Jeff Bezos has liftoff!…finally. Blue Origin launched a spacecraft yesterday for the first time since September 2022, when a tech failure turned that mission into a space snafu. On Tuesday, the uncrewed New Shepard rocket took 33 research payloads and 38,000 postcards from Blue Origin’s youth STEM club on a space excursion.

Despite the win, the Jeff Bezos-owned startup that was once William Shatner’s extraterrestrial taxi now looks like the Carolina Panthers of the corporate space race. With almost 100 successful launches this year and fat government contracts, Musk’s SpaceX is so far ahead that Blue Origin might need a telescope to spot it.

Cosmic catch-up

To be fair, Bezos is not starry-eyed about his passion business. He recently told podcaster Lex Fridman that Blue Origin needs to get it together. Bezos plans to kick it into high gear by making it, in his words, “the world’s most decisive company.”

• The Amazon founder believes that many of its technology choices can be made with less deliberation by “small teams deep in the company.”
• Bezos also shared that he ditched his Amazon CEO role specifically to focus on cosplaying as a cowboy ramping up progress at Blue Origin.

Meanwhile, Amazon is trying to challenge Musk’s satellite business, Starlink, with its Project Kuiper subsidiary. But here, Team Bezos’s straggler status is even more apparent: Project Kuiper launched its first two test satellites this fall, while Starlink already has 5,000 delivering internet to 2 million customers.

Blue Origin is still optimistic…about debuting its next-generation rocket, New Glenn, sometime next year, which NASA will use to launch an exploration robot to Mars. Blue Origin also recently notched a deal to build a human moon landing system for the space agency after losing out to SpaceX on a similar contract two years ago.—SK

Ah, the holiday hustle bustle. Improve your road trips, errands, and last-minute gift runs with AT&T In-car Wi-Fi.

Speaking of gifts, AT&T is offering a free 4-day In-car Wi-Fi test drive for everyone hitting the road in their vehicles this szn.

That means wherever you’re headed, the power of Wi-Fi is right there with you. You and your passengers can stream videos and music, play games, and stay connected on all your holiday adventures.

Take AT&T In-car Wi-Fi along for the ride on your holiday excursions. See if your car qualifies for a free 4-day trial.

Cargo ships are avoiding the Red Sea en masse. As a result of ongoing Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea, ships are opting to travel all the way around the southern cape of Africa rather than risk using the Suez Canal. According to Ryan Petersen, the CEO of logistics company Flexport, almost 25% of all containers shipped worldwide were being affected by the situation in the Red Sea as of Tuesday afternoon. The Houthi militants, who are based in Yemen and are backed by Iran, have vowed to continue targeting commercial ships as revenge for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

China suffered its deadliest earthquake in nearly a decade. At least 127 people were killed and 700 more injured in Gansu province in the country’s worst earthquake since 2014. Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered thousands of rescuers to the mountainous region, which is among the poorest in China. Local officials said the 6.2 magnitude quake damaged more than 5,000 buildings, many of them old and made of clay, the BBC reported. Disruptions to the area’s power and water supplies—along with freezing temperatures—are complicating the rescue efforts.

Google might owe you money. The tech giant agreed to pay $630 million to users in all 50 states as part of a settlement with state attorneys general over the high fees it charges app developers. You may not need to actually do anything to get your slice of the pie: The states estimate that 70% of the 102 million eligible consumers will receive their payments automatically, without filing a claim. If you’re eligible, you’ll get $2 or more, depending on how much you spent on apps in the Google Play Store between Aug. 2016 and Sept. 2023. The settlement also means Android users will now be allowed to download apps directly, outside of the Play Store.

Rhysida, a ransomware group that previously attacked the British Library, released over 1.3 million files pertaining to Sony’s game developer Insomniac Games yesterday.

The cache reportedly included internal presentations, Slack screenshots, and employees' personal information, which were leaked after the company failed to pay the $2 million demanded by Rhysida. If what’s in the unverified 1.67 terabytes of stolen data is true, we’ve learned some details about new games:

• Sony Interactive has an agreement with Marvel for a trilogy of X-Men games, according to Cyber Daily. Alleged footage from the first game, Wolverine, was released in the hack and is already flooding the internet.
• The files included a discussion of a Spider-Man 3 game, a game based on Venom, and a new Ratchet & Clank, according to The Verge.

As for what was happening inside Sony…internal documents released in the hack show that executives were concerned about Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard after the deal closed in October.

In one slide, Sony said it was worried that the acquisition could “disrupt and threaten” the console and game subscription markets in 2027. Sony’s PlayStation currently dominates the console industry, but these internal discussions highlight how Sony thinks that could all change once Microsoft gains control of Activision’s insanely popular Call of Duty franchise—which is only guaranteed to remain on PlayStation through 2027. Sony declined Morning Brew’s request for comment on the hack.—CC

A viral TikTok trend is making wearable tech kinda cool. Videos of popular users wearing the new Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses (usually while lip-syncing K-pop songs) are amassing millions of views. That’s a step in the right direction for Meta’s metaverse, which—like the Nebraska Volleyball fan in your life—is down pretty bad right now.

What’s so special about the Meta glasses? The $300 tech looks almost identical to a normal pair of Ray-Bans—aside from the small cameras in the upper corners of the frames that flash when taking a high-quality photo or pulse when recording. The glasses also respond to voice commands to text or call someone. But Meta is banking on them to do much more in the future. The company announced last week that the specs will soon be able to use Meta AI to translate languages in real time for wearers, come up with funny photo captions, and help pick out clothes.

Big picture: If they work as intended, these features could finally push wearable AR and VR technology into the mainstream after years of failed attempts (remember Google Glass?). But if the TikTok trend is just a brief fad and the eyewear doesn’t take off, Meta’s risky multibillion-dollar pivot to the metaverse will be that much closer to failure. VR headset and AR glasses sales in the US have already dropped 40% in the last year, according to Circana data reviewed by CNBC.—MM

Stat: Pour some eggnog out for natural Christmas trees. According to a survey from the American Christmas Tree Association, 77% of Americans who display a tree this year will choose an artificial one. That coincides with a boom for artificial trees: In 2023, the US will import nearly 450 million fake trees (most of them from China), up from 190 million a decade ago. Consumers tend to prefer their consistent appearance and cost savings over time, per the survey. Meanwhile, there are fewer and fewer real Christmas trees to go around following the 2008 financial crisis, when many farmers pivoted to planting crops that don’t take seven years to grow.

Quote: “It absolutely scared the you-know-what out of me. It’s New York City. It’s the last thing you expect to see.”

If you can’t see Flaco the owl, that doesn’t mean he can’t see you. NYC resident Reilly Richardson found that out the hard way when she discovered the Eurasian eagle-owl—who escaped from the Central Park Zoo in February—outside her window, watching her closely. And that wasn’t a one-off: With his newfound freedom, Flaco has apparently taken to acting like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, peeping on unsuspecting neighbors as he reconnoiters Manhattan. One owl expert told the WSJ that it’s possible Flaco sees humans as potential mates. Sweet dreams .

Read: Dating in your 70s has never been this much fun. (WSJ)

Watch: Three minutes of the best GoPro footage of 2023.

Give: Wirecutter’s most popular gifts of the year.

Look forward: Bill Gates’s annual “Year Ahead” letter touches on the future of AI, climate change, and more.

Going once…going twice: The weirdest auctions of 2023, per NPR.

The 411 on 401(k)s: A small business has waaaaay more options than they probably realize when it comes to offering a 401(k). Curious? Fidelity’s small-business team outlines the facts vs. the fictions.*

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