🐂 Space dust

Markets

Stocks are on an unstoppable surge, with the Dow gaining 200 points and the S&P 500 nearing a historic high. Investor optimism persists due to the anticipated Fed interest-rate cut next year. Affirm emerged as Tuesday's standout performer, experiencing a remarkable 15% surge in its shares. This surge followed the announcement that the buy now, pay later company is expanding its partnership with Walmart, now encompassing the retailer's self-checkout kiosks.

Space

Blue Origin won’t get left behind

Jeff Bezos has achieved liftoff once again! After a hiatus since September 2022 due to a technical glitch, Blue Origin successfully launched a spacecraft. On Tuesday, the unmanned New Shepard rocket carried 33 research payloads and 38,000 postcards from Blue Origin’s youth STEM club on a space journey.

Despite this success, Bezos's space venture, once famed as William Shatner’s cosmic taxi, now trails behind in the corporate space race, resembling the Carolina Panthers. With nearly 100 prosperous launches and substantial government contracts this year, Elon Musk's SpaceX has established a significant lead, making Blue Origin seem distant.

Acknowledging the gap, Bezos is pragmatic about Blue Origin's trajectory. In a recent podcast with Lex Fridman, he expressed the need for improvement, aiming to transform Blue Origin into "the world’s most decisive company." Bezos advocates for quicker decision-making by empowering small teams within the company to make technology choices more efficiently.

Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon's CEO, is dedicated to propelling progress at Blue Origin. Simultaneously, Amazon, under his leadership, is challenging Musk's Starlink with Project Kuiper. However, Blue Origin lags even more noticeably here, with Starlink already serving 2 million customers with 5,000 satellites, while Project Kuiper recently launched its first two test satellites this fall.

Despite being a straggler, Blue Origin remains optimistic about unveiling its next-generation rocket, New Glenn, next year. Additionally, the company secured a deal to construct a human moon landing system for NASA, bouncing back after losing a similar contract to SpaceX two years ago.

Tech

Are Meta’s Ray-Bans the coolest tech?

A viral trend on TikTok is adding a touch of cool to wearable tech, particularly the new Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. Popular users on the platform, often seen lip-syncing to K-pop songs, are garnering millions of views while sporting these glasses. This trend is a positive development for Meta's metaverse ambitions, which are currently facing challenges.

The Meta glasses, priced at $300, closely resemble regular Ray-Bans but feature small cameras in the upper corners for high-quality photo capture and pulsing when recording. Additionally, they respond to voice commands for texting or calling. Meta envisions these glasses to evolve beyond their current capabilities, as the company recently announced plans to integrate Meta AI for real-time language translation, generating humorous photo captions, and assisting with outfit selection.

In the broader context, the success of these features could propel wearable Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technology into mainstream adoption, a milestone that has proven elusive despite past attempts (such as Google Glass). However, if the TikTok trend proves to be short-lived and the glasses fail to gain traction, Meta's substantial multibillion-dollar investment in the metaverse could face heightened risks. Notably, sales of VR headsets and AR glasses in the US have already experienced a 40% decline in the past year, according to Circana data reviewed by CNBC.

Gaming

Hackers leaked Sony Video Game information

Rhysida, a ransomware group previously responsible for targeting the British Library, has released over 1.3 million files related to Sony's game developer, Insomniac Games. The data dump reportedly contains internal presentations, Slack screenshots, and personal information of employees. This action followed Sony's refusal to pay the $2 million ransom demanded by Rhysida. If the content in the unverified 1.67 terabytes of stolen data is accurate, some revelations about upcoming games have surfaced:

1. Sony Interactive allegedly has a deal with Marvel for a trilogy of X-Men games, as per Cyber Daily. Leaked footage from the first game, Wolverine, has already circulated widely online.

2. The files indicate discussions about a Spider-Man 3 game, a game based on Venom, and a new installment in the Ratchet & Clank series, according to The Verge.

Internal documents released in the hack also shed light on Sony's concerns about Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which was completed in October. A slide revealed Sony's apprehension that the acquisition could "disrupt and threaten" the console and game subscription markets by 2027. While Sony's PlayStation currently dominates the console industry, internal discussions reflect the company's acknowledgment that the landscape may change once Microsoft takes control of Activision's highly popular Call of Duty franchise—a franchise only committed to remain on PlayStation until 2027. Sony has not provided a comment on the hack in response to Morning Brew's inquiry.

International

Cargo ships are avoiding the Red Sea en masse

Due to continuous Houthi rebel assaults in the Red Sea, ships are choosing to circumnavigate the southern tip of Africa rather than risking passage through the Suez Canal. Ryan Petersen, the CEO of logistics company Flexport, reported that nearly a quarter of all globally shipped containers were impacted by the Red Sea situation as of Tuesday afternoon. The Houthi militants, stationed in Yemen and supported by Iran, have pledged to persist in targeting commercial ships in retaliation for Israel's military operations in Gaza.

China suffered its deadliest earthquake in nearly a decade

In Gansu province, the most severe earthquake since 2014 claimed the lives of at least 127 individuals, with 700 others sustaining injuries. Chinese President Xi Jinping directed thousands of rescuers to the mountainous region, known for its economic challenges. Local authorities noted that the 6.2 magnitude quake caused extensive damage to over 5,000 buildings, particularly older structures constructed from clay, as reported by the BBC. Rescue operations are being hindered by disruptions to power and water supplies in the area, exacerbated by freezing temperatures.