Today’s pick
After Walt Disney, Robert Iger Heads to the Metaverse. Robert Iger spent decades helming a company known for its animated characters. For his next act, the former Walt Disney Co. boss is backing a startup that celebrities and others are using to create avatars for the much-hyped metaverse. (Sarah E. Needleman / Wall Street Journal)
Palmer Luckey Says Working With Weapons Isn't as Fun as VR. Who needs the metaverse when your life can be as weird as Palmer Luckey's? In 2016, the founder of the virtual reality startup Oculus was unceremoniously pushed out of the company that acquired it—Facebook. (Steven Levy / WIRED)
Amazon faced questions from FTC about whether it tricked customers into signing up for Prime. Internally, the company knew it did. Amazon was aware of customer complaints about feeling tricked into signing up for the Prime membership for years, internal emails and documents show. (Eugene Kim / Business Insider)
Twitter rolls back its decision to force you into the out-of-order timeline. Last week, Twitter introduced one of its worst product decisions in a while: the service would default to showing the algorithmically served Home feed while the reverse-chronological Latest feed was accessible in a separate tab. (Jay Peters / The Verge)
Google 'hijacked millions of customers and orders' from restaurants, lawsuit says. Google is being sued by a Florida restaurant group alleging that the tech company has been setting up unauthorized pages to capture food orders rather than directing them to the restaurant's own site. (Tim De Chant / Ars Technica)
🇺🇦 Ukraine Crisis
Russian Forces Kill Civilians, Loot for Supplies in Occupied Ukraine, Residents Say. (Yaroslav Trofimov / Wall Street Journal)
What to expect as Russia warns of historic debt default. (Tommy Stubbington & Robin Wigglesworth / Financial Times)
Russia Is Spiraling Toward a $150 Billion Default Nightmare. (Sydney Maki / Bloomberg)
Ethanol: The Fuel That Powers Putin. (David Frum / The Atlantic)
Putin's invasion of Ukraine will knock the Russian economy back by 30 years. (Christina Wilkie / CNBC)
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🥽 After Walt Disney, Robert Iger Heads to the Metaverse