UPDATE: White House Speaks Out on NJ Drone Mystery, 'Answers' Will Satisfy No One

Illustration: The Verge Meta’s Threads is getting another feature seemingly inspired by Bluesky: curated groups of accounts that you can follow all at once. They basically sound like Meta’s take on Bluesky’s handy starter packs. Instagram boss Adam Mosseri announced Thursday that Meta is starting to test the feature, and he said that you’ll see the collections “when signing up for Threads and within the For You feed.” A “handful” of “Threads community leaders” curated and shared the current collections. People will be able to find collections built around topics like “basketball, style and fashion, food, books, pop culture, and more,” Meta spokesperson Alec Booker tells The Verge. “We’ll iterate on this feature based on learnings from the test, and hope to expand the functionality to more people soon.” Image: Meta Image: Meta Meta has upped the pace of Threads feature updates after users really started flocking to Bluesky last month — Threads introduced its own take on custom feeds just five days after announcing the feature in testing, for example. While I personally think Bluesky is the heir apparent to Twitter, Threads is still significantly larger. Meta saw 35 million Threads signups in November, but Bluesky user growth has seemingly slowed to a crawl: as I write this, Bluesky is on the cusp of surpassing 25 million users, a five million user jump from nearly a month ago.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’ve been contemplating signing up for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate so you can play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, you might want to head on over to Woot. Now until 1:59AM ET on December 13th, the retailer is offering a three-month subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $28.99 (about $31 off) with promo code GAMEPASS. Only customers making their first purchase on Woot are eligible, though; everyone else will have to pay $33.99 to redeem the digital code. Woot’s current promo is a terrific deal considering a month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will normally run you $19.99. After you finish playing the new Indiana Jones game, you can play dozens of other downloadable titles for both Xbox and PC, including new releases like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and older titles like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Starfield, Diablo IV, Halo Infinite, and Hi-Fi Rush. Subscribers can even stream select non-Game Pass titles they own via their TV, smartphone, tablet, and PC through a web browser. This includes Baldur’s Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, Balatro, and more. In addition to granting access to a wide range of games — including EA Play titles — an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription lets you take advantage of exclusive deals, online multiplayer, and other perks, some of which aren’t available on the cheaper Game Pass tiers. Other deals and discounts of note Elgato’s Stream Deck Neo is on sale for an all-time low of $79.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, Target, and Best Buy. The excellent macro controller comes with eight LCD buttons, which you can program to easily control your smart lights, pause Slack notifications, and perform a variety of other shortcuts with the press of a button. It also comes with some other handy conveniences, including a tiny info display that shows the time and a pair of capacitive buttons that let you quickly cycle through multiple pages of macros. The Onn Google TV 4K Pro is selling for $39 (about $11 off) at Walmart right now. The streaming device is a higher-end version of the excellent Onn Google TV 4K Streaming Box. It delivers even more value in some ways, though, as it functions as a smart speaker that’s compatible with Google Assistant. The 4K streaming device also adds support for Dolby Vision and Atmos, as well as Wi-Fi 6, while retaining built-in Chromecast support. Amazon is selling the Ring Wired Doorbell Pro (formerly known as the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2) with a Chime Pro for $199.99 (about $90 off), which is $10 shy of the bundle’s best price to date. The wired Pro is one of our favorite video doorbells, one that works with Amazon Alexa and integrates well with Ring Alarm and other Ring cameras. It offers top-notch video quality and a square aspect ratio, though many features — including person alerts and the ability to save and share clips — require a premium Ring subscription plan. The Chime Pro, meanwhile, doubles as a speaker for notifications and a Wi-Fi extender, so the doorbell receives a strong signal.

The Verge | Photo by Tom Williams via Getty Images Meta has donated $1 million to president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration fund, The Wall Street Journal reports. Zuckerberg’s team reportedly told Trump’s inaugural committee about Meta’s planned donation before Zuckerberg and Trump dined together at Mar-a-Lago in November. Before the dinner, Zuckerberg showed off Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses and gifted a pair to Trump, according to the Journal. Zuckerberg’s advisers also met with incoming White House officials, including incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. The donation marks a significant shift for Zuckerberg, who has until recently shied away from politics. Zuckerberg called Trump to congratulate him on his election victory. But he didn’t publicly endorse a candidate in 2020 — and as Meta spokespeople have repeatedly emphasized, he also didn’t endorse anyone in 2024, despite Trump’s claims that Zuckerberg called him to say there’s “no way” he could vote for a Democrat after the attempt on Trump’s life at a Pennsylvania rally. (Zuckerberg also called Trump’s reaction to the shooting “badass.”) Still, Zuckerberg has made increasingly unsubtle overtures to Trump, who has threatened the Facebook founder over the years. The dinner — and the donation — are signs that the notoriously rocky relationship between Zuckerberg and Trump is starting to soften. Trump has had it out for Zuckerberg since Facebook banned his account in the wake of the January 6th riots, and at one point said Zuckerberg should be jailed due to Facebook’s alleged interference in the 2020 election.

A new Apple TV and HomePod mini are coming in 2025. At least, that's what Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports. According to the journalist, Apple is prepping for the release of new HomePod mini and Apple TV devices in 2025. While he doesn’t say if Apple plans to upgrade their processors or if they’re going to have a breakthrough new technology, he focuses the story on a new custom-designed Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip. Refereed to as “Proxima,” this chip will be available in upcoming Apple TV, HomePod mini, and iPhone 17 models in 2025; iPad and Macs will get it in 2026. He says the custom-designed chip will support Wi-Fi 6E, and it will help “synchronize data more quickly.” This change could help Apple create thinner devices and new wearable technology, as ultimately the company wants to integrate the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip with a cellular modem and the core processor on its devices. This report comes a few days after the journalist suggested Apple will soon release its first cellular modem with a new iPhone SE 4. Gurman expects this first-generation 5G modem to offer Sub-6 5G technology and lower data speeds, which shouldn’t be noticeable in daily usage. Later next year, a mid-tier iPhone, most likely the rumored iPhone 17 Air, is also expected to feature this chip. An entry-level iPad model could feature this chip in the near future as well. He also revealed that Apple is already working on a second-generation 5G modem that could power the future iPhone 18 models. By 2026, this chip would finally add mmWave support, download speeds of 6 gigabits per second, six-carrier aggregation when using Sub-6 5G, and eight-carrier aggregation when using mmWave. When the iPhone reaches its 20-year anniversary in 2027, the company hopes it can top Qualcomm with its modem’s performance and AI features. Apple is also aiming to build support for next-generation satellite networks and eventually merge its 5G modem with its main processor, creating the ultimate singular mobile component. BGR will let you know once we learn more about new Apple TV and HomePod mini devices; they haven't been updated in a few years now, and we now have a better idea when Cupertino is finally updating them. Don't Miss: Apple’s plan to use in-house 5G modem leaks in iPhone roadmap The post Apple TV and HomePod mini reportedly get Apple’s custom Wi-Fi chip in 2025 appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Cyber Monday blowout: Free AirPods 4, $374 PlayStation 5, Apple sale, $297 Nectar mattress, $60 Keurig, more Cyber Week deals: $510 MacBook Air, $170 AirPods Pro 2, $99 Bose speaker, 53% off Echo Show 5 bundles, more Black Friday blowout: Massive Apple sale, LG OLED TVs, KitchenAid mixers, Instant Pots, laptops, more Cyber Monday iPad deals start at $199 in 2024

A former FBI informant pleaded guilty Thursday to lying about criminal allegations against President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the Oval Office, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said on Wednesday that Democrats are in for "the fight of our lives."

The U.S on Thursday said it's offering a reward of up to $5 million for information on North Korean information technology companies, workers, and related money laundering that it said were generating illicit revenue for Pyongyang.

The FBI didn't deploy any undercover agents to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz revealed in a report released Thursday that undercuts claims that the bureau played a significant role in the events that day.

Attorneys general in Minnesota and New Jersey sued Glock on Thursday, accusing the company of making handguns that are easily modified to fire as illegal machine guns through a cheap add-on known as a "Glock switch."