According to reporting by and others, Threads is tapping into one of Bluesky’s best new features: starter packs of people to follow.Chris Messina, who invented the hashtag (!), posted a screenshot of the tool to the social media app.You can see an early version of the tool by pasting “installedbarcelona://recommended_follow_lists” into Safari on iOS if you have the latest Threads app.The version likely coming to Threads should work like Bluesky’s version.
The lists of users are “handpicked by people on Threads” and can be about pretty much anything.(Engadget has its own starter pack with many of its writers and editors — follow along!)Threads has pulled in several Bluesky features this year.The platform recently rolled out custom feeds and the ability to change the default feed to people you follow.— Mat SmithThe biggest tech stories you missedSteam’s Autumn Sale has deep discounts on Steam Decks and select gamesShuhei Yoshida is leaving PlayStation in January after three decadesThe 50 Black Friday tech deals worth shopping right nowBluesky has a verification problemThe company is trying to verify more accounts, but its approach is flawed.Bluesky has its own problems.As the upstart social media service surges, the platform is facing some growing pains, like a wave of scammers and impersonators.
Unlike many of its rivals, which offer checkmarks and official badges to government officials, celebrities and other high-profile accounts, Bluesky has a more hands-off approach to verification.The company encourages users to have a custom domain name as their handle to “self-verify.” Engadget currently has the Bluesky handle engadget.bsky.social.But if we wanted to “verify” our account, we could change it to Engadget.com.
It’s more complicated than just switching your handle, demanding a string of text to the DNS record associated with the domain.It’s all manual and… complicated.Continue reading.Investigators say Chinese ship deliberately dragged anchor to cut undersea cablesRussian intelligence is suspected to be behind the operation.European investigators believe a Chinese-owned commercial ship deliberately dragged its anchor to sabotage the two undersea telecommunications cables cut in the Baltic Sea earlier this month.However, Western law enforcement and intelligence officials don’t believe the Chinese government was involved — the probe is focusing on whether Russian intelligence persuaded the vessel’s captain to drop anchor.Continue reading.Casetify's latest AirPods case is a giant Gundam headIf your giant robot tastes are a little more retro than Evangelion.Sure, there are cases and lanyards and MagSafe chargers, but let’s be real: It’s all about this giant pointy Gundam head case for AirPods.Continue reading.
