Mark Gurman’s latest Power On Newsletter, that may be changing in the future. 

SEE ALSO: Here's one good thing about Apple Intelligence: All iPhones will have more RAM because of it

Apple has apparently been quietly putting together an “Answers, Knowledge, and Information” team, also known as AKI. This AKI team is headed by Robby Walker, a senior director at Apple who reports to John Giannandrea, Apple’s senior vice president of Machine Learning and AI. Robby was moved to the AKI team after a shakeup in the wake of Siri feature delays.

The team's goal is fairly straightforward: to build a “new ChatGPT-like search experience,” says Gurman. 

As Gurman states, the initiative is still in its early days, but Apple already has job listings posted for engineers. Not much else is known. The team is working on the aforementioned system to crawl search results and give answers instead of redirecting people directly to the search results. This “answer engine,” as Gurman calls it, would be able to crawl the web to gather information and respond to questions like ChatGPT does. 

A standalone app and backend infrastructure plans to power everything may be in the works. One of the job listings specifically mentions search algorithms and engine development, so Apple may also be working on search engine stuff. 

It’s no secret that Apple Intelligence can use the help. Response to Apple’s AI-powered tools has been lukewarm, and while Cupertino has studied how to integrate AI into its operating systems more aggressively, it hasn’t been terribly happy with what’s seen so far.

Siri’s AI upgrade is still in the works with an expected release date of spring 2026, so it’s likely that AKI’s work will be directly integrated into Siri and Apple’s other products if they can get it done on time.

With Magic: The Gathering expanding through its Universes Beyond line, crossovers between iconic game franchises and MTG’s deep mechanics are no longer just fan dreams. We’ve already seen The Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, Assassin’s Creed, and even Fortnite get the MTG treatment. But what about video games that haven’t made the leap yet?

Modern Android phones hide a menu called Developer Options. Most people never touch it. But if you've ever wanted to understand what your phone is doing under the hood, this is where you look.

I’ve held a Galaxy Z Fold 7, and unlike last year’s model, Samsung’s latest book-style foldable doesn’t feel like a refined version of its previous one—it feels like a different phone entirely, one that has made enough compromises to make me really appreciate my Z Fold 6.

When Google Chrome was released, it was with much fanfare and excitement. I was an early user, and while things were great for a while, it didn't take long until I was back to Firefox. And I've stuck with it.

SAVE 20% OFF SITE WIDE: From August 3 to 9, score 20% off everything at Owala, including on their FreeSip water bottles.

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We know Stanley is sort of the hydration It Girl, but we're Owala people here at Mashable. In almost every team meeting, you'll catch one of us drinking from our FreeSip. These bright, colorful water bottles keep water icy cold and offer the flexibility of sipping through a straw or chugging from the spout. And during back-to-school season, Owala is offering 20% off site-wide.

All items at Owala will be marked down from August 3 to 9. The sale kicks off at 10 a.m. MT, and ends at 11:59 p.m. MT on August 9. No code is necessary to access the sale as everything is marked down 20%.

While the FreeSip is our favorite Owala product, the brand has an extensive collection. During the sale, enjoy 20% off the brand's very own 40-ounce tumbler as well as the FreeSip Sway and Twist. All styles come in Owala's signature range of vibrant hues.

Shop now and score savings on a new back-to-school water bottle or tumbler.

When Halo: Combat Evolved was released in 2001, it completely changed the first-person shooter landscape. It also transformed Master Chief into a household name for gamers around the world. Soon enough, the success of the first game led to a bevy of sequels, prequels, and spinoffs.

If you're in the market for a new smartwatch to pair with your Android smartphone, Samsung has just dropped the Galaxy Watch 8 and Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, which are among the hot options right now. Given that both are Samsung's latest wearables, which one should you choose? Let me help you figure it out.

Apple Music can offer useful recommendations for artists or new music you might like based on your previous listening history. Under normal circumstances, these recommendations are usually reasonably good, and in the past, they've helped me discover new artists that I really like. However, the algorithms base their suggestions on any music played from your Apple Music account, and since my kids have started requesting their own music choices through our smart speakers, my recommendations have been ruined.