The billionaire grand dork of the metaverse, Mark Zuckerberg, took a digital dump on Apple’s new wearable technology yesterday in a three-minute Instagram reel about Meta’s Quest 3 headset that may as well have been captioned “she is very gorgeous to me!”

“I don’t just think that Quest is the better value, I think Quest is the better product, period,” the Meta CEO said in the video, which was recorded on a Quest 3 by a guy sitting across from him. Zuck telling the internet he believes Quest 3 out-headsets Vision Pro is about as much of a shocker as Zuck having a home bunker for gaming.

What’s more surprising is…that he shouted it from the rooftops on his personal Instagram account. Zuck’s decision to plop down on a couch and Apple Hands™ his way through a Quest 3 demo likely reflects Meta and Apple’s heated race to create the one true mixed-reality headset.

Looking to build on Meta’s head start in the VR/AR space, here’s what Zuck emphasized in his get-ready-with-me video review of Quest 3 vs. Vision Pro:

• Quest can also do the mixed-reality-floating-screens thing that Apple calls “spatial computing,” except Meta’s goggles start at $500, compared to $3,500 for Vision Pro.
• Quest doesn’t have a wired battery pack and is still about a bar of soap lighter than the Vision Pro, which some have criticized for causing headaches and neck pain.

Zuck gave a shout-out to the Apple “fanboys” who “get upset whenever anyone dares to question if Apple’s going to be the leader in a new category,” but he admitted that the Vision Pro’s screen resolution is superior and that the eye-tracking function is “really nice.”

It’s still anybody’s game. Meta started selling AR/VR headsets after it acquired Oculus in 2014. While its work has been overshadowed by the hype surrounding the Vision Pro lately, reviews of the new Apple product do not indicate an iPhone moment yet, and people have even started returning the headsets.—ML

At least one person killed in shooting at Kansas City Chiefs victory parade. At least one person was killed and more than 20 were injured, including eight children, in a shooting that sowed chaos at the end of a parade celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win. Police said they had detained three suspects. An estimated 1 million people were in downtown Kansas City to rejoice in the home team’s win, and the shooting took place near a crowded rally with the team at Union Station—though the team confirmed that all its players were safe.

Israel strikes Lebanon. Yesterday, Israel launched its biggest round of airstrikes on Lebanon since the start of the war in Gaza, killing at least one Hezbollah militant and three civilians. The strikes were in response to a deadly attack by Hezbollah on a town and an army base in Northern Israel. The escalation raised concerns about a wider regional conflict. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to send negotiators to Egypt to discuss a cease-fire with Hamas, once again calling the group’s demands of a permanent Israeli retreat from Gaza in exchange for the return of hostages “delusional.”

State-backed hackers are using ChatGPT, Microsoft says. Hackers from Russia, North Korea, Iran, and China have all used the OpenAI tool, according to Microsoft. The company said government-backed hackers will now be banned from using the AI. But rather than asking it to dream up more sophisticated attack methods, hackers were mostly automating routine tasks like Tim from accounting does. “They’re just using it like everyone else is, to try to be more productive in what they’re doing,” the head of Microsoft’s Customer Security and Trust team told the New York Times.

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Like shoulder pads, Blink-182, and the measles, bitcoin is making a comeback.

The total value of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency surpassed $1 trillion yesterday for the first time since 2021. The overall crypto market, meanwhile, broke $2 trillion in market cap, fueled by investor confidence. If crypto were a publicly traded company, it would be the fourth-largest in the world behind Microsoft, Apple, and Saudi Aramco.

Why are investors so amped? Spot bitcoin ETFs have a lot to do with it. Since the SEC approved them last month, crypto funds have received nearly $10 billion in deposits, according to CryptoQuant. But there’s another reason for the buzz: It’s almost time for halving.

• Halving is a feature within bitcoin that reduces the rate of new coins entering circulation by half to keep supply in check. Bitcoin is a finite resource, so cutting supply theoretically pushes up prices.
• The event occurs approximately every four years, and in the past has led to dazzling price jumps. In 2020, halving resulted in a 700% gain for investors.

But…even though crypto holders are looking at halving with Mr. Krabs dollar-sign eyes, experts warn that there’s a diminishing effect. This year’s event may not yield price increases like those in the past.—CC

Don’t worry about picking up a bottle of wine for Jeff Bezos’s housewarming parties—he can buy his own. The billionaire saved around $288 million in taxes after selling 24 million Amazon shares (about $4 billion worth) over the last week from his new Florida address instead of his former Washington one.

When he first announced he was moving in November, Bezos said he wanted to be closer to family and Blue Origin, but his financial records hint at other possible reasons:

• The Amazon founder had been slowly selling off company stock since 1998, but he stopped in 2022, when Washington’s 7% capital gains tax went into effect.
• Bezos became a Florida man—and the state doesn’t have capital gains taxes (or income taxes).

Bezos has said he plans to offload about 50 million Amazon shares in total over the next year, worth ~$8.7 billion currently. With a Florida zip code, he could save at least $610 million when he does.

If you lower taxes, they will come: Bezos was among the hordes of megarich, including Ken Griffin, Carl Icahn, and Daniel Och, who headed to Florida in recent years. But it’s not just folks who can afford beachside mansions—between 2021 and 2022, 740,000 people moved to Florida, according to Census Bureau data, the most of any state in the country.—MM

Stat: For some, Taylor Swift has achieved true anti-hero status: Nearly 1 in 5 Americans (18%) believe the singer is part of a conspiracy to reelect President Joe Biden, according to a Monmouth University poll. Swift endorsed Biden in 2020, but she hasn’t taken time away from performing in sparkly Louboutin boots and flying across the world to attend football games to do so this election cycle. Nonetheless, in the lead-up to the Super Bowl, conspiracy theories sprang up in right-wing media that the NFL fixed the game for Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, to tee up an endorsement announcement. Of the people who told pollsters they believed Swift was part of a covert effort for Biden, 73% also said they thought the 2020 election was stolen.

Quote: “My bad.”

We’ve all let a typo slip through at work—some of us have even sent a typo out in a newsletter to millions of subscribers. But most people’s typos don’t have the power to move markets, unlike the one in Lyft’s earnings press release Tuesday that said a profit margin was expected to grow this year by 500 basis points (5%)—when it meant to say 50 basis points (0.5%). The errant zero sent the stock soaring more than 60% in extended trading only to fall when the company corrected the mistake. Taking responsibility in an interview with Bloomberg TV yesterday, Lyft CEO David Risher said, “This was a bad error, but it was one zero in a press release.” Luckily for Risher, the rest of the news in the earnings report was also good, so Lyft’s stock rose 35% yesterday.

Read: The text file that runs the internet. (The Verge)

It’s a diva-off: An analysis of over 100 performances of “The Star Spangled Banner” crowns the ultimate belter.

Life hack: GitLab posts all its Zoom calls on YouTube…in case you ever need to look like you’re hard at work.

Not for baking: A video on how to make cookie dough you can eat raw (without a side of bacteria).

Getting older isn’t all bad: Grammy winner Mike Posner reflects on his birthday.

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