Milan Design Week 2026 is wrapping up, and while most people came for furniture and lighting, high-end audio didn’t stay quiet. After Klipsch and OJAS teased their kO-R2 collaboration for indoor spaces, Bang & Olufsen showed up with something far more ambitious for the outdoors: the Beosound Haven, developed with Italian stone specialist Antolini.

That matters, because the custom install category isn’t what it used to be. Outdoor audio has gone from weatherproof boxes you tolerated to fully engineered systems you actually want to listen to. Brands like Theory Audio Design, DALI, Sonus faber, Focal, and Monitor Audio have raised the bar with serious build quality, proper environmental protection, and performance that doesn’t collapse the second you step outside.

So Beosound Haven isn’t walking into an empty garden. It’s stepping into a category where expectations are finally high and where design alone won’t save you. Bang & Olufsen knows how to win a room indoors. Outdoors, the rules are different.

Rooted in craftsmanship but clearly aimed at a very specific clientele, the partnership between Bang & Olufsen and Antolini leans into the idea that outdoor audio doesn’t have to look like outdoor audio. The Beosound Haven blends B&O’s acoustic engineering with Antolini’s stonework to create something that’s meant to disappear into the landscape visually while still delivering a controlled, high-end listening experience. It’s not just about sound — it’s about how that sound lives in the space.

To drive that point home, the companies built a full outdoor installation at Milan Design Week rather than sticking the speaker on a pedestal and hoping for the best. The exhibit framed Beosound Haven as part of a complete environment—integrated into stone, greenery, and architectural elements to show how landscape design, materials, and audio can work together instead of competing for attention. The goal is clear: move outdoor audio beyond background noise and into something that actually contributes to how a space looks, feels, and more importantly sounds.

“Design at Bang & Olufsen has always been about understanding the relationship between technology, materials, and the spaces people inhabit. With this installation, that philosophy extends beyond the traditional room, exploring how beautiful sound can engage the senses and transform outdoor environments into immersive, sensorial spaces,” said Kresten Bjørn Krab-Bjerre, Senior Director of Design, and continues: “Through Beosound Haven – our forthcoming landscape speaker – we explore sound as an architectural language. It interacts with materials and forms an atmosphere, creating a refined sense of place that is both subtle and powerful. It reflects our ambition to find new ways for sound to enrich the experience – not only as something you hear, but as something you truly feel.“

The Besound Haven Preview Experience

Set inside the Antolini Milano Duomo Stoneroom, the Beosound Haven wasn’t just dropped into a corner and labeled “outdoor speaker.” Bang & Olufsen and Antolini built a controlled environment to show how it’s meant to be used. The installation leaned on natural elements like greenery, stone, and a central reflective water table where droplets created subtle ripples, tying the visual design back to the idea of sound moving through space. Surfaces featured Antolini’s Taj Mahal quartzite in a matte finish, keeping reflections low and letting texture and light do the work without distracting from the audio.

At the center is a simple concept: treat sound as part of the architecture, not an afterthought. Beosound Haven combines B&O’s aluminum driver and electronics housing with Antolini’s stonework, designed to be specified early in a project instead of bolted on later. That’s the real pitch here. Integrate the system from day one so it works with the space instead of fighting it.

It also lines up with Antolini’s broader push beyond interiors. They built their reputation on high end stone applications indoors, and this is a logical move into outdoor environments where materials, durability, and placement matter just as much as aesthetics.

“In collaboration with Bang & Olufsen, we have moved beyond traditional design to embrace the open air. By blending the raw elegance of natural stone with precision sound, we’ve created a bridge between nature and technology. These landscape speakers are not just objects; they are a dialogue between the elements, transforming gardens and terraces into living galleries where history and avant-garde meet to host your most meaningful moments,” remarks Carlo Alberto Antolini, Owner of Antolini.

Bang & Olufsen Atelier Program Contribution

Through Bang & Olufsen’s Atelier program, aluminum, the company’s core material, has been shaped into Beosound Haven’s spherical form and paired directly with stone from Antolini. Antolini, a family owned Italian company with roughly 70 years of experience working with marble and natural stone, brings a level of material expertise that aligns with B&O’s approach to industrial design and speaker construction.

A range of natural stones are used across the collaboration, selected for their variation in pattern, density, and surface texture. The idea is straightforward: treat stone as a primary material in the system, not just a decorative shell around it.

The end result is less about making a statement piece and more about showing how materials and audio hardware can be integrated from the start. The stone surfaces frame the installation and influence how the speaker is perceived in the space, both visually and acoustically, without trying to overwhelm either side of the equation.

Pro Tip: Final details for Beosound Haven, including full specifications and release timing, have not been announced yet.

Beolab 18 Refresh

In addition to Beosound Haven, Bang & Olufsen and Antolini have also revisited the Bang & Olufsen Beolab 18, a floorstanding speaker that originally launched in 2013. The update focuses on materials rather than acoustics, with new natural stone finishes in a matte treatment, including Amazonite, Retro Black Petrified Wood, Patagonia Original, Dalmata, Cipollino GreyWave, and Taj Mahal.

This is being positioned as a limited edition series, with each unit reflecting the natural variation of the stone used. The goal is consistent with the Haven concept, extending the use of architectural materials into both interior and outdoor settings without changing the core speaker platform.

Pro Tip: Pricing and availability for the Beolab 18 Bang & Olufsen and Antolini editions have not been announced yet. For full features and specifications, refer to the official Bang & Olufsen Beolab 18 product page.

The Bottom Line 

Since 1925, Bang & Olufsen has built its reputation on design led audio that looks as expensive as it sounds. But outdoors is a different fight. Aside from the Bang & Olufsen Beosound Bollard, the brand has not been a major player in landscape audio, where durability, coverage, and system integration matter just as much as aesthetics.

Beosound Haven is unique because it is not trying to compete as a traditional outdoor speaker. It is positioned as part of the architecture itself, developed alongside Antolini and intended to be specified early in a project, not added later. That puts it in a different category than most outdoor systems, which are still designed around concealment or basic weather resistance rather than material integration.

Who is this for? Not someone looking to upgrade a patio with a few speakers and call it a day. This is aimed at high end residential projects, landscape architects, and custom integrators working on properties where materials, layout, and audio are planned together from the start. The unknowns still matter. Final design options, system configuration, and pricing have not been confirmed, but none of this is likely to come cheap. If it delivers on performance to match the design, it could push expectations higher in a category that has already started to take itself more seriously.

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Anthropic is asking investors to submit allocations for the AI company’s latest fundraise within the next 48 hours, according to sources familiar with the matter. The round, which TechCrunch reported is expected to be roughly $50 billion, is estimated to close within two weeks, the sources said.

As we previously reported, Anthropic is targeting a valuation of about $900 billion. However, given the soaring demand from investors seeking a stake in the company, the final valuation may well exceed that figure, our sources said.

Anthropic declined to comment.

Despite the intense demand, some early backers — particularly those who invested in 2024 or earlier — are skipping this round. Instead, these investors are waiting to potentially cash out during Anthropic’s anticipated IPO later this year.

The company is raising what is likely to be its last private round before going public to fund its massive computing needs.

Anthropic announced this month that its annual revenue run rate has surpassed $30 billion. But as we previously reported, the company’s run rate is currently closer to $40 billion, according to sources with knowledge of the company’s financials.

Anthropic raised its last round in February at a $380 billion valuation. At $900 billion, the company would not only more than double its valuation but would also surpass its chief rival, OpenAI, which closed a record-breaking $122 billion round at an $852 billion post-money valuation earlier this year.

Jagmeet Singh contributed reporting.

Apple had a record-breaking March quarter partially thanks to excellent performance in China, but there’s more to the story than just basic demand.

The US government went through a period of upheaval in 2025 thanks to the new administration’s aggressive, random, and now illegal tariffs. While not much has improved in that regard, the relationship between the US and China has improved somewhat in the intervening year.

According to Apple CEO Tim Cook on CNBC, that improved relationship with China was a positive development, but not the drive. He claims it is that “the product has really resonated with the customer.”

There’s no doubt that demand for the iPhone 17 lineup has carried through into the blockbuster quarter. Of the $111.2 billion Apple brought in, $20.497 billion belonged to Greater China.

Compare that to the year-ago performance, $16 billion, and that’s a $4.4 billion increase. It is certainly no small feat.

There have been concerns with demand in China thanks to political unrest between it and the United States. Chinese customers could easily decide to show loyalty to local brands that aren’t based in a country engaged in a trade war.

However, Apple’s iPhone 17 lineup was enough to spur demand, which was likely aided by the excellent entry iPhone 17e model that debuted during the quarter. The Mac also did well in part due to the MacBook Neo, but there has also been unprecedented demand for the M4 Mac mini due to AI trends.

Cook may have to face questions about the CEO transition or the status of the Apple Vision Pro during the earnings call, but China will likely be a lesser concern given the numbers. All eyes are on what’s next as Cook takes on the role of Executive Chairman starting September 1 with John Ternus taking over as CEO.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned the transportation and logistics industry of a sharp rise in cyber-enabled cargo theft, with estimated losses in the United States and Canada reaching nearly $725 million in 2025.

This represents a 60% surge in losses compared to the previous year, fueled by criminals increasingly using hacking and impersonation tactics to hijack high-value freight. Confirmed cargo theft incidents have risen 18 percent last year alone, while the average value per theft grew 36 percent to $273,990, due to more selective targeting of high-value loads.

The bureau said in a public service announcement on Wednesday that threat actors have been infiltrating the computer systems of freight brokers and carriers through spoofed emails and fake web links since at least 2024.

Once inside, criminals post fraudulent listings on online load boards (digital marketplaces used by shippers, brokers, and carriers) and impersonate legitimate companies to divert shipments.

For instance, in February, the typosquatting monitoring platform Have I Been Squatted reported that the Diesel Vortex financially motivated threat group was stealing credentials from freight and logistics operators in the U.S. and Europe in phishing attacks that had been running since September 2025 and were using 52 domains.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation is publishing this Public Service Announcement (PSA) to warn the public of cyber threat actors increasingly using sophisticated, cyber-enabled tactics to impersonate legitimate businesses to hijack freight, steal high-value shipments, and reroute deliveries, resulting in a surge of strategic cargo theft,” the FBI warned.

“Cyber threat actors target US transportation and logistics sectors, including companies with interests in shipping, receiving, delivering, and insuring cargo.”

​Attackers first compromise broker or carrier accounts by luring employees to phishing sites that install remote monitoring software, and then gain undetected access to the targeted company’s systems.

In the next stage, they post tens of thousands of fake freight listings, tricking legitimate carriers into downloading malicious files, and then accept real shipments under a stolen carrier identity. The loads are rerouted to complicit drivers, stolen for resale, and, in some cases, the criminals also demand ransoms for the location of diverted loads.

Threat actors linked to cyber-enabled cargo theft attacks will also alter the compromised carrier’s registration details with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and update insurance records, thus ensuring that legitimate companies will discover they have been hacked until brokers report missing shipments booked in their name without their knowledge.

To block cyber-enabled cargo theft attempts, the bureau urged transportation and logistics companies to verify all shipment requests through secondary channels, implement and enforce multi-factor authentication when possible, validate all unexpected communications using a two-factor authentication process, and maintain detailed records of all vehicles and drivers.

The FBI also advised victims of cyber-enabled cargo theft schemes to file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) in addition to filing police reports for the stolen cargo.

In its 2025 Internet Crime Report, released earlier this month, the FBI said IC3 received over 1 million complaints last year, linked to nearly $21 billion in reported losses from various cyber-enabled crimes, including investment scams, tech support fraud, business email compromise, and data breaches.

AI chained four zero-days into one exploit that bypassed both renderer and OS sandboxes. A wave of new exploits is coming.

At the Autonomous Validation Summit (May 12 & 14), see how autonomous, context-rich validation finds what’s exploitable, proves controls hold, and closes the remediation loop.

Claim Your Spot

Think one GPU is very much like another? Think again. It turns out that there’s surprising variability in the performance delivered by chips of the same model. That can make getting your money’s worth by renting time on a GPU from a cloud provider a real roll of the dice, according to research from the College of William & Mary, Jefferson Lab, and Silicon Data.

“It’s called the silicon lottery,” says Carmen Li, founder and CEO of Silicon Data, which tracks GPU rental prices and benchmarks cloud-computing performance.

The silicon lottery’s existence has been known since at least 2022, when researchers at the University of Wisconsin tied it to variations in the performance of GPU-dependent supercomputers. Li and her colleagues figured that the effect would be even more pronounced for AI cloud customers.

SOURCE: SILICON DATA