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Here are the answers for today’s NYT Mini Crossword puzzle for Sept. 17, 2026.

• Report finds 57% of UK organizations opted to extend legacy system use rather than replace the tech
• This is despite almost half of UK businesses are scaling AI
• Meanwhile, over three quarters of UK businesses have gone over budget on modernization, with over two thirds have paused or abandoned the process

Does technological progress necessarily mean replacing old gear? New research from Ensono claims businesses are keeping hold of legacy tech, with older systems extended and upgraded to support modern applications.

This is happening while businesses scale their AI use, focusing budgets on affordable upgrades for existing PCs, laptops, and servers on one hand, and embracing AI on the other. It’s a balancing act, one that is being managed by around 52% of businesses – 57% in the UK, and 48% in the US.

However, the driving factor for this reliance on older tech may not be smart budgeting and foresight. Across the US and UK, 61% of businesses have been forced to pause, scale back, delay, or even completely abandon IT modernization in the past two years.

IT modernization?

Ensono’s second annual State of IT Modernization Report seems to point to a change in how IT modernization is achieved: rather than replacing old tech, businesses are upgrading. The takeaway is that IT budgets are dictating a focus on AI spending, so where possible PCs, laptops, and some lower-end servers are increasingly being upgraded with faster, higher capacity storage and RAM.

Other key statistics in the report include the news that 71% of IT modernization projects have exceeded budgets, with workflow challenges (33%) and limitations with existing infrastructure (28%) among the roadblocks to an ROI on AI spending.

Underpinning all of this is the growth in decision makers declaring that AI is accelerating modernization, up from 39% last year to 54%.

Rediscovering legacy systems

Budget demands seem to be driving the reliance on older tech within organizations striving to keep up with AI modernization.

“AI is expanding the possibilities for modernization, enterprises are discovering that legacy systems, like the mainframe, are intensely powerful, reliable and efficient sources of computing that can now be augmented and made more agile thanks to AI," noted Brian Klingbeil, Chief Strategy Officer at Ensono.

This means that IT leaders are being forced to decide what needs to be preserved, and where to use AI investment wisely.

“These systems contain decades of data and business logic that drive many businesses,” says Klingbeil. “The advantage will go to organizations that understand their environments well enough to distinguish what should be replaced vs. what should be augmented, and embrace new modernization methods that simply were not available even 18 months ago."

• Salesforce UK&I CEO pushes her skilling "mission" across the country
• Salesforce doubles down on UK&I recruitment and upskilling goals
• Jobs could be repatriated back to the UK from abroad

Salesforce’s UK&I CEO has doubled down on her company’s commitment to investing in skills training and upskilling of young people.

With the UK recently seeing a change in Prime Minister, Zahra Bahroloumi was asked in a media roundtable attended by TechRadar Pro what her outlook for the future looked like.

“Irrespective of government, we are committed to, and very active to the skilling of people,” Bahroloumi said, “we're not stopping, we remain true to our mission, and we remain active and true to our customers, irrespective of government”.

Closing the AI literacy gap

Bahrololoumi has long been a key voice in promoting skills training in the UK, using her company’s influence and scale across the country to push a number of key initiatives.

In June 2026, she outlined the Salesforce’s “incredibly bold” vision for the UK, which includes $6 billion investment committed to the country through 2030, and its role in backing the UK government’s aim to train 10 million UK workers by 2030.

Alongside Bahrololoumi, Paul O’Sullivan, SVP Solution Engineering and Salesforce UKI CTO also looked to outline how Salesforce’s future Trailblazer program is “closing the AI literacy gap”.

O’Sullivan noted how Salesforce is going through “a surge of hiring”, including doubling the size of its forward-deployed engineer team in the UK.

“We are not just looking to attract the best possible talent to come and join Salesforce, we’re also heavily investing in our apprenticeship scheme, doubling down on our graduate opportunities, and aiming to double the size of the team in the next six months,” he noted.

“This is our opportunity to reinvest in the next generation.”

Looking forward, Bahrololoumi was keen to promote the role of the UK in the AI-enabled and augmented future, noting that while the country was, “an empowered market”, there was still potential for more growth.

“We need more talent,” she added, “I feel so confident, and we’ve got the evidence and the proof points that this technology and our platform can work and automate jobs, and augment jobs, and expand human capacity in an organisation effectively.

“But I would like to see more jobs being repatriated from offshore and low-cost locations and jobs being created back in the UK - so I would like to see a stronger drive around automation and repatriation.”

Bahrololoumi gave the example of when there 300 jobs in a low-cost location, outside of the UK - “why can I not create a hundred jobs in the UK and still do 300 plus worth of capacity?”

“That’s something we’re really focused on, because we’ve got the capability to do that now… but I think we've got the opportunity now to create jobs in the UK,” she concluded, “we're on a mission.”

It’s been just over two years since Dyson introduced its second pair of headphones, the OnTrac, to the world. While they were a significant improvement — both in terms of sound and general design — over the Zone, I ultimately found in my Dyson OnTrac review that they still couldn’t quite challenge the class leaders — namely Sony and Bose.

A strong factor in that realisation was their exorbitant AU$799 price tag. Not only was that too much for the Dyson headphones (regardless of brand name), it also allowed other manufacturers to charge AU$700 or more for their premium cans — here’s looking at you, Sony, Bose and Sennheiser.

Now, two years later, the Dyson OnTrac has plummeted to a much more acceptable AU$299 during Dyson’s Spring Sale event. At this price, I think they’re worth a look. The noise cancellation is very good, and a 55-hour battery life gives them greater stamina than the closest competitors. I also can’t really fault the ability to customise them, since it’s a feature that’s still pretty unique. That being said, they’re incredibly heavy, so I found I could only wear them for short stints.

At this price, the Dyson OnTrac becomes a lot easier to recommend, although I’d still tread with caution. Their looks may make them stand out from the crowd, but where audio quality is concerned, they can be beaten. Although I don’t see them getting any cheaper, even during Black Friday 2026 sales in Australia later this year.View Deal

• Check out the latest Dyson AU discount codes for more chances to save.

However, for your AU$300, or thereabouts, you’re not short of great alternatives. So, if you’ve got a burning desire to invest in a new set of mid-priced headphones, take a look at my top recommendations below.

Do note that Amazon recently announced dates for its Prime Big Deal Days sales event. If experience is anything to go by, there’s a good chance my three recommended pairs of headphones below could receive bigger discounts when Prime Big Deal Days kicks off, but they’re worth every cent even right now.

For just under AU$200 (for the white model), the Nothing Headphone (a) are a terrific buy. A vast improvement over the Headphone (1), this newer set delivers a detailed, expansive soundstage coupled with good noise cancellation. Plus, their 135-hour battery life eclipses the OnTrac by some margin. View Deal

QuietComfort SC: was $499.95 now $349.99
Nearly as good as the premium QuietComfort Ultra, the SC misses out on the Immersive Audio mode — though they do come with a soft case. They have dropped to well below AU$300 before, which could happen during the next Prime Day sales event. View Deal

If your budget can stretch, the Sony WH-1000XM5 will reward you with superior sound quality, incredible comfort and excellent ANC. They’re comfortable to wear for long periods and benefit from a smartphone app that opens up a huge world of customisation.View Deal

Spoilers for Neagley ahead.

It likely won't take you long to reach the ending of Neagley on Prime Video — all eight episodes have been released on the streamer — and when you do, it's nothing short of dramatic.

In a nutshell, the Reacher spinoff is following two story strands simultaneously: the death of a young man that's linked to the Echo Canyon Farm cult, and the reasoning behind why Neagley (Maria Sten) has a lifelong fear of being touched and touching others.

We learn that the cult has a secret facility that is being used to test an illegal drug, called Tranqlara, on human subjects, which is all being funded by a Swedish billionaire known as Rawlings. Neagley and her team try to simultaneously avenge her friend's death in episode 1 and save the innocent followers from the effects of Tranqlara, though they're not overly successful.

What it does lead to, however, is the group blowing up the Echo Canyon Farm facility after the death of leader Lawrence (Damon Herriman), walking in the other direction as if they're in the iconic Reservoir Dogs scene.

It's my favorite moment in the entire series (it looks and feels so effortlessly cool), but according to Sten, none of it was filmed in the way that I thought it would be.

'It wasn't as impressive as what you see'

"I thought it was cool, but I could spoil things and say that there was no such explosion behind us as we walk away," Sten tells me. "There was actually a wind turbine. But we played the music that was going to be played and definitely got in the vibe.

Greyston Holt, who plays detective newcomer Hudson Riley, adds, "We knew what it would be. But in the moment, it certainly didn't look as impressive as what you see on screen."

For the first time in what feels like forever, I've been fooled by CGI. If you were to ask me whether the season finale explosion scene was real or digitally generated, I'd have firmly been in the former camp.

However, that doesn't mean everything we see in Neagley was CGI generated. "In the first episode there's a big truck that blows up, and that was a practical explosion. It's a matter of whether we can blow up the set of not," Sten laughs. "It's not always possible, but we always vouch for it."

If Neagley season 2 does get confirmed (come on, Amazon), I'm hoping for even bigger and better actions sequences. Sure, discovering more about Neagley's backstory has been incredibly satisfying, but clearly, nothing truly beats blowing stuff up.

• The Nyrius Phoenix Home is a new wireless HDMI adapter with 500ft line-of-sight range, 75ft through walls or floors
• Delivers 4K resolution with Dolby Atmos, DTS and 7.1-channel surround support
• Launches for $199.99 for the basic transmitter and receiver

The Nyrius Phoenix Home is a true 4K wireless streamer that takes an HDMI source such as your games console, Apple TV 4K or Blu-ray player (or any combination through an AV receiver) and sends it to your TV, projector or desktop monitor.

It's designed to be simple, so there's one HDMI input on the transmitter and one HDMI output on the receiver — and it promises a 500-foot range in plain air, or 75 feet through walls and floors.

This means it could be used as part of a home theater setup, beaming video from your source to your projector or TV across the room without cables, or it could be used as an alternative to running and HDMI cable through your walls so you can send video to other parts of the house.

This isn't the first such streamer by any means, but it's very aggressively priced for a 4K wireless HDMI adapter and delivers an impressive specification for its relatively low price.

(Image credit: Nyrius)Nyrius Phoenix Home: key features and specifications

With the Phoenix Home's 500-foot line-of-sight range, I'm thinking it could be good for movies or sporting events with friends outdoors with a projector or outdoor TV.

Transmitting up to 75 feet through walls and floors means you can use it to stream from a computer in one room to a TV in another, provided the computer has an HDMI output or an HDMI adapter: the Phoenix Home only supports HDMI input.

The Phoenix Home also features USB-C that you can use to remotely control a computer by connecting it to the transmitter and using a keyboard and mouse with the receiver. There's also an IR extender for remote controllers.

The Phoenix Home transmits up to 4K resolution at up to 60fps, and it supports DTS, Dolby Atmos and 7.1-channel surround.

I think there are multiple applications for this kind of device at home as well as in business or educational spaces: it's a good solution for renters who can't start drilling cable runs everywhere, and for rooms that weren't made with AV systems in mind.

A few TV companies have been thinking about rooms where you want to mount the TV above the fireplace or another feature and have your AV receiver, consoles or other home theater gear somewhere else. If you saw Samsung's Wireless One Connect Box or LG's Zero Connect and wished you too could have a wire-free TV, you don't need to splash your cash on one of this year's best TVs to cut the cables: this will provide a similar option for $199.

Our one worry would be what the latency is like for gaming, which we'd have to test to be sure about. But if you're looking to cut the cables for making it easy to move movies around the home, this looks like a very affordable and effective way to do it, and is available now.

Thinking of buying a new TV?

Try our TV size and model finder! You tell it how far you sit from your TV, we'll tell you what size to buy based on viewing angle advice from image quality experts, and we'll recommend our three top TVs at that size for different prices.

Google is expanding its tools so you can invoke a variety of AI agents in your smart home.

Here are hints and the answers for today’s NYT Connections puzzle for Sept. 17, 2026.

Here are hints and the answers for today’s Wordle puzzle for Sept. 17, 2026.

• The US Treasury's FinCEN arm asks financial institutions to file scam center suspicious activity reports under a new keyword
• FinCEN says that it flagged financial moves across 33,904 different filings, but actual losses might differ significantly, as the approach is prone to double-counting transactions
• Only 1,300 institutions filed reports, with 10,082 (29.7%) of them centering around exploitation of the elderly by scammers

The US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has issuespublished an alert and a companion data analysis telling banks, credit unions, digital asset exchanges, and securities firms that it needs sharper reporting on the overseas scam centers that it says target Americans at an industrial scale.

FinCEN puts total damages, per its reporting mechanism, at roughly $12.7 billion linked to suspected digital asset investment scams between September 2023 and the end of 2025.

The number comes from adding up the dollar values of 33,904 Bank Secrecy Act filings that referenced the keyword from its 2023 "pig butchering" alert, which may be overstated, as it includes both attempted and successful transactions as well as both inbound and outbound reports, often of the same transactions, causing significant overlap.

FinCEN's new requirement is a keyword

While the $12.7 billion is a measure of what institutions have flagged and is prone to double-counting and errors, victim losses, a significant chunk of which go unreported, may be considerably higher.

This has prompted Gene Lange, who effectively works as the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, to call these scams "one of the most significant fraud threats facing Americans today."

It has also prompted a new suspicious activity report keyword: "FIN-2026-SCAMCENTERS," which institutions are expected to use to indicate that a scam center is potentially involved.

FinCEN also wants chat logs, scammer phone numbers, social media handles, wallet addresses, transaction hashes, and the URLs victims were told to deposit into, filed in the structured cyber indicator fields rather than left out.

Institutions to volunteer more information to stop scams

The move is part of its push to have institutions volunteer more information under the US Patriot Act, as it aims to confront what is a growing intelligence problem: scammers tend to route victims through several institutions in sequence; most filers see only one slice of a scam's lifecycle and often have difficulty tracing it all the way.

For example, a crypto exchange might see a customer buying USDT and sending it off-platform, a bank might see a wire to that exchange, and a brokerage might see a retirement account liquidated. None of them would have the bigger picture of what essentially happened or what triggered the transaction.

Combined, with properly linked information, it makes it much easier to identify a potential scam; separately, these incidents can inflate the number of reports, which often aren't linked, and investigations can lack insight into the origin or final destination of the funds.

FinCEN's Rapid Response Program has interdicted $1.8 billion and recovered just over $1 billion for 5,790 US victims since 2015, which, against the flagged totals, is a very limited recovery at best compared with the actual funds at stake. This highlights a larger fundamental problem: institutions mostly detect these schemes after the money is gone, and reporting them correctly and thoroughly may yield limited dividends at best against an industry that has morphed, relatively unchecked, into a multi-billion-dollar juggernaut.

Here are hints and the answers for today’s NYT Strands puzzle for Sept. 17, 2026.

• Scientists have developed solar panels that can work up to 10 meters underwater
• The panels can capture up to 324 mWh of energy at that depth
• Each device is expected to last up to five and a half years at a time

A lot of devices are deployed underwater for research and exploration purposes, but powering them all can prove to be difficult, especially if they’re under the waves for a considerable period of time. A new scientific paper, however, has shown that solar panels can be successfully used at depths of up to 10 meters, potentially presenting a new way to keep underwater tech powered up and ready for action.

The paper was published in the Joule periodical and accompanied by a press release explaining its advances. The research was conducted by a team of scientists from Yunnan University in China, who said that a series of solar cells placed 32 feet (10 meters) below the water’s surface in the South China Sea were able to collect enough energy to power up a set of lithium-ion batteries in two hours.

The cells were made from lead halide perovskite with a polymer called polyhexamethylene guanidine hydrochloride added into the mix. This additive helped to enhance the effectiveness of the panels.

According to Wen-Hua Zhang of Yunnan University, “Very few studies have been reported on underwater solar cells, and all of them are focused on very shallow water depths of only two meters or less, a scenario far from catering for requirements of practical application.”

A photo of the prototype solar cells being tested in the South China Sea. (Image credit: Joule)

“This work presents the first functional validation of submerged solar cells practically operating at a water depth of up to about 10 meters, greatly broadening their application scope,” Zhang added. The researchers stated that each cell could be deployed for around five and a half years at a time.

The panels captured 1,416 milliwatt-hours (mWh) of electricity at a depth of two meters. This decreased to 752 mWh at six meters and 324 mWh at ten meters. During separate lab testing, the solar panels had a power conversion efficiency of just under 35%.

Paving the way

Solar panels could one day be used to power ‘self-sustained marine energy systems and autonomous underwater devices,’ researchers believe. (Image credit: datacenterdynamics)

The idea behind this research is that underwater solar panels could be used to power devices such as sensors, cameras, communications systems, and more.

Many of these objects are stationary for much of the time, so nearby solar cells could help keep them topped up and working without necessarily requiring extensive human intervention.

One question that remains unanswered is how exactly solar panels like this would interact with their environment. For example, it’s likely that they would accumulate biomatter that could hinder their operation, potentially requiring regular cleaning in order to remain fully functional. After all, the sunlight that will power these cells could also promote the growth of plants and animals — a process known as biofouling.

Still, the research seems to have potential. As the authors noted, “This work paves the way for the practical deployment of perovskite photovoltaics in underwater environments, offering a promising route toward self-sustained marine energy systems and autonomous underwater devices.”

It’s been 66 million years and science is still learning more about the most famous dinosaur.

A business tool, or a theme park for my face? Right now I’m leaning toward the latter.

Cricket joins the club of mobile providers bundling home internet with mobile phone service.

No one across the U.S. is consistently tracking climate-fueled deaths. One medical examiner has a new protocol on heat-deaths.

(Image credit: Cassidy Araiza for NPR)

• A pseudonymous GitHub account has published what it calls a reconstruction of Stuxnet malware that purportedly took out a fifth of Iran's centrifuges before being discovered
• The original source has never surfaced, and the 'Stuxnet' moniker that the account uses comes from Symantec's coining of the name weeks after it was discovered
• The code remains unverified and untested, with some users indicating that it is likely an AI-generated replication of the original binaries' behavior, which has been widely documented

A GitHub account has published what it describes as a faithful reconstruction of Stuxnet, the worm that sabotaged Iranian uranium-enrichment centrifuges.

It also became the first piece of software widely accepted as having caused physical destruction in the real world, highlighting how malicious software can often do much more harm to people and hardware than just stealing or manipulating data.

The repository surfaced via a Show HN submission, which mainstream media outlets then picked up, highlighting the as-yet-unknown researcher's reverse-engineered code.

Not the first or last Stuxnet repository

The original Stuxnet source, written by whoever built it, has never been leaked and did not leak last week. The repository's README explicitly states that it is a reconstruction assembled from decompiled binaries, and those binaries have been in public circulation since Belarusian firm VirusBlokAda pulled samples from an Iranian customer's machines in June 2010.

Everything that followed, including Symantec's W32.Stuxnet Dossier and Ralph Langner's To Kill a Centrifuge, was built on those samples and how they reacted in test environments.

This is also not the first time readable C-language code aiming to replicate Stuxnet has been published online. Malware researcher Amr Thabet published a decompilation of the MRxNet rootkit carrying a 2010 to 2011 copyright notice. Christian Roggia followed with a dropper decompilation called open-myrtus, copyrighted 2012 to 2014, which has since been forked into a long chain of repositories.

The irony is that if such code were a faithful replication of the infamous malware, it would not have mentioned "Stuxnet" in multiple places, including registry keys. This is because the moniker is not one the developers likely used, but one Symantec switched to from its original 'W32.Temphid' identifier.

The thread where it was first brought to attention by a user called Sadpainy also has mixed views from developers, many of whom have branded it 'AI slop' or a 'fake' that relies on a mixture of already existing repositories, even as the about page on its GitHub repo states that it was reproduced by the researcher for educational purposes and is designed to only work on Windows XP and Windows 7.

For those looking to test it, a virtual machine might be their best bet, especially given Stuxnet's ability to physically damage hardware, but it is also a stark reminder of what a rogue AI agent could do if left unchecked without specific instructions or safeguards.

The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates. Now, if you want to finance a tech upgrade, you’ll pay more in interest.

The 2027 Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra fold phone mirroring into the native UI rather than walling it off, even as GM keeps Apple and Google’s apps out of its electric lineup.

Looking for a different day?

A new Quordle puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Wednesday's puzzle instead then click here: Quordle hints and answers for Wednesday, September 16 (game #1696).

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,500 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today — or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc's Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Quordle today (game #1697) — hint #1 — VowelsHow many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 2*.

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

Quordle today (game #1697) — hint #2 — repeated lettersDo any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 2.

Quordle today (game #1697) — hint #3 — uncommon lettersDo the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

• No. None of Q, Z, X or J appear among today's Quordle answers.

Quordle today (game #1697) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?

• The number of today's Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 2.

If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you're not ready yet then here's one more clue to make things a lot easier:

Quordle today (game #1697) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• C

• C

• N

• F

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1697) — the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1697, are…

• CRIER
• CHIRP
• NEIGH
• FREER

A very taxing game despite its heavy use of the letter R and lack of vowels.

NEIGH was the hardest to get to, but once I entered N-E-I onto the tiles I realized there was no other possibility.

Daily Sequence today (game #1697) — the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1697, are…

• SOBER
• STONY
• IDYLL
• QUARK

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1696, Wednesday, 16 September: SPEAR, PRICE, BLUNT, FISHY
• Quordle #1695, Tuesday, 15 September: SHUSH, LITHE, DELTA, BUGLE
• Quordle #1694, Monday, 14 September: ZEBRA, LEGAL, RATIO, TROLL
• Quordle #1693, Sunday, 13 September: LUCID, SPRAY, MANGE, EMAIL
• Quordle #1692, Saturday, 12 September: SUPER, BRUSH, RESET, SOWER
• Quordle #1691, Friday, 11 September: PLUSH, PAINT, RIVAL, AFOUL
• Quordle #1690, Thursday, 10 September: AGENT, EXILE, TITAN, PUREE
• Quordle #1689, Wednesday, 9 September: HAPPY, GONER, SMACK, MOTIF
• Quordle #1688, Tuesday, 8 September: FLUNG, DIARY, HALVE, BERTH
• Quordle #1687, Monday, 7 September: VISIT, CLANK, FEVER, OCEAN
• Quordle #1686, Sunday, 6 September: PILOT, HONOR, BOWEL, TAUNT
• Quordle #1685, Saturday, 5 September: GNASH, GEEKY, WHELP, PUTTY
• Quordle #1684, Friday, 4 September: QUICK, BEEFY, TRUCK, SNAIL
• Quordle #1683, Thursday, 3 September: SIGMA, ESSAY, MERRY, LLAMA
• Quordle #1682, Wednesday, 2 September: INCUR, FELLA, TITAN, FROZE
• Quordle #1681, Tuesday, 1 September: NASAL, ROUTE, ANKLE, MIGHT
• Quordle #1680, Monday, 31 August: ALIVE, LOUSE, ABOVE, MOSSY
• Quordle #1679, Sunday, 30 August: USING, SORRY, FILET, PIPER
• Quordle #1678, Saturday, 29 August: OVINE, ALLOY, VOICE, CARVE
• Quordle #1677, Friday, 28 August: WAIST, EDICT, BONUS, DEUCE