Looking forthe most recentMini 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? I thought 1-Across and 5-Across were a bit tricky. Read on for all the answers. 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 visitCNET’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: “Whatcha ___?”
Answer: DOIN

5A clue: “Whatcha ___?”
Answer: UPTO

6A clue: Ecosystem that includes the bristlemouth, the most common vertebrate on Earth (roughly 1 quadrillion organisms)
Answer: OCEAN

7A clue: Marx who wrote “Das Kital”
Answer: KARL

8A clue: Period at a hotel
Answer: STAY

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Old gold coin of Europe
Answer: DUCAT

2D clue: Performance at Milan’s La Scala or Nles’s Teatro di San Carlo
Answer: OPERA

3D clue: Home to Milan and Nles
Answer: ITALY

4D clue: Prefix with starter or smoker
Answer: NON

6D clue: proves
Answer: OKS

AI is coming for your YouTube feed algorithm, if you want it.

The platform announced a new feature this week that can create a personalized feed based on a prompt describing your interests. In itsannouncement, YouTube suggests prompts like unwinding after work with 10-minute guided meditations or something different from your usual interests. And you can save your prompt as a pin at the top of your Home page to revisit it.

YouTube unveiled the new feature on Wednesday, along with a few new AI updates, including automatic AI detection and clear labels for AI-generated content. The AI customized feed feature is available now and rolling out to US viewers signed in on the YouTube mobile or desktop p. It’s unclear if or when the feature will be available internationally or on TV ps. A representative for YouTube did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read more: Google I/O 2026 Rec: Everything Announced

How YouTube’s new AI feature works

Here’s how it works: You’ll t the “Your custom feed” chip on the Home page and enter a prompt that describes the video you’re looking for. You can also choose from YouTube’s suggested prompts for a custom feed. YouTube says you can edit the prompt at any time.

To enable the feature, you’ll need to turn your search and watch history on in your account settings. Google recommends using theHelp Centerif you have trouble using the feature. YouTube hasn’t shared what data will be used to generate the feed or if it will be saved.

YouTube is rolling out other AI features that could she your experience. Google’s‘Ask YouTube’is a search feature that will find the exact part of a video that answers your question.

The trouble with content creation and AI

The big question is what YouTube’s new AI feature will mean for content creators. We’re unsure how the tool will interpret prompts — whether it’s based on your watch history or keywords. Will it focus on videos that are already popular? And will it focus on newer creators or those with high view counts?

AI features are pearing more and more in search engine results, and publishers and creators of content are often seeing their traffic drop as a result. Will a similar outcome hpen on YouTube? We’ll have to wait and see.

My Oura Ring 4 is the smallest, most discreet piece of technology I own, and yet sometimes I still find it too big.

My preference is for dainty, rather than chunky jewelry – pretty things that will adorn my fingers, ears, wrist and neck. It’s an aesthetic choice, but I also value the comfort and practicality of smaller trinkets. The size of my current Oura Ring means that I need to remove it when lifting weights in order to get good grip. It’s a shame, because I’d really prefer to keep my wearable technology on my body when I’m working out.

But maybe I’ll find this problem remedied with the newly announced Oura Ring 5, which I was thrilled to hear is a whopping 40% smaller than its predecessor. We’re talking about a matter of millimeters here, but this is a huge overall reduction in size that will likely result in a very different experience of wearing a smart ring.

Our tech often requires compromises from us, and some of these compromises are easier to make than others. I prefer a larger phone for the size of its screen, for example, even though I sometimes struggle to use it with one hand or to fit it in my pockets. Such a compromise on size is much harder for me to justify with wearable tech, when I can physically feel it against my body every moment of every day.

Not only is Oura’s success in drastically reducing the size of its ring a feat of engineering, but it also shows the company is doing something that many wearables makers have failed at for years. It’s actively listening to feedback from its customers, especially its female customers, and prioritizing that feedback to make big changes when designing the next iteration of the product.

Smartwatch makers, learn from Oura

Take smartwatches, for instance. We’re well over a decade into the smartwatch boom, and yet many companies are still making watches that are far too big for women’s wrists and often feel deeply impractical for everyday wear. Asking for smaller devices seems to only result in marginally diminished sizes.

That’s because many tech companies are reluctant to go back to the drawing board in the way Oura has done for the Ring 5. Reducing its size by 40% wasn’t simply a matter of shrinking it – the device needed to be reengineered from the ground up, without making any trade-offs to its battery life or sensing cability.

In a briefing with Oura ahead of launch, I learned that it had rebuilt the sensing architecture inside the ring with fewer but more powerful and sensing pathways. The sensing architecture was also rotated 180 degrees in places for fit. The company redesigned the battery to make it smaller while offering a week’s worth of charge and used more powerful LEDs designed to collect more accurate and consistent data, even though the ring is thinner.

From the outside, the Ring 5 might just look like a shrunk-down Oura Ring. Inside, it’s a completely reimagined product.

I’m really looking forward to seeing if the Ring 5 is small enough that I don’t feel the need to remove it when I’m lifting heavy weights or doing other manual tasks. I’d also love smartwatch makers to take their cue from Oura here. It’s time for wearable tech that truly prioritizes our all-day comfort, no matter how small our wrists are.

AI-powered recommendations and more background playback options are on the way to YouTube.

The announcement of a new Call of Duty game is about as far from earth-shattering as news gets, but this one is more noteworthy than usual, because the latest mainline entry is coming to a Nintendo platform for the first time since 2013.

Activision has officially revealed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, a return to Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare sub-series after a three-year hiatus. As you’d expect, the game is coming to Xbox Series X|S, PS5 and PC. It will also launch on Switch 2 — the franchise’s debut on the console and the first evidence of the supposed 10-year Call of Duty pact that Microsoft and Nintendo made in 2023.

Infinity Ward is developing the native Switch 2 version of Modern Warfare 4 in partnership with the mobile gaming-focused studio Digital Legends. It’s also significant that the game won’t be coming to PS4 or Xbox One, making it the first current-gen-only CoD of this generation. Call of Duty Warzone will also be shut down on PS4 and Xbox One later this year.

The single-player campaign will drop you into the boots of Private Park, a young South Korean soldier getting his first taste of live combat as North Korea invades his homeland. Infinity Ward promises a typically globe-trotting campaign that also features military assignments in New York, Paris and Mumbai.

Series mainstay Ctain Price also returns, now an outlaw. He’s on a personal revenge quest that sees him drawn toward “a weon powerful enough to shift the balance of power, setting in motion a conflict far greater than he even anticipated.” Expect the usual cocktail of large-scale skirmishes, covert ops and cinematic set pieces.

Multiplayer will, as ever, be the big draw for many, and Infinity Ward is promising “a new weon-first technology stack that unifies precision aiming, physical handling, realistic audio propagation, enhanced visibility, and smarter combat perception into the most authentic Modern Warfare gunplay yet.” Fluid movement is once again a big focus, and weons will now respond more naturally to stance changes and the environment.

Modern Warfare 4 will launch with 12 core ms, with fan favorite modes like Search and Destroy and Domination returning alongside several new ones. Infinity Ward will share more information about these, as well as the also returning DMZ extraction shooter mode, in the coming weeks.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 launches October 23 on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, PC (with a number of new PC-specific performance optimizations) and Switch 2. It won’t be a day one Game Pass inclusion this time around, following the recent Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass price drops.