It started with avocados and ended with sensitive information being leaked.

Onstage at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas, researchers Netanel Rubin and Dan Avraham pulled up an AI shopping assistant — the kind that’s available inside most major retail apps to answer questions, compare products and help shoppers navigate a store’s enormous catalog.

But the conversation didn’t stay on groceries for long.

By the end of the demonstration, the researchers had bypassed the assistant’s safeguards and forced code to run inside the computer environment behind it. The bot returned directory listings, environment variables and other information that an ordinary shopper should never be able to see.

In the wrong hands, that kind of information could give an attacker clues about the retailer’s systems and potentially expose secrets or access that could be used in further attacks, putting both the company and, depending on what the AI can reach, its customers at risk.

The retailer wasn’t a small online shop experimenting with a hastily assembled chatbot, either.

According to Rubin and Avraham’s company Rein Security, it was one of the three largest retailers in the US, and the assistant was available through the same public mobile app used by everyday customers. 

A few important notes: Rein Security sells technology designed to monitor AI agents and provide visibility into what those agents are doing. Rein also didn’t identify the retailer, citing legal concerns. That means the findings cannot be independently verified with the retailer, and shoppers can’t know whether they’ve used the affected assistant.

How the shopping assistant was tricked

The attack started with one of the assistant’s most useful abilities: comparing products.

To answer certain questions, the AI can retrieve information from websites outside the retailer’s control. That helps it gather more information for shoppers, but it also means the assistant can encounter material created by virtually anyone, including an attacker.

The researchers placed instructions in content they controlled and got the shopping assistant to retrieve them. Instead of treating that material only as information to summarize, the AI was manipulated into treating some of it as new directions to follow.

This is known as an indirect prompt injection. The malicious code can be hidden within a website, document, product listing or other material the AI encounters while trying to complete a legitimate task.

That alone wasn’t enough to reach the system behind the assistant, but it gave the researchers a starting point.

The retailer had installed a security layer that examines conversations and attempts to keep the assistant focused on shopping. If you ask it something outside its approved role, the request could be rejected.

The researchers found that those protections weren’t applied evenly. The main chat interface had safeguards in place, but the app’s regular search field didn’t have the same level of protection.

Through that less-protected input, Rubin and Avraham said they persuaded the assistant to reveal information about its internal setup, including the names of tools it could use and the syntax for calling them.

They then created another set of instructions that caused the assistant to run code inside its own computing environment — essentially the computer system where the AI was running. The assistant returned lists of files and other information about that system, showing that the prompt injection had worked and the researchers’ commands had actually been executed.

Rein’s public account doesn’t establish what else the assistant’s isolated environment could potentially access or whether an attacker could move from there into systems containing customer, payment or inventory data.

But getting code to run at all means the researchers were able to cross an important security boundary.

The researchers said they reported the vulnerabilities on March 13. As of July 16, more than 90 days later, Rein said they had not been fixed. The company has not publicly provided a newer update on whether the problems remain.

The researchers also stressed that they didn’t access real customer information, alter anyone’s orders or attempt to disrupt the retailer’s systems. Their work was performed in a controlled environment using their own session.

The AI wasn’t just talking

Chatbots have been manipulated into saying strange, offensive or unrelated things for years. But AI assistants can do more than generate answers; they can retrieve information, call outside services and use software tools to complete tasks.

Retailers want these assistants to eventually build shopping lists, check inventory, manage orders and even complete purchases. But each new ability creates another potential risk if the AI can be tricked into following the wrong instructions.

In this case, the retailer’s security system monitored what shoppers said to the AI and what it said back. According to Rein, it couldn’t see everything happening in between, including information the assistant retrieved and tools it used.

That created a blind spot in which the security system could see the conversation, but not everything the AI was doing behind it.

During their examination of the app, the researchers also found Google Maps API keys visible in traffic they decrypted from the mobile app. If those keys weren’t properly restricted, an attacker could potentially use them to make unauthorized requests to Google Maps services on the retailer’s account, running up charges or exhausting its usage limits. 

The researchers did not report accessing customer information with the keys, but an attacker could potentially use them to make unauthorized Google Maps requests at the retailer’s expense.

What it all means

There isn’t much an ordinary shopper can do to prevent this kind of vulnerability. The attack targeted the retailer’s design, not a weak password or a customer mistake.

The responsibility belongs to companies giving AI assistants access to internal tools and information. Those systems have to assume that anything pulled from the open internet could contain instructions intended to mislead the AI — and put appropriate safeguards in place.

It’s still wise to avoid sharing unnecessary personal information with shopping assistants, particularly if the bot can access previous orders or other account details. Keeping retail apps updated can also ensure you receive security fixes when they become available.

And that also leaves one enormous unanswered question: Which shopping assistant was it?

For now, the researchers aren’t saying. But the demonstration shows what can happen as AI shopping assistants are given more control. If they can be tricked into following the wrong instructions, their most useful features can also become security risks.

With more than a decade of experience, Nelson covers Apple and Google and writes about iPhone and Android features, privacy and security settings, and more.

See full bio

Advertisement

Companies are still grappling with exactly how software development should work in the AI area, but one early answer is the so-called software factory. Essentially an agent loop that’s built around the traditional stages of software development, the software factory approach has become a popular way for companies to remake their engineering organizations for the AI era.

Now, a system from Warp could make that transition a lot easier. On Tuesday, the AI coding company introduced Warp Factories, a new system designed to make building and operating AI software factories as easy as possible.

Operating as an infrastructure layer, Warp Factories gives companies a simple environment for deploying agents and a roadmap for how to use them.

To be clear, many companies are already having success with the factory model without any help from Warp. Stripe has been particularly public about its technical progress, developing a “minions” system to automate development within its own codebase. Ramp has made similar progress, developing a background agent that can monitor its own code after it is deployed.

As Warp CEO Zack Lloyd sees it, the target market for Warp Factories will be smaller companies without the resources to develop a system from the ground up.

“[If you look at] things like running your agents in the cloud and steering those agents as they run, or bringing the work that they’re doing into your local environment, or setting up memory that goes across those agents, or setting up evals that go across those agents — it’s actually a huge infrastructure undertaking to do this right,” Lloyd told TechCrunch.

In Warp Factories, the architecture is already built out of the box, with many of the most difficult decisions already made. Warp’s system is based on the standard phases of software development (triage, specification, implementation, review, and verification) but the agentic approach means any of those steps can be automated.

Users can choose their own coding model and harnesses as necessary; the system works as well with Codex as Claude Code. It also integrates with ticketing systems like Linear and Jira, and messaging systems like Slack and Teams, in an effort to plug in seamlessly to existing workflows.

Beyond just shipping code, Warp Factories will also give managers the tools to track how well the factory is performing. With all the agents running in the same environment, it’s easy to compare performance metrics for different configurations, and to keep an eye on the overall token spend. Warp Factory also allows for self-improvement loops to optimize the overall system, automating management of the process itself.

Even so, Warp Factories is not built to completely replace software engineers — just give them an easier way to collaborate with the new agentic workforce. In Lloyd’s own experience, there are still a lot of tasks that require a human at the wheel.

“We automate like 30% of our tasks, 30 to 35% on a weekly basis,” Lloyd told TechCrunch, “and as models improve, as the context improves, as the harness improves, I think that that number is going to go up over time.”

The Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q is a color-accurate OLED monitor with a full port hub. It makes a strong case as a Studio Display XDR alternative for Mac users, assuming you’re fine with not having a Retina-class display.

A great monitor can anchor a whole desk setup. For Mac users who can afford it, the obvious choice has long been Apple’s displays.

Those displays are beautiful, but price and port quantity have always been limiting factors for most. Third-party OLED panels are an alternative, but generally with design compromises.

The Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED (U322Q) is one such option, with both OLED and the aforementioned design compromises. It targets designers, photographers, videographers, and other creatives who need color accuracy.

It’s not Retina, but more on that in a bit.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED review: Specifications

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: Design

Design is the monitor’s clear weak point. It wears the same matte dark finish as most professional displays. Nobody will confuse this for a Studio Display.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: The Dell monitor still has a boring, utilitarian design

Advertisement

For a desk built around Apple hardware, the contrast is visible. The Dell looks like typical plastic-clad office fare.

That said, you’re going to be buying this monitor more for its capabilities, rather than its appearance.

How much that appearance matters, is an exercise for the reader. This doesn’t matter so much to me.

The stand is versatile, with height, tilt, swivel, and pivot. This level of articulation is helpful for anyone who has to stare at their monitor for lengthy periods.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: The monitor can pivot left and right, tilt, adjust its height, and rotate vertically

If your office environment is too light-heavy, a snap-on light hood is included for glare control. It’s a nice addition, but in this world of multiple displays on one desk for one workstation, I’m not sure how much use it’s going to get.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: The panel

The panel is the reason to buy this monitor. It is a 31.5-inch QD-OLED running at 4K and 120Hz. This is notably not “Retina.”

The panel itself, QD-OLED, gives per-pixel light control for true blacks and color representation. Contrast, viewing angles, and response are all excellent.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: The display does a decent job at avoiding glare, especially when in use

The anti-glare low-reflectance coating handles bright rooms well. It diffuses my Texas office’s lighting regardless of the time of day, without washing the picture out.

Color coverage reaches 99% of the DCI-P3 gamut. This is essential for people working with color, like YouTubers editing video or avid photographers.

When it comes to brightness, HDR peaks at 1,000 nits, The 300 nits available in standard use is more than enough to work with, too.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: Content has great contrast and rich colors

In extended use, the color and contrast impress the most. HDR content looks vivid, and photos and video stand out.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: Resolution

The panel’s one real actual weakness is pixel density. At 32 inches in size and at 4K, it works out to 140 pixels per inch.

That is not sharp by Apple monitor standards, and is nowhere near Retina. Users of high-density Apple displays will notice softer text up close without additional software

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: The Dell UltraSharp (left) is larger than Apple’s Studio Display (right)

An Apple display packs more pixels into less space. For reference, the Studio Display reaches 218 pixels per inch, while using a 27-inch screen.

For some workflows, the larger canvas is worth it. For others, density matters more than screen size. The tradeoff is size against sharpness at this price. A 5K OLED of this size would cost far more than this.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: There’s no missing the lower pixel density when comparing the Dell UltraSharp (left) to the Apple Studio Display (right) with their respective 4K and 5K resolutions

Advertisement

In this case, the resolution isn’t necessarily a bad thing, considering the size and what OLED delivers.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: Ports and Mac connectivity

Connectivity is a major strength for Mac users. The monitor is built around Thunderbolt 4.

One upstream Thunderbolt port delivers up to 140W to a Mac, as well as handling video duties. If you’re into a single-cable lifestyle, this means you can connect a MacBook Pro and recharge it without needing separate data or video cables.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: The dell monitor has a full hub, including a downstream Thunderbolt port

Advertisement

A second Thunderbolt port handles data or daisy chaining. If you have enough screens available, it can drive up to three of these 4K 120Hz displays in a chain.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: There are two HDMI ports on the Dell UltraSharp

The rest of the hub element of the display is generous. It adds two HDMI ports, DisplayPort, multiple USB ports, and 2.5GbE Ethernet. A front pop-down offers three more USB ports, all 10 gigabits per second.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: There are two USB-C ports and a USB-A port hidden on the front for easy access

Advertisement

A built-in KVM switch lets one keyboard and mouse serve two machines, such as a Mac and a PC. This functionality is… okay. It does what it says it will do in the documentation. It’s all handled on the monitor, and it very much depends on your workflow if this matters at all.

In my case, it doesn’t matter. A display such as this one is my main working monitor, with a periodic delve into testing and so forth. In those cases, the attached peripheral either has its own I/O like a remote for a media player, a controller for a console, or for a network attached storage status display.

Even if it was my second landscape display on my desk that I use on busy days for a third display and for my PC after-hours, there’s still I/O that doesn’t need a KVM.

As with all things, your mileage may vary. It’s a nice feature to have on deck even if you don’t need it this second.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: Versus the Studio Display XDR

The natural Apple rival is the Studio Display XDR. The two take different technical paths to a similar goal.

The Dell uses QD-OLED with per-pixel control and wide viewing angles. The Apple model uses Mini LED backlighting instead, which reaches a higher 2,000 nits.

Apple wins on pixel density, at 218 against 140. Apple also adds speakers and a Center Stage camera.

The Dell answers back with its port hub and larger screen. It also undercuts the Apple model on price.

The Studio Display XDR runs around $3,300. The Dell sits below it, at $2,439.99 when on sale.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q review: A pro OLED that courts Mac users

The UltraSharp 32 QD-OLED is a strong pick for a specific buyer. It suits Mac users who prize color accuracy and connectivity, and need that extra screen estate.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED review: A solid option for Apple users

The panel is its best feature, with reference color modes and a deep OLED contrast. The 140 PPI density is the main compromise to weigh in here, but the cost savings make a difference here.

Against the Studio Display XDR, it’s all about personal priorities. Apple leads on density and brightness, Dell on ports, size, and absolute blacks.

For me, those ports are critical. My workstation is cross-platform, relatively dark, and multiple machine. A one-input monitor, no matter how nice, no matter how stylish, isn’t my best choice.

For color-critical work with a big port count, the Dell delivers. If color-accuracy is less important, the consumer-focused Dell 32 Plus 4K QD-OLED (S3225QC) is a solid candidate, and has speakers, for $800.

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q Pros

• Reference-grade QD-OLED color and contrast
• 140W Thunderbolt with a deep port hub
• Built-in colorimeter for automated calibration

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED model U3226Q Cons

• 140 PPI looks soft against Apple displays
• Generic design next to a Mac setup
• Lower peak brightness than the Studio Display XDR

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED display is a solid performer. Apple devout, like our videographer, won’t care for the design.

For me, though, I look at the monitor panel, and don’t need to savor bespoke aluminum. The color accuracy is a major selling point, and the Thunderbolt dock integrated into the unit is very nice.

A lack of speakers isn’t a big deal for the main buyers of this machine. Only Apple seems to have a handle on good and small speakers.

Where to buy the Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-OLED

The Dell UltraSharp 32 4K QD-QLED is available from Dell directly, with a regular price of $2,599.99. It has been spotted at closer to $2,400 when on sale.

Ken Okuyama, the Japanese designer who shaped the Ferrari Enzo during his years at Pininfarina, brought a new open mid-engine car to the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on August 16. Named Kode89, it arrived after a quiet run on the Tour d’Elegance a few days earlier, with Okuyama himself at the wheel. The car marks twenty years since he set up his own studio and represents the first time his company has built a complete vehicle around an original chassis rather than adapting platforms from Lotus, Ferrari or Lamborghini.

The name and dimensions are reminiscent of 1989, which Koyama considers to be the pinnacle of automobile design. That period saw the introduction of the Pininfarina Mythos concept, but the real highlight was the wave of razor-sharp sports cars that began to appear that season. The Kode89 is a hard-edged beast, with flat front fenders and headlights that sit low and near to the front spoiler. The cooling intakes and the rather slim greenhouse remind me of the Enzo. The folds running over the back shoulders indicate a fixed wing with triangle lights tucked up in the corners. There is no roof to speak of, so the bodywork flows seamlessly.

LEGO Technic Ferrari 488 Pista Car 42235

• SPORTS CAR BUILDING TOY – Fuel kids’ passion for high-performance vehicles with the LEGO Technic Ferrari 488 PISTA Car (42235) model building kit…
• TOY CAR WITH REALISTIC DETAILS – Kids can learn new engineering skills as they put together and explore the V8 engine with moving pistons…
• FORZA HORIZON 6 UNLOCKABLE – Unlock a special LEGO Technic livery in the Forza Horizon 6 video game – please note that a copy of the game is…

The car’s construction begins with an aluminum spaceframe created and built in the company’s Yamagata facility, which is a bit of an antiquated method in an age of carbon fiber. The 12 cylinder engine, a genuine 12 cylinder engine, not a decapitated V6, is positioned longitudinally behind the cabin and, as in a legitimate sports vehicle, feeds power to the rear wheels. Using all of the current gimmicks, such as 5 axis machining and 3D printed parts, as well as certain traditional coachbuilding skills, is a really unusual approach. To be clear, the goal weight is little under 1,300 kilograms, with 235/30 R20 at the front and 295/30 R20 at the rear.

Power comes from a pair of naturally aspirated V12 engines, yes, two different ones, each linked to a six-speed manual transmission. The basic 5.4-liter engine produces 540 horsepower at 7000 rpm and 569 Nm of torque at 5,000 rpm. If you desire more power, a 5.9 liter version from a Japanese specialist produces around 750 horsepower. Plus, the chassis is adaptable to a variety of V12 configurations, and they are currently working on a bi-fuel hydrogen combustion variant that can run on either gasoline or hydrogen.

Only 8 of supercars will be produced. The first year’s allocation of two cars, including the one showed off at Pebble Beach, has already been sold, and each one will be built to order, giving you a say in the final specifications. In a market where everyone and their dog is going dual-clutch or electrification, the Kode89 is delightfully old-school, with three pedals and a high-revving 12-cylinder engine at the heart of the driving experience. Koyama’s team has actually planted the legacy of small-volume, designer-led automobiles in Japan, and combined it with some rather modern manufacturing techniques to create a limited run of open hypercars aimed straight at those who still want to shift for themselves.
[Source]

Fairphone, the Dutch company known for its sustainable and repair-friendly phones, on Tuesday said its latest smartphone, Fairphone (Gen 6+), is now available in the U.S, starting at $649.

The company previously had a partnership with French open-source operating system maker e/OS to sell a “de-Googled” version of its previous smartphones in the States, but this is the first time people in the U.S. can buy the company’s phones directly without any modifications. The company said the Fairphone 6+ will support T-Mobile and AT&T at launch.

The Fairpone 6+ is strictly a midrange Android offering, but given the increasing prices of consumer gadgets amid the ongoing component shortages, a repairable device that can be made to last for years may prove a good proposition.

“We’re delivering a device built from the ground up to be opened, repaired, and kept alive for many years,” Fairphone CEO Raymond van Eck said.

The Fairphone 6+ runs on Qualcomm’s mid-range Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 processor, and has 12GB of RAM. The phone has a 4,415 maAh battery with support for 30W fast-charging. It features a 6.31 LTPO OLED display with an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz.

As for photography, the phone’s main camera has a 50-megapixel Sony sensor with an f/1.88 aperture, and the secondary camera has a 13-megapixel ultrawide sensor with an f/2.2 aperture. The selfie camera on the front is a 32-megapixel sensor with an f/2.0 aperture.

Personally, I would have preferred a telephoto camera instead of an ultrawide for a two-camera setup. On paper, these cameras look like they would be good enough to take photos in the daylight, but in low light, expect the performance to dwindle.

The Fairphone’s main selling point, however, are its 12 replaceable parts, which include important components like the battery, cameras, USB-C port, and the display, which can be swapped out using a single screwdriver. The company offers five years of warranty and software support until 2033.

Fairphone claims it also focuses on keeping its manufacturing process sustainable. The company said it was able to reduce the carbon footprint to 30 kg of CO2e for each of the Fairphone 6+ it manufactured.

The Fairphone 6+ is available in Forest Green, Horizon Black, and Cobalt Blue colorways. The company is also selling accessories, like a finger loop, lanyard and card holder, which users can install by removing the back cover.

CEDIA Expo 2026 is rapidly turning into a very expensive argument over the future of the big-screen home theater. Quantum Media Systems is pushing native 8K processing, DreamWall is attacking MicroLED heat and installation complexity, and Christie is arriving with a 15,000-lumen native 4K projector that appears capable of illuminating portions of Colorado.

Just Video Walls is entering that fight from another direction with Absolute Black, its new flagship MicroLED platform for CEDIA Expo 2026. Instead of emphasizing resolution, heat management or raw light output, JVW is focused on the part viewers actually stare at: black levels, uniformity and whether a massive modular display can look like one seamless image rather than a wall assembled from individual LED cabinets.

If Absolute Black can pull that off, it gives MicroLED a much stronger argument against both premium projection and giant OLED displays.

What Is Just Video Walls Absolute Black?

Absolute Black is a new MicroLED platform designed around an ultra-dark phosphor surface combined with LEDs that occupy approximately one-tenth the visible surface area of more conventional MicroLED designs. The idea is rather clever: smaller visible emitters leave more genuinely dark surface between the pixels while also presenting less reflective LED area to ambient light.

Just Video Walls says that combination produces deeper perceived blacks, greater image depth and a display surface that becomes less noticeable when content is playing. The company is targeting approximately 99% coverage of DCI-P3 and supports 12-bit source color processing for smoother gradients and more precise color reproduction.

The other significant improvement involves uniformity.

Modular MicroLED walls are assembled from multiple cabinets, and even small differences in brightness or color between those modules can become visible across a very large image. JVW claims Absolute Black improves base color and brightness uniformity by 57% compared with its existing technology, reducing tonal differences and making the boundaries between modules harder to detect.

That sounds less exciting than putting “8K” on the front of the brochure until you have actually seen a giant video wall with one cabinet that does not quite match the others. Once you notice it, good luck looking anywhere else.

Dark Scenes Are Another Problem

Absolute Black also uses what JVW describes as an ultra-high-frequency LED driving architecture designed to maintain motion fidelity across the grayscale range. Conventional direct-view LED systems can exhibit scan artifacts or reduced motion consistency at extremely low light levels; JVW says its new platform is designed to eliminate visible scan lines even in very dark scenes down to 0.001 nits.

That is potentially important for movies.

A giant MicroLED display capable of producing spectacular brightness with sports or HDR demonstration footage is not particularly difficult to appreciate. Maintaining clean shadow detail, uniform blacks and convincing low-level motion during something dark and deliberately miserable is a much harder test.

Anyone can make Top Gun: Maverick look impressive on a 150-inch wall.

Try The Batman.

Why Should Consumers Care?

MicroLED already offers something neither conventional OLED televisions nor projection systems can easily duplicate: enormous modular screen sizes combined with self-emissive pixels and enough brightness for rooms that are not completely dark. The problem is that scaling the image exposes other weaknesses, including module uniformity, reflections and visible seams. eCoustics encountered exactly those issues when examining large MicroLED systems at CEDIA Expo 2025.

Absolute Black is interesting because JVW is addressing the picture itself rather than merely making the wall larger.

If its claims hold up in Denver, deeper blacks and improved uniformity should be visible whether you are watching a 4K movie, football, gaming or an 8K demonstration. Consumers do not need a new content ecosystem to benefit from better black levels.

There is also a practical advantage over projection. Direct-view MicroLED does not require a projector hanging from the ceiling, a projection throw path or a darkened room to produce a punchy image. That makes these systems increasingly relevant for luxury media rooms and multipurpose spaces rather than just dedicated cinemas.

But MicroLED comes with its own complication: audio. A solid LED wall is not acoustically transparent, so the left, center and right loudspeakers cannot simply sit behind the image as they can with a perforated or woven projection screen. Even Just Video Walls has acknowledged that converting projection theaters to MicroLED can create substantial front-channel placement challenges.

Nobody said replacing a projector with several hundred thousand dollars of LEDs was going to make the room simpler.

Who Does Absolute Black Compete With?

The luxury MicroLED market is becoming surprisingly crowded.

Quantum Media Systems XDR5-8K is perhaps the most obvious competitor on the custom residential side. Its emphasis for CEDIA 2026 is different: Quantum is concentrating on processing multiple native 8K sources simultaneously and turning an enormous display into a configurable entertainment and information canvas.

DreamWall Elite Series Platinum P0.7 takes another route with a 0.7mm-pixel-pitch COB MicroLED platform that can create a 121-inch 4K display. DreamWall is also emphasizing its CooLED thermal architecture, reduced power and cooling requirements, and simplified residential installation.

Samsung The Wall remains one of the best-known names in modular MicroLED and already uses low-reflection black technology while offering multiple pixel pitches and highly configurable installations.

LG MAGNIT is another formidable competitor. LG’s latest 136-inch Active Micro LED uses an active-matrix architecture with individual pixel control and is specifically being positioned for premium home cinema and visualization applications.

Sony’s Crystal LED family also competes in the broader premium direct-view LED market, although much of Sony’s current emphasis remains professional and commercial installations. Its new 135-inch Crystal LED UNIFY demonstrates how quickly all-in-one large-format direct-view systems are evolving.

What We Still Don’t Know

Just Video Walls has not disclosed complete consumer specifications or formal pricing for Absolute Black in its CEDIA announcement. Peak brightness, available pixel pitches and configurations, specific resolutions and system pricing have not yet been detailed publicly.

There are already Absolute Black installations being demonstrated through dealers; Beyond Audio in Scottsdale, Arizona, for example, advertises a 156-inch, 0.9mm-pixel-pitch Absolute Black demonstration wall. But this is emphatically not something that arrives from Best Buy on Tuesday afternoon with two guys and a wall mount.

JVW sells through the custom-installation channel and requires Absolute Black dealers to maintain an active showroom demonstration, complete company training and meet specific installation and service requirements. That model makes sense because with modular MicroLED, calibration, structural preparation and installation are inseparable from the product itself.

The Bottom Line

Just Video Walls Absolute Black is interesting because it is not pretending that another enormous resolution specification automatically makes a better television. By reducing the visible LED area, increasing the amount of dark surface between pixels, improving uniformity and addressing low-level scan artifacts, JVW is targeting weaknesses that can become painfully obvious when a display grows to 150 inches and beyond.

The competition is also pushing MicroLED in different directions. Quantum is betting on 8K processing and multi-source flexibility, DreamWall is concentrating on heat and installation, while Samsung and LG bring enormous manufacturing resources and established display technology. Absolute Black’s pitch is simpler: make a gigantic MicroLED wall disappear into the image the way a great OLED can.

If Absolute Black delivers at CEDIA Expo 2026, the most interesting specification may not be the number of pixels on the wall but how little of the wall you actually notice. Better blacks, fewer visible module transitions and convincing low-level performance could make MicroLED a much more formidable alternative to premium projection for buyers who want a 150-inch-plus image without living in a permanently darkened room.

The unanswered question is price. Just Video Walls has not announced Absolute Black pricing, but comparable premium MicroLED systems already live comfortably in six-figure territory. Samsung currently lists its 146-inch 4K The Wall at $219,999, while other 0.9mm systems around 200 inches can approach or exceed $140,000 before the room, audio system and other integration costs enter the conversation. Absolute Black is JVW’s flagship platform, so anyone expecting Costco pricing should probably remain seated.

At this level, the competition is no longer between televisions. It is between an extremely expensive MicroLED wall and an extremely expensive projection system; and which one makes you forget how much you just spent.

For more information: justvideowalls.com

Related Reading: