Samsung’s Galaxy S27 Pro and Galaxy S27 Ultra are shaping up to look quite different from the current generation, but the changes underneath may not be nearly as dramatic. Camera processing is reportedly being tweaked for warmer, more natural-looking photos, while certification filings point to a much-needed battery bump.

A fresh leak, however, points to an upgrade that could matter a lot more to people with sensitive eyes. Tipster WalleGalaxy claims Samsung will introduce DC dimming support on the Galaxy S27 Pro and Ultra, potentially moving away from the PWM-only approach it has relied on for years. The current Galaxy S26 series still uses PWM at around 480Hz and offers no DC-like flicker reduction option.

Why has Samsung stuck with PWM for so long?

PWM, or Pulse Width Modulation, controls brightness by rapidly switching OLED pixels on and off. Lower brightness simply means the pixels spend more time switched off during each cycle. Most people never consciously see the flicker, but some users can experience headaches, eye strain, or nausea, particularly at lower brightness levels.

There is a reason Samsung and plenty of other manufacturers have stuck with it, though. PWM allows OLED pixels to operate at a more stable current, which helps maintain accurate colors, consistent grayscale, and panel uniformity as brightness drops.

DC dimming solves one problem but brings another

DC dimming, on the other hand, controls brightness by lowering the current flowing through the pixels instead of rapidly cycling them on and off. Flicker is dramatically reduced, which can make the display easier on the eyes for people sensitive to PWM.

The downside is that DC dimming can affect image quality at very low brightness. Previous implementations have shown changes in grayscale and darker colors, while full DC dimming can also make panel uniformity harder to control. Samsung, however, does not necessarily have to choose one approach over the other. It could fall back on PWM at extremely low brightness and use a hybrid system instead. The company has already taken a similar approach with the Galaxy S24 FE, so it would not be surprising if the Galaxy S27 Pro and Ultra follow the same route rather than relying on DC dimming alone.

The Apple smart home device that the company is expected to announce on Tuesday is called HomeView and will ship to consumers in November, according to a report Sunday by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

The device, which will feature a display and be powered by an A18 chip, will act as a Siri command center for an Apple-powered smart home, Gurman reported. The HomeView will come in two versions: a countertop model with a metal speaker base and a wall-mounted version with a flat, square base.

Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

For more than a year, Apple has been rumored to be readying a Siri-focused smart display hub for the home, sometimes referred to as a HomePad, though we don’t know for sure that’ll be the name. This display would focus heavily on Siri AI and compete with products like Amazon’s Echo Show and the Google Nest Hub line by acting as a HomeKit hub.

Alongside the HomeView, Apple is expected to unveil a new Apple TV set-top box powered by an A19 chip and an updated HomePod mini with an S10 chip that extends voice control, music playback and other functionality throughout the household, Gurman reported.

Apple is expected to unveil the devices at its massive “Welcome Home” smart home event happening on Tuesday. Invitations went out on Thursday with a distinctive rainbow-colored Apple logo.

HomeView is expected to ship in the middle of November, Gurman wrote.

Everything We Expect From Apple’s Surprise Smart Home Event Next Week

Steven Musil

Night Editor / News

Steven Musil is a senior news editor at CNET News. He’s been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late ’70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers and had a brief stint at MacWeek.

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It’s spending billions on businesses that could turn financial services into its next growth engine

Grab has spent roughly US$2.5 billion (S$3.2 billion) on acquisitions so far this year. Strip out its expansion into Taiwan, and most of that money is going toward one thing: financial services, particularly lending.

Until recently, Grab was largely building its financial services business from the ground up.

That is changing. This year, it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying businesses that already have customers and lending operations, with Atome accounting for the biggest bet so far.

Here’s a look at Grab’s acquisitions, how much it has spent, and what it’s trying to build with those deals.

Grab’s 2026 acquisitions

Grab’s acquisition spree started in Jan, when it invested an undisclosed amount in Chinese robotics startup Infermove.

But the first major deal came a month later, and it was in financial services.

Feb: Stash (US$425 million)

Grab announced in Feb that it would acquire US-based investing app Stash at an enterprise value of US$425 million (S$543 million).

The deal gives Grab access to a digital investing platform with more than US$5 billion in assets under management and over one million paying subscribers. Stash is also expected to generate more than US$60 million in adjusted EBITDA in 2028.

Grab will initially acquire 50.1% of Stash, with the remaining stake to be paid for at fair market value over the following three years.

Mar: foodpanda Taiwan (US$600 million)

The following month, Grab announced a US$600 million (S$767 million) deal to acquire Delivery Hero’s foodpanda delivery business in Taiwan.

This one was different from the Stash deal. Rather than expanding Grab’s financial services business, it was a geographic expansion: Taiwan would become Grab’s ninth market and its first outside Southeast Asia.

The Taiwan business generated about US$1.8 billion in gross merchandise value in 2025 and was profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis. Grab plans to migrate foodpanda’s users, merchants and delivery partners onto its platform, with the full migration targeted for early 2027.

Sept: Atome Financial (US$1.49 billion)

Then came Grab’s biggest deal of the year so far.

In Sept, Grab agreed to pay US$1.49 billion (S$1.91 billion) for a 60% stake in Atome Financial, the digital lending business of Advance Intelligence Group.

Atome operates across Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand, offering Buy Now, Pay Later loans, consumer cash loans, BNPL cards and other digital lending products. It has 25 million cumulative transacted users and a gross loan portfolio of about US$1 billion.

The remaining 40% will be acquired roughly two years after the first transaction closes. Unlike the initial 60%, that portion does not have a fixed price: its valuation will depend on Atome’s revenue and adjusted EBITDA, subject to a floor of US$2 billion and a cap of US$4.5 billion.

That makes Atome by far the biggest financial services bet in Grab’s 2026 acquisition spree—and the deal that most clearly shows where Grab is putting its money.

The bet on lending

The common thread between Stash and Atome is that Grab is not simply buying another app or adding another product to its super app.

It is buying established financial businesses with existing customers, products and lending infrastructure—giving it a faster route to scale its financial services operations than building everything in-house.

But why now?

The strategy comes as Grab’s financial services business begins to outpace its more established mobility and delivery businesses.

In Q2 2026, financial services revenue grew 59% year-on-year to US$134 million, compared with 21% for deliveries and 12% for mobility. Lending has also accelerated, with total loans disbursed rising 72% to a record US$1.2 billion.

Part of the sharp increase in Grab’s loan book came from Superbank, an Indonesian digital bank that Grab began consolidating in Jun after increasing its stake to more than 50%. Grab had been an investor in Superbank since 2022, and the bank had more than six million customers by April 2026.

Grab’s gross loan portfolio reached US$2.3 billion at the end of Q2, up 197% from US$781 million a year earlier. Superbank contributed US$761 million of loan receivables to the portfolio, although Grab said the loan book would still have doubled year-on-year even without its contribution.

The business is not profitable yet, however.

Financial Services recorded an adjusted EBITDA loss of US$15 million in Q2, although that was an improvement from the US$26 million loss a year earlier. Grab attributed the improvement to higher contributions from its lending businesses and Superbank.

The company is betting that more scale will change that equation.

With Atome included, Grab expects its Financial Services segment to reach US$500 million in adjusted EBITDA and a gross loan portfolio of more than US$6 billion by 2028.

At the same time, Grab’s core business has finally started generating meaningful cash.

Grab reported its first full-year profit in 2025, and by the end of Q2 2026 it had US$7.4 billion in cash and cash equivalents.

That gives Grab room to spend on acquisitions while continuing to return money to shareholders.

Becoming the “everything” app

Grab has spent over a decade trying to become the “everything app” of Southeast Asia—the one platform a person opens for a ride, a meal, a parcel, and, eventually, their money.

Ride-hailing may have been the entry point, but financial services are increasingly becoming a bigger part of that strategy. Grab already has payments, digital banking and lending products. With Stash and Atome, it is adding investing and a much larger consumer lending business to that stack.

But the bigger question is whether Grab can turn that scale into sustainable profits.

The company now has a much larger lending operation, millions of additional financial services customers and a broader range of products. But it also has greater exposure to credit losses as it lends to more consumers across the region.

That makes the next few years particularly important. Grab has the cash to keep making acquisitions, but its US$2.5 billion spending spree will ultimately have to show up in the numbers—especially if financial services is to become the profit engine management expects it to be by 2028.

• Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

James Channel recently got hold of a small box that promised the latest Windows system, complete with a keyboard, mouse, and enough software to turn any living room into a home office. What arrived instead was a Famiclone, one of the countless unauthorized copies of Nintendo’s original Family Computer that flooded markets across Asia and beyond during the late 1980s and 1990s. These machines used a single chip to recreate the hardware that once powered Super Mario Bros., and manufacturers kept producing them long after the patents expired because they were cheap to build and easy to sell to families who could not afford a real computer.

The packaging for this particular machine really pushed Windows, as the box art was a mishmash of screens that looked like classic desktop software if you squinted hard enough, and the text advertising all sorts of features, like a light gun and multitasking, sounded a little suspect. The unit was housed in a plastic shell the size of a decent thick paperback, and if it had been a little more substantial, it might have had a chance, along with two joystick ports that appeared to have been lifted directly from a Commodore 64, some audio and video cables, a power adapter with a load of Japanese text on it, and a pair of cartridges. One of them was this 148-in-1 educational computer label, oh right, and the other boasted an outrageous number of games, which showed out to be approximately 140 with more than a few duplicates. A completely legitimate Indonesian version of a comparable cartridge appeared as well, however it was connected incorrectly and loaded with local language lessons.

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The keyboard, however, was a completely different story, since it was the worst piece of equipment he’d ever seen from the era. The keys were somewhat crooked, and the space bar was misspelled; come on, how hard is it to get that right? The membrane underneath seemed as if it would crack at the least provocation, so they had to go ahead and stick the Windows keys on there, but they didn’t work. Out of all of this, the mouse, a classic ball type with a star-shaped roller thingy inside, was a bit of a joke, as the ball kept falling out and the x-axis refused to register until I had to use super glue and a blowtorch to keep everything together. What about the controller that came with the set? Well, the cables were really thin, and everything felt stupidly loose in my palm. Apparently, the gun-shaped peripheral that came with the package was thrown in the dumpster by Australian customs because it looked suspiciously like an airgun, go figure.

The cartridges themselves were jam-packed with a combination of borrowed NES games and simple educational programs for children. GBasic appeared, and it looked strangely like Nintendo’s old Family Basic cartridge, allowing users to enter in small little programs that vanished as soon as you switched it off. Minesweeper and Solitaire ran in a style that recalled Windows 3.1, complete with a chording system that allowed you to click on cells and acquire additional tiles by pressing two mouse buttons at the same time. The typing lessons were also a bit of a joke, with fingers moving along the keyboard at about 30 characters per minute, and the other titles included a basic calculator, a music player that sounded like it had been tuned by a novice, a painter that only responded to keyboard input, and an English-Indonesian dictionary, because all you really need is the ability to look up Bahasa in the middle of a game.

Opening the case revealed how little money was actually invested in this build. There was a tiny little voltage regulator simply chillin’ by the power input, and one solitary transistor attempting to handle the visual amplification, albeit it was probably straining a little, considering that many other components had been left off the board to save money. The RF connector no longer modulated the signal; instead, it was bridged over, allowing audio to pass through without modification. Then there was a separate chip, some DH420D, that accepted keyboard pushes and converted them into the signals that a Famicom expects, all thanks to Sujia, a Chinese manufacturer that also branded a slew of generic boards. Some wires’ insulation had even melted in areas due to their proximity to the shell. To make matters worse, the power switch contacts were so blocked with grime that you had to give them a thorough cleaning and lubricant just to get the device to turn on properly.

Software-wise, it was a bit of a mess, since the restricted memory would load up and then freeze on you, forcing you to reset it and wiping out all of your work in the process. You could miraculously get some NES games to operate after unplugging the knackered old mouse. To be honest, the keyboard controls were somewhat of a joke for platformers. The educational portions of the software served as basic drills, but the music was out of sync, and the frame rate would plummet when things got too difficult. These machines were marketed to households where proper computers were out of reach due to their high cost, therefore they were an acceptable way to gain experience with technology that cost a fraction of the price of a real PC. Even though they don’t quite live up to what the box promised, collectors continue to seek them out because of the unusual combination of a full keyboard, a working mouse, and cartridge-based lessons, which is a fairly uncommon find among Famiclones, even if the end result isn’t exactly smooth.

Record labels spent the better part of two decades convincing consumers that owning music was increasingly unnecessary. Now that vinyl and CDs are enjoying a genuine resurgence, the same industry seems determined to find out just how much collectors are willing to spend on albums they probably already own.

Apparently, $300 is no longer out of the question.

On October 9, Rhino High Fidelity released a limited reel-to-reel edition of Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark for $299.98. Only 350 copies were offered worldwide, and by Saturday morning, Rhino’s website was already showing the title as sold out. That’s an impressive turnaround for an album that requires playback equipment most consumers have never seen outside a recording studio.

On the very same day, Verve announced a $124.98 One Step vinyl edition of Diana Krall’s The Look of Love, celebrating the album’s 25th anniversary. The November 20 release joins a growing collection of premium audiophile records that now cost more than many people spend on music in an entire year.

Both releases are aimed at serious collectors, but they raise a larger question. Is the physical media revival encouraging record labels to produce genuinely better editions, or have they discovered that scarcity, elaborate packaging, and audiophile marketing can make almost any price seem reasonable?

Related Reading:

Physical Music Is Growing and the Labels Have Noticed

The numbers explain why record companies are investing so heavily in physical formats.

According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), U.S. physical music revenue increased 25.9% during the first half of 2026, reaching $731.5 million. Vinyl revenue climbed 17.7% to $543.8 million, while CD revenue surged 58.6% to $171.1 million.

As we examined in our recent report on the CD resurgence, the rebound is not limited to aging audiophiles rediscovering their turntables. Younger consumers, collectors, and music fans who grew up with streaming are also buying physical releases.

Streaming still dominates the recorded music business, accounting for approximately 82% of U.S. revenue during the first half of 2026. Physical music is not threatening that position, but it has become a valuable complementary market built around ownership, better packaging, and the desire to support artists.

Record labels have figured out something rather important: consumers who already have access to virtually everything are increasingly willing to pay for something they can actually keep.

The danger is assuming that willingness has no financial limit.

Rhino Sells 350 Copies of Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark Almost Overnight

Rhino deserves some credit here.

Its new Court and Spark reel-to-reel edition is not simply another colored pressing with a numbered sticker and a promise that this time the music will sound even more magical.

The company has created a legitimate specialty product with a manufacturing process that is considerably more demanding than pressing another batch of records.

The tape was duplicated in real time from a 1:1 copy of the original stereo master. It uses quarter-inch RTM LPR90 tape stock, runs at 15 inches per second in half-track stereo, follows the IEC equalization standard, and comes on a 10.5-inch metal reel.

Those details are important. Real-time tape duplication is labor-intensive, the materials are expensive, and production cannot be scaled as easily as conventional vinyl manufacturing. This also isn’t a copy of the actual original master tape; Rhino specifies that the duplication source is a first-generation 1:1 copy.

The result should appeal to an extremely small audience with the hardware, technical knowledge, and financial resources to appreciate what Rhino is offering. A properly configured 15 ips half-track reel-to-reel machine isn’t something you casually pick up at Target alongside laundry detergent.

But Rhino understood its customers.

Limiting the edition to 350 copies worldwide created genuine scarcity, and the fact that the company’s online store listed it as sold out by the following morning suggests that the demand was very real. For a $300 analog release in 2026, that is a remarkable achievement.

The clever part is that Rhino hasn’t made this the only serious way to experience the album.

In July, eCoustics contributor Mark Smotroff reviewed Rhino High Fidelity’s $39.98 all-analog vinyl edition of Court and Spark, mastered by Kevin Gray and pressed at Optimal Media. Mark found it superior to his Nautilus SuperDisc edition, praising its more natural presentation, improved separation, and greater warmth.

That’s a very good record for less than $40.

Collectors with suitable tape machines can spend $300 on the new reel-to-reel edition, while listeners who simply want a superb analog presentation of Mitchell’s 1974 masterpiece have a considerably more affordable option.

Rhino hasn’t proven that $300 tapes are the future of physical music. It has demonstrated that a carefully chosen title, credible production methods, and genuinely limited availability can create a successful niche product.

Mazel tov. Now try finding a properly serviced reel to reel tape machine without disregarding your mortgage and private school bills.

Diana Krall’s $125 One Step Vinyl Raises a Different Question

Diana Krall’s The Look of Love is certainly worthy of a premium reissue.

Released in 2001, The Look of Love found Diana Krall working with producer Tommy LiPuma, legendary arranger Claus Ogerman, and the London Symphony Orchestra. Al Schmitt handled the recording and earned a Grammy for his efforts. Not a bad collection of talent for an album that would become one of Krall’s biggest commercial successes.

And the results speak for themselves. Krall’s smoky vocals, understated piano playing, and Ogerman’s lush orchestral arrangements make this the kind of recording that can sound wonderful on a modest system but really comes alive when the equipment is up to the task. Whether it’s worth spending $125 to hear it on yet another vinyl pressing is an entirely different question.

Verve’s new edition uses the One Step manufacturing process, which eliminates intermediate metal-plating generations between the lacquer and the finished stamper. The objective is to reduce potential losses introduced during manufacturing and preserve more information from the lacquer cut.

That approach can produce excellent results, but it also raises manufacturing costs because fewer pressings can be produced from each lacquer before additional cutting and plating work becomes necessary.

The new two-LP edition will be individually numbered and packaged in a gatefold tip-on jacket with a specially designed slipcase.

All perfectly reasonable.

The $124.98 asking price, however, deserves more scrutiny.

Verve already offers a conventional 2-LP edition of The Look of Love for $34.99 at Amazon. More revealing is the $19.98 deluxe anniversary CD, which includes five bonus tracks, including an alternate take of “Maybe You’ll Be There” and the previously unreleased vault performance “I Love Being Here With You.”

The $125 One Step vinyl contains only the original ten-track album.

In other words, collectors paying more than six times the price of the deluxe CD receive the premium pressing and packaging, but none of the additional music.

Apparently, the bonus tracks didn’t qualify for first-class seating.

There is also the issue of transparency.

Verve’s announcement and current product listing explain the advantages of One Step manufacturing, but do not identify the mastering engineer, specify the source used for the new lacquer cut, or confirm whether the mastering chain is entirely analog.

That information should be available before someone commits $125.

A One Step pressing can be produced from an analog source or a digital source. The manufacturing process alone does not establish which was used, nor does it guarantee that the finished record will sound better than a well-mastered conventional pressing.

This is not a criticism of how the new Krall edition sounds. Nobody should make that judgment without listening to it.

But the burden should be on the label to explain exactly what collectors are getting for their money.

When Does Premium Become Excessive?

We’ve covered enough audiophile reissues in 2026 to know that expensive doesn’t automatically mean better, and affordable doesn’t mean compromised.

Mobile Fidelity’s upcoming Michael Jackson BAD UltraDisc One Step edition also costs $125, but MoFi identifies its source as the album’s original Mitsubishi X-80 16-bit/48kHz digital master, along with the mastering engineer, cutting chain, and pressing facility.

More recently, we examined Beck’s $110 Ride Lonesome One Step release, which uses 24-bit/96kHz digital files transferred from analog masters. That information gives buyers an opportunity to decide whether the production approach and price make sense to them.

Digital mastering isn’t inherently inferior. An expensive record doesn’t become fraudulent because a computer appeared somewhere in its production history. What matters is the quality of the source, the mastering decisions, the pressing, and whether the label has been forthcoming about the process.

Our reviews have also demonstrated that excellent audiophile vinyl doesn’t require a three-figure investment.

Mark Smotroff recently praised Verve’s Acoustic Sounds reissue of Stan Getz and Luiz Bonfá’s Jazz Samba Encore!, a beautifully manufactured all-analog release available for less than $40. He reached a similarly positive conclusion about John Coltrane’s Africa/Brass, another Acoustic Sounds pressing that makes an important recording accessible without requiring collectors to sacrifice their grocery budget.

These are the kinds of releases that have helped establish credibility for the modern audiophile reissue market.

The labels invest in quality mastering, reputable pressing plants, and attractive packaging, while keeping prices within reach of listeners who care more about the music than the resale value of a numbered box.

Nobody is suggesting that a meticulously produced $300 reel-to-reel tape should cost the same as a standard LP. Nor is a $125 One Step pressing automatically a rip-off.

But increasingly expensive collector editions shouldn’t become the default measure of how seriously someone takes music.

The industry also needs to remember that its fastest-growing major physical format in the first half of 2026 was the compact disc, which offers a much more affordable entry point for consumers who want permanent ownership.

There is a message in that statistic, assuming the labels are willing to hear it over the sound of cash registers.

The Bottom Line

Rhino deserves congratulations for selling out its $300 Court and Spark reel-to-reel edition so quickly. The company identified a small audience, produced something technically distinctive, and created enough demand to exhaust a limited run of just 350 copies. It also offers an excellent $40 vinyl alternative for those of us not currently shopping for another tape machine.

Verve’s $125 The Look of Love One Step edition may turn out to be spectacular. The album certainly deserves first-rate treatment, and the company has a strong record of producing outstanding audiophile releases. But buyers should expect more technical transparency when the premium pressing costs several times as much as an existing version of the same recording.

Physical media is thriving because listeners value ownership, permanence, and a closer connection to music. Labels should be encouraged to preserve important recordings, restore overlooked albums, and invest in better manufacturing rather than treating their catalogs as disposable streaming inventory.

What they shouldn’t do is confuse that loyalty with an unlimited willingness to pay.

There’s room in the market for a $20 CD, a superb $40 LP, and even a meticulously produced $300 reel-to-reel tape. Not every format needs to appeal to everyone, and collectors should be free to spend their money however they please.

But if record labels turn the physical media revival into an increasingly expensive competition over numbered editions, extravagant packaging, and questionable value, they risk pricing the next generation of music buyers out of the hobby entirely.

Which would be quite an accomplishment.

After spending twenty years convincing consumers that they didn’t need to own music, the industry may now discover that people still want to own it.

They just might not want to sell their second favourite child to prove it.

Related Reading:

You’ve probably heard of Mars Pathfinder, the NASA lander and its Sojourner rover that took up residence on Mars in 1997. At first, all was well, but after a few days, the lander suffered a series of total system resets. A watchdog timer detected a problem and forced reboots. [Vivek Bhageria’s] recent post looks into what happened and the eventual solution.

The root cause was priority inversion. This happens when a lower-priority task holds a resource needed by a higher-priority task and prevents the higher-priority task from executing. In this case, the operating system was VxWorks, but this can happen on any kind of priority scheduling system.

The simplified version is that there were two tasks that each used the same mutex to avoid stepping on each other. The highest priority was a data distribution task. The lowest priority task dealt with meteorology data processing. There was also a medium-priority task that handled bus maintenance.

The failure would occur when the low-priority task had the mutex and lost its time slot before releasing it. The high-priority task would then find it couldn’t take the mutex. However, the low-priority task didn’t get control again because of the medium-priority tasks waiting to run.

In effect, the high-priority task was now waiting on something that couldn’t become available until the lowest-priority task was able to run. That’s priority inversion.

Sadly, engineers noticed this happening occasionally during testing but, as we are often prone to do, they chalked it up to glitches. As one of our old bosses used to say: “If you don’t know why it happened, then you don’t know that it won’t happen again.”

VxWorks, of course, understands that this might happen and, luckily, there was enough capability on the spacecraft to turn priority inheritance on for the mutex in question. This allows the low-priority task to get a boost because a higher-priority task is waiting on it.

You can read more about the details in the post. We also covered this a decade ago with our own analysis.

Album and playlist pages in YouTube Music now open with cover art that fills the upper third of the screen for some users.

The change surfaced through several Reddit posts from users who received the new layout, though it looks like a server-side A/B test rather than an app update anyone can download.

A server-side switch lets Google enable the design for a small slice of accounts and gauge the response, a rollout method the company regularly uses before pushing interface changes across its wider user base.