Engadget

As the competition between Bluesky and Threads heats up, Meta is adding a new feature to Threads that will likely look familiar to Bluesky users: custom feeds. The Meta-owned service is starting to test a feature that allows users to pin topic-based feeds to the home screen of the app.

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Apple's latest M4-powered MacBook Pro is a pretty stellar laptop. We gave it a score of 92 in our review, due in part to its great screen. The display is brighter this time around, peaking at 1,000 nits for SDR (standard dynamic range) content and 1,600 nits for HDR material. However, there's another aspect of the screen about which Apple has strangely been keeping mum.

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There are lots of early Black Friday deals beyond phones, tablets, smartwatches and laptops. Another item worth considering as a gift for yourself or a loved one is the Dyson Airwrap, a popular hair styling tool.

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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TMSC) is the first CHIPS Act awardee to get part of the money that the government has promised. The Biden administration has finalized its grants for TSMC, which expects to receive $6.6 billion in grants as part of their agreement to grow semiconductor production in the US. TSMC will also loan another $5 billion from the government to fund the expansion of its planned $65 billion three-factory complex in Arizona.

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Elon Musk has amended his lawsuit against OpenAI, adding more anti-trust claims against the company and including Microsoft as a defendant. He also added his company, xAI, as well as Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI board member and mother to three of his children, as plaintiffs.

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GM's robotaxi unit Cruise has agreed to pay a $500,000 for submitting a false accident report as part of a deferred prosecution agreement.

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There are few things better in life than getting lost in a good book — as any book lover will tell you. We have a few heavy readers on staff at Engadget and we all have opinions on the gadgets and subscriptions we think make the experience of reading even better. There are gift ideas here for those who prefer e-reading, as well as for the print-faithful.

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For obvious reasons, Twitter users are leaving en masse and heading to Bluesky, its most prominent decentralized competitor. In this episode, we discuss why Bluesky now feels like the best of early Twitter, filled with vibrant conversations and people discovering a new social network filled with useful features (like serious blocking and content filtering). And of course, the lack of an algorithmic feed surely helps. Also, we chat with Justin Hendrix from Tech Policy Press about how Elon Musk has become a crucial ally to the upcoming Trump administration.