Entertainment
NYT Pips hints, answers for May 31, 2026
Welcome to your guide to Pips, the latest game in the New York Times catalogue.
Released in August 2025, Pips puts a unique spin on dominoes, creating a fun single-player experience that could become your next daily gaming habit.
Currently, if you’re stuck, the game only offers to reveal the entire puzzle, forcing you to move on to the next difficulty level and start over. However, we have you covered! Below are piecemeal answers that will serve as hints so that you can find your way through each difficulty level.
How to play Pips
If you’ve ever played dominoes, you’ll have a passing familiarity with how Pips is played. As we’ve shared in our previous hints stories for Pips, the tiles, like dominoes, are placed vertically or horizontally and connect with each other. The main difference between a traditional game of dominoes and Pips is the color-coded conditions you have to address. The touching tiles don’t necessarily have to match.
The conditions you have to meet are specific to the color-coded spaces. For example, if it provides a single number, every side of a tile in that space must add up to the number provided. It is possible — and common — for only half a tile to be within a color-coded space.
Here are common examples you’ll run into across the difficulty levels:
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Number: All the pips in this space must add up to the number.
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Equal: Every domino half in this space must be the same number of pips.
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Not Equal: Every domino half in this space must have a completely different number of pips.
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Less than: Every domino half in this space must add up to less than the number.
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Greater than: Every domino half in this space must add up to more than the number.
If an area does not have any color coding, it means there are no conditions on the portions of dominoes within those spaces.
Easy difficulty hints, answers for May 31 Pips
Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 5-1, placed vertically.
Number (10): Everything in this space must add up to 10. The answer is 5-1, placed vertically; 5-2, placed horizontally.
Equal (2): Everything in this space must be equal to 2. The answer is 5-2, placed horizontally; 2-3, placed vertically.
Number (1): Everything in this space must add up to 1. The answer is 1-3, placed vertically.
Equal (3): Everything in this space must be equal to 3. The answer is 1-3, placed vertically; 3-5, placed horizontally.
Number (10): Everything in this space must add up to 10. The answer is 3-5, placed horizontally; 6-5, placed vertically.
Medium difficulty hints, answers for May 31 Pips
Number (7): Everything in this space must add up to 7. The answer is 1-1, placed horizontally; 6-3, placed horizontally.
Greater Than (2): Everything in this space must be greater than 2. The answer is 6-3, placed horizontally.
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Number (7): Everything in this space must add up to 7. The answer is 1-3, placed horizontally; 4-2, placed horizontally.
Number (8): Everything in this space must add up to 8. The answer is 4-2, placed horizontally; 6-6, placed vertically.
Number (6): Everything in this space must add up to 6. The answer is 6-6, placed vertically.
Number (6): Everything in this space must add up to 6. The answer is 1-5, placed vertically.
Greater Than (3): Everything in this space must be greater than 3. The answer is 5-3, placed vertically.
Hard difficulty hints, answers for May 31 Pips
Number (2): Everything in this space must add up to 2. The answer is 1-6, placed vertically; 1-5, placed horizontally.
Number (10): Everything in this space must add up to 10. The answer is 1-5, placed horizontally; 5-4, placed horizontally.
Equal (4): Everything in this space must be equal to 4. The answer is 5-4, placed horizontally; 4-6, placed horizontally.
Number (12): Everything in this space must add up to 12. The answer is 1-6, placed vertically; 6-0, placed vertically.
Number (2): Everything in this space must add up to 2. The answer is 1-3, placed vertically; 1-2, placed horizontally.
Number (18): Everything in this space must add up to 18. The answer is 4-6, placed horizontally; 6-6, placed vertically.
Equal (0): Everything in this space must be equal to 0. The answer is 6-0, placed vertically; 0-0, placed horizontally.
Number (4): Everything in this space must add up to 4. The answer is 3-4, placed vertically.
Equal (3): Everything in this space must be equal to 3. The answer is 1-3, placed vertically; 3-4, placed vertically; 3-6, placed vertically.
Equal (2): Everything in this space must be equal to 2. The answer is 1-2, placed horizontally; 2-5, placed horizontally; 2-6, placed vertically.
Number (10): Everything in this space must add up to 10. The answer is 2-5, placed horizontally; 5-6, placed vertically.
Number (18): Everything in this space must add up to 18. The answer is 3-6, placed vertically; 2-6, placed vertically; 5-6, placed vertically.
Number (2): Everything in this space must add up to 2. The answer is 2-3, placed vertically.
Number (3): Everything in this space must add up to 3. The answer is 2-3, placed vertically.
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Entertainment
Meta faces employee backlash over tracking tool
In April, Reuters reported that Meta would track U.S. employees’ mouse movements and keystrokes to train its AI agents. Weeks later, Meta laid off 8,000 employees, citing its AI push. Now, the company is facing backlash from remaining employees over the tracking tool, called Model Capability Initiative (MCI), which may also violate European Union privacy rules, Reuters reports.
Last month, the company apparently told U.S. employees that it launched MCI to track how they work — including clicks and dropdown menu navigation — to build AI agents that can perform software tasks, Reuters reported. They were also told this would only impact employees in the U.S. and that privacy safeguards were in place.
Some employees have already complained about MCI, calling Meta an “Employee Data Extraction Factory,” Reuters reported. One complaint is that the tool is using so much data that workers’ home internet usage has spiked, and in some cases, using a month’s quota in days. Another complaint is that MCI is more over-reaching than Meta lets on, extending to code changes, a computer’s sleep and wake cycles, and URLs copied to a computer’s clipboard.
An internal post about this apparently disappeared, two Meta employees told Reuters. Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold told the outlet that the post was “fundamentally inaccurate.”
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In a document reviewed by Reuters, Meta stated that MCI would capture the contents of any email or direct message sent to U.S. employees, regardless of the sender’s location. According to a legal expert who spoke to Reuters, this may violate the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The question is whether data collection of EU resident data is considered “incidental” and whether the tool can pass a “purpose limitation” test.
Arnold told Reuters that MCI was installed only on U.S. employees’ computers and that, “In the interest of transparency, we notified non-U.S. employees that it was deployed on the computers of U.S. colleagues they may email or chat with in the normal course of business.”
“We carefully considered and mitigated potential privacy risks in both the development and deployment of this tool, and we are committed to complying with applicable laws and regulations,” Arnold stated to Reuters.
Earlier this month, Mashable reported that Meta (along with Google and TikTok) faces complaints from the EU regarding protections against financial scams.
Layoffs at other major tech companies this year, including Snapchat, Amazon, and Pinterest, have been pinned on AI. In 2025, AI was linked to 50,000 job cuts.
Entertainment
Wix cuts 1,000 employees in latest AI-fueled layoff
Website builder Wix has laid off 20 percent of its staff, amounting to 1,000 employees, Reuters and others have reported.
On May 28, Wix cofounder and CEO Avishai Abrahami shared his internal message to the Wix team on X, stating that the reasons behind the layoff are the strengthening of the Israeli shekel against the U.S. dollar (Wix is an Israeli company) and the “fast evolution of AI capabilities.”
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“As the majority of our teams are Israel-based, a very meaningful portion of our costs are shekel-denominated, while our revenue is largely dollar-denominated,” Abrahami wrote of the former. “This creates a structural pressure on our ability to operate at our current scale. It is a reality that directly shapes what is sustainable for our company.”
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In terms of AI, Abrahami wrote that companies need to adapt to AI changes in order to compete, and that “We are moving to a structure with fewer levels between any member of our leadership and the most junior person on the team.”
It’s only the latest announcement of a major tech company laying off workers to usher in AI, including Meta, Snap, Amazon, and Pinterest. A Dec. 2025 report stated that AI was linked to 50,000 job cuts last year.
Entertainment
Polymarket is trying to block VPNs as it faces potential legal trouble
Online prediction platform, Polymarket, is starting to block IP addresses from VPNs and asking some users to identify themselves, The Information first reported.
Due to regional regulations and international sanctions, Polymarket is blocked in 33 countries and several regions. But people in those places could, in theory, use a VPN, or Virtual Private Network, to mask their real location. According to The Information, Polymarket has now made it harder to use VPNs. It’s blocking certain IP addresses associated with VPNs and blocking accounts with suspicious connection patterns.
If it doesn’t start enforcing its official policy, Polymarket could risk regulatory action, The Information reported.
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Polymarket is also apparently asking some customers for their identities to “access faster trading technology,” the report states. This marks a shift from the market’s previous model of anonymous trading, TechRadar reported.
The news comes during a broader crackdown on VPNs in the U.S. and elsewhere. Utah now bans using VPNs to visit porn sites, though the law doesn’t go into effect for Aylo websites like Pornhub until Sept. The UK is also considering a VPN ban for children following a spike in usage after the enactment of its age verification law, the Online Safety Act.
Age verification laws require proof of age, like a government ID or a facial scan, to see explicit content or content otherwise deemed “harmful to minors.” Two studies on the burgeoning laws state that they don’t work to keep minors off porn sites, and instead infringe on adults’ First Amendment rights in the case of U.S. laws.
Last year, First Amendment experts warned Mashable of VPN bans as “second-order censorship.” When people work around the initial law, in this case, age verification, then further regulations ensue.
NYT Pips hints, answers for May 31, 2026
Meta faces employee backlash over tracking tool
