Meta announces big price cuts for its VR headsets - CNBC

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The Meta's Quest Pro headset which according to the company has outward-facing cameras that capture the user's physical environment in full color and enable the overlay of virtual elements like 3D models, drawings and screens, is seen in this undated handout picture.

Meta | via Reuters

Meta will slash the prices of its Quest 2 and high-end Quest Pro headsets, the company announced Friday.

The price of the Meta Quest 2 will drop from $499.99 to $429.99, while the price of the higher-end Meta Quest Pro will be slashed to $999.99 from $1,499.99.

Meta lost $13.7 billion on its Reality Labs segment in 2022. That's the business unit responsible for building the company's ambitious metaverse technologies. Reality Labs generated $727 million in the fourth quarter, and $2.16 billion in revenue for all of 2022 — a decline from $2.27 billion in 2021 — including sales of Quest headsets. 

The Meta Quest Pro 2 was announced in November, but its high price put it out of reach for most consumers. And there didn't seem to be a clear professional use case either. The lower price could make it more attractive to both audiences.

"Our goal has always been to create hardware that's affordable for as many people as possible to take advantage of all that VR has to offer," the company said in a release. The price changes will begin rolling out on March 5 for the Meta Quest 2.

U.S. and Canadian buyers will also see the Quest Pro's new price on March 5. Its price will drop for the rest of the world on March 15.

CNBC's Ari Levy contributed to this report.

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Costco signals a membership price could be coming: ‘It’s a question of when, not if’ - Fortune

Costco’s not planning to raise the annual price of a membership to the warehouse retailer, but members might want to brace themselves for one before too long.

The Gold Star membership, which has been $60 per year since 2017, will remain at the same price, chief financial officer Richard Galanti told investors on Thursday. But he warned them not to expect that price to last forever. (Typically, Costco has increased prices every five years and seven months.)

“It’s a question of when, not if,” he said. “We’ll let you know.”

Costco has been weighing a price increase for at least the last nine months, but Robert Nelson, Costco’s senior vice president of treasury, has expressed concerns that the current economic climate might make it more challenging to retain customers should they do so.

“Given the current macro environment, the historically high inflation and the burden it’s having on our members and all consumers in general, we think increasing our membership fee today ahead of our typical timing is not the right time,” he said last June.

Membership fees are a vital source of income for Costco, directly impacting the company’s bottom line. At the end of the second quarter (its most recent), it boasted 123 million cardholders and a worldwide renewal rate of 92.6%.

Costco membership prices might be holding steady, but the company is experimenting with some prices in its food court. Earlier this week, it raised the ire of some shoppers with the introduction of a $10 roast beef sandwich in one store.

The quarter-pound hot dog and 20 oz. soda combination, however, will remain at the same price ($1,50), despite inflation, the same price Costco has charged since the mid-80s.

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Apple Issues Price Shock For iPad, iPhone Owners Worldwide - Forbes

Apple iPad Pro With OLED Display: New Leak Predicts Huge Price Hike - Forbes

The top-of-the-range iPad is the iPad Pro. It comes in two sizes, one with an 11-inch display, and a larger one with a 12.9-inch screen. It’s expected that next year Apple will update the range and introduce an OLED screen. But such an upgrade seems likely to come with a sting in the tail: a significant price increase.

A new report from Korean website The Elec suggests that the particular kind of OLED screen that Apple is after will cost between two and three times as much as a similarly sized OLED screen costs now.

Right now, such a display has a supply chain price of between $100 and $150, whereas for the iPad Pro this could cost $270 for the smaller display and $350 for the larger. That’s a very sizeable part of the bill of materials, for a component which already accounts for the largest proportion of material costs, The Elec says.

Why so much more? Apple wants a display, it’s claimed, that is two-layered and has technologies which other OLED screens lack. These include a hybrid structure of glass plate and thin film. There’s also what’s called a two-stack tandem structure which is designed to double brightness while multiplying the OLED display’s lifespan by four.

The brightness is an especially important element, as OLED can struggle in brighter light.

The Elec doesn’t specify the costs of the current LCD displays in the iPad—though the screen on the 12.9-inch version is doubtless a lot higher than on the 11-inch model as it includes Mini LED backlighting.

The report also claims that the iPad Pro models with OLED displays will have different sizes to the current ones. Each will add a tenth of an inch to the size, that is, 11.1-inch and 13-inch sizes, respectively.

The key thing is that suddenly the two sizes of iPad Pro will be more equal than now. Right now, it’s only the larger, 12.9-inch, model which has the Mini LED backlighting which looks especially punchy. With the move to OLED, both sizes are likely to have much more similar screens.

The iPads referenced here are predicted to arrive in 2024, which means there’s theoretically time for an update to the current range before then. However, the usual iPad Pro cadence is 18 months and the current models launched in October last year, meaning that 2024 is more likely. An OLED screen would be a big change, so while I still think Spring 2024 is most likely, it’s possible that Apple would hold the new tech until the fall of that year.

Plenty of time, then, for more leaks in the meantime.

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Survey shows the steep increase in the price of NYC pizza slices - Time Out

It's official: the price of just about anything has gone up—including a good ol' plain slice of pizza... and New Yorker Liam Quigley has the data to prove it.

Starting back in 2014, Quigley, a reporter, took note of the price of every slice of pizza he ate around town and documented his findings on his Instagram account, NYC Slice. Fast-forward eight years and, at the end of 2022, he inputted all of the prices in a graph to figure out whether the average cost of the food had followed any sort of predictable pattern. 

The results are in: according to Quigley's analysis, the average price of a plain slice in NYC increased from $2.52 in 2014 to $3 by the end of 2022, a 16% rise.

As noted by the reporter himself on his website, the calculation excludes dollar slices and does not function as any sort of ranking by deliciousness. However, "the biggest thing I have noticed is the decline in the amount of sauce put on slices," remarks Quigley. "I'm sure this is a cost-saving measure but the overall quality of your average slice in the city has definitely suffered."

 The reporter also shares which of the over 450 slices he tried were his favorites—in no particular order:

• Margherita Pizza, 163-04 Jamaica Avenue in Queens, $3.75 (up from $3.00 in 2014)
• Ozone Pizzeria, 9615 Liberty Avenue in Queens, $3.00
• Ciro Pizza Cafe, 862 Huguenot Avenue in Staten Island, $2.50
• Pizza D’Amore, 208 Beach 116th Street in Queens, $2.50
• Sam’s Pizza, 232 West 231st Street in the Bronx, $3.00
• PG Pizza, 904 Morris Avenue in the Bronx, $2.75
• Joe’s Pizza, 7 Carmine Street in Manhattan, $4.00 (up from $2.75 in 2014)
• Bleecker Street Pizza, 69 7th Avenue South in Manhattan, $3.64 (up from $2.75 in 2014)
• Pizza Place, 4024 White Plains Road in the Bronx, $3.25
• Big John’s Pizza, 219-11 Jamaica Avenue in Queens, $2.75
• Mario’s Pizzeria, 224 DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn, $3.00
• Sunnyside Pizza, 4001 Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside, $3.50 (up from $2.50 in 2014)
• New Park Pizza, 156-71 Cross Bay Boulevard in Queens, $3.25 (up from $2.75 in 2014)

And just in case you were wondering, Quigley reports that, to complete his project, he shelled out a total of $955.09 on plain slices in eight years. Money well spent, if you ask us.

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Gas price fluctuation and what to expect - WSFA

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - Prices at the pump are lower than they were this time last year.

Right now, the median price in Alabama is $3.00 a gallon, down 36 cents in the previous 12 months.

So, what causes that much fluctuation?

“Typically, our pump prices are tied very closely to our crude oil prices. Crude oil prices are affected by just all kinds of things on a global level,” said Clay Ingram with AAA.

Those factors include weather and war in Ukraine.

Ingram says prices are down now partially because of the COVID quarantine in China, which has reduced demand for fuel.

However, with spring break on the horizon and more drivers hitting the road, he says to expect an increase.

" In the springtime, our demand kind of gradually goes up starting with spring break, then the weather gets warmer, and people start getting out and about more going places more,” said Ingram.

Copyright 2023 WSFA. All rights reserved.

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‘Liquidity’ has most affected Bitcoin’s price in the last year, according to trader Brian Krogsgard - Cointelegraph

Cointelegraph’s Crypto Trading Secrets podcast welcomed Brian Krogsgard, aka Ledgerstatus on Twitter, for Episode 6.

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Cointelegraph’s Crypto Trading Secrets podcast has published Episode 6, covering an array of content that should pique the interest of cryptocurrency traders. This episode’s guest is Brian Krogsgard, also known as Ledgerstatus on Twitter. Krogsgard is a trader and one of the co-founders of Flip.xyz, a nonfungible token (NFT) platform. He is also a podcaster in the crypto space. 

Among the questions fielded during the Feb. 16 recording, host Benjamin Pirus asked Krogsgard to give his opinion on what he thinks has most impacted the price of Bitcoin (BTC) over the past year. “Liquidity,” he responded. 

“People just do not have spare liquidity for a multitude of reasons. They have counterparties that went bankrupt, and that might have forced them to lose money. They got coins stuck on places that went bankrupt. Lost access to them, lost in trading, lost because of taxes, whatever.”

“Those are all challenges for liquidity, and you need liquidity for the healthiest of markets, and so that’s been a challenge,” he added. Amid the runaway train that was the 2022 crypto bear market, the space saw significant turmoil. Several cryptocurrency companies failed, including the likes of crypto exchange giant FTX. 

“I would actually say the problems go way before that with Bitcoin because we saw with FTX there was massive rehypothecation of Bitcoin,” Krogsgard continued. “Rehypothecation” is when entities use customers’ collateral for other activities, according to Investopedia. The collapse of FTX in November 2022 sparked numerous headlines, such as allegations of customer asset misuse by FTX and sister entity Alameda Research.

“So, the Bitcoin people thought they had on FTX was not there, and FTX was selling it to do other things. And that rehypothecation was actually a burden to Bitcoin’s price even in a bull market. And now that we have liquidity issues, it’s just been a consistent kind of drag on price and presented challenges for a year and then some.”

Krogsgard provided his thoughts and opinions on several other points during the episode and also chatted about his background.

Check out this and other episodes from Cointelegraph’s Crypto Trading Secrets podcast on Cointelegraph’s podcast page, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or TuneIn.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

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