In February 2026, workers at Sama, a Nairobi-based outsourcing company contracted by Meta, told Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten that they had been reviewing footage captured by users of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses. The footage included people having sex, going to the toilet, undressing, and handling bank details. The workers’ job was to label the content so that Meta’s AI systems could learn to interpret what the glasses see. Less than two months after the investigation was published, Meta ended its contract with Sama, and on 16 April the company issued formal redundancy notices to 1,108 employees. Meta said Sama “don’t meet our standards.” Sama rejected the characterisation and said it had received no notification of any failure. Naftali Wambalo, co-founder of the Africa Tech Workers Movement, alleged the real reason was simpler: Meta was retaliating against the workers who spoke out. Meta has not responded to that allegation. The people who trained the AI saw what the glasses see. Then they lost their jobs.

The glasses

Meta sold more than seven million pairs of Ray-Ban smart glasses in 2025, more than tripling its previous year’s volume. The product line has since expanded to include prescription models designed to reach the billions of people who already buy corrective eyewear, converting what was a novelty into something closer to a default. The glasses record video, capture photos, stream audio, and route queries through Meta AI, which processes images and voice commands either on-device or in the cloud. A small LED on the frames illuminates when the camera is active, which Meta has described as a privacy safeguard. The light is designed for the people around the wearer, not for the wearer themselves. It tells strangers that they are being recorded. It does not tell them that the recording may be reviewed by a human being in a different country, sitting at a desk in Nairobi, labelling what they see so that an algorithm can learn the difference between a kitchen and a bedroom, a handshake and an embrace, a document and a face.

Meta’s privacy policy for the glasses states that users who opt into sharing data for AI training purposes allow their footage to be processed by the company’s AI systems. The policy does not dwell on the human layer between the camera and the algorithm. AI training data does not label itself. Before a model can learn to interpret a scene, a person must first watch the scene and describe it. The Swedish investigation revealed what that process looks like in practice: workers in Kenya, employed by a third-party contractor, viewing the most private moments of strangers’ lives, cataloguing them, and moving on to the next clip. The footage was not anonymised before review. The workers could see faces, bodies, and personal documents. They had no way to contact the people being filmed, no mechanism to flag footage they believed had been captured without consent, and no authority to refuse the work without risking their employment.

The workers

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Sama was founded in 2008 as a social enterprise with the stated mission of providing dignified digital work to people in low-income communities. The company has operations in Kenya, Uganda, and India, and has provided data annotation services to some of the largest technology companies in the world, including Google, Microsoft, and Meta. The contract with Meta for smart glasses data annotation was one of several Sama held with the company. Workers were tasked with labelling images and video captured by the glasses to train Meta’s AI models, a process that required them to view, categorise, and describe whatever the cameras had recorded.

The Swedish investigation, published in late February 2026, reported that workers described seeing users engaged in sexual activity, using the toilet, undressing, and displaying financial information on screen. The content was not exceptional. It was the ordinary residue of a camera worn on someone’s face throughout the day, capturing whatever the wearer happened to be looking at. The workers told the journalists that the experience was distressing but that they had limited options: the work paid better than most available alternatives, and Sama’s contracts typically included non-disclosure agreements that discouraged public discussion of the content they reviewed. When the Swedish publications broke the story, they gave the workers a voice they had not previously been permitted to use.

On 16 April, less than seven weeks after the investigation was published, Sama notified 1,108 employees that their positions were being made redundant. The workers received six days’ notice. Meta’s statement attributed the termination to Sama’s failure to meet its standards, but declined to specify which standards had been breached or when the assessment was made. Sama said it was “surprised and disappointed” by Meta’s decision and that it had not been informed of any performance shortfalls prior to the termination. The timing was noted by labour advocates, regulators, and the workers themselves. Wambalo, whose organisation represents data workers across the continent, described Meta’s reasoning as a cover for retaliation: the company, he said, was enforcing “standards of secrecy” rather than standards of quality.

The pattern

This is not the first time Sama’s relationship with Meta has ended in controversy. Between 2019 and 2023, Sama employed content moderators in Nairobi who reviewed posts flagged as potentially violating Facebook’s community standards. The work required moderators to view graphic violence, sexual abuse, hate speech, and other disturbing material for hours each day, often at wages as low as $1.50 per hour. A 2022 investigation by Time magazine found that 81 per cent of 144 Sama content moderators who underwent clinical assessment were diagnosed with “severe” or “extremely severe” symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Former workers filed lawsuits in Kenya alleging that Sama and Meta had subjected them to conditions amounting to human trafficking and had interfered with their attempts to form a union. Sama later said publicly that it “regretted” taking on the content moderation work, and exited the business in 2023 to focus on what it described as less harmful data annotation services.

The smart glasses contract was supposed to be different. Data annotation, labelling images and video to train AI, is generally considered less traumatic than content moderation, which requires workers to confront the worst material humans produce. But the Swedish investigation revealed that the distinction depends entirely on what the AI is being trained to see. When the AI is attached to a camera worn on someone’s face throughout the day, the training data is their life. The workers who labelled Meta’s smart glasses footage were not reviewing content that users had chosen to upload to a platform. They were reviewing content that a camera had passively captured, often without the knowledge or meaningful consent of the people being filmed. The nature of the work had changed, but the structural dynamic had not: a Silicon Valley company outsourcing the human cost of its AI ambitions to workers in East Africa who lack the bargaining power to set the terms of their own labour.

The response

The regulatory and legal response has been swift by the standards of technology enforcement. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office wrote to Meta in early March, calling the Swedish report “concerning” and requesting information about how data captured by the glasses is processed, stored, and reviewed. The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner in Kenya announced an investigation into whether the glasses’ data collection practices comply with Kenyan data protection law. In the United States, the Clarkson Law Firm filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of consumers, alleging that Meta engaged in false advertising by marketing the glasses as “designed for privacy, controlled by you” while routing user footage through a human review pipeline in a country with weaker data protection enforcement than the markets where the glasses are sold. The Electronic Frontier Foundation published an advisory titled “Think Twice Before Buying or Using Meta’s Ray-Bans,” warning that the glasses’ AI features allow “all parts of their life to be recorded, and then reviewed, either by the AIs or by humans behind it.”

Privacy complaints against Meta for using personal data to train AI have been mounting across the European Union, where noyb filed 11 simultaneous complaints with national data protection authorities alleging that Meta’s AI training practices violate the General Data Protection Regulation. The complaints focus on Meta’s decision to process user data under a “legitimate interest” basis rather than seeking explicit consent. The smart glasses controversy adds a physical dimension to what had been a largely digital dispute: it is one thing to train AI on posts users wrote on Facebook, and another to train it on footage of people in their bedrooms, captured by a device and reviewed by a stranger. Meta has argued that European privacy regulations are “stifling” AI innovation and that pre-emptive regulation of “theoretical harms” will prevent European businesses from benefiting from AI advances. The harms documented by the Swedish investigation are not theoretical. They are workers in Nairobi who watched strangers undress and were then told their jobs no longer existed.

The infrastructure beneath the intelligence

Meta’s AI ambitions require an enormous volume of human-labelled training data. The company is building an AI clone of Mark Zuckerberg for its employees, developing the Muse Spark model to power its platforms, and expanding the glasses’ AI capabilities to include real-time visual understanding, object identification, and conversational assistance. Each of these products depends on the same pipeline: humans look at data, describe what they see, and their descriptions become the instructions that teach the model what the world looks like. When that pipeline involves a contractor, the humans become invisible. They do not appear in Meta’s product announcements, earnings calls, or marketing materials. They appear only when something goes wrong, when a Swedish newspaper publishes an investigation, or when a contractor breach exposes the fragility of the training operation.

Mercy Mutemi, the Kenyan human rights lawyer who leads the Oversight Lab, told the BBC that the pattern of outsourcing AI’s human costs to East African workers represents a structural failure, not an aberration. “This is a very flimsy foundation to build your entire industry on,” she said. The industry she is describing is worth trillions of dollars. The foundation she is describing is a workforce paid data annotation wages in Nairobi, given six days’ notice when the contract ends, and prevented by non-disclosure agreements from telling anyone what they saw. Meta’s smart glasses are designed for privacy, controlled by the user. The question the Swedish investigation answered is which user: the person wearing the glasses, or the person in Nairobi who watched the footage and lost their job for talking about it.

Apple reported $111.2 billion in revenue for its fiscal second quarter on April 30, delivering growth, record March-quarter results, and a new $100 billion share buyback.

“Today Apple is proud to report our best March quarter ever, with revenue of $111.2 billion and double-digit growth across every geographic segment,” CEO Tim Cook said. “iPhone achieved a March quarter revenue record, fueled by such extraordinary demand for the iPhone 17 lineup.”

Results for the quarter ended March 28, 2026, beat expectations, with earnings per share of $2.01, up 22% year over year. The company posted growth across every geographic segment, with iPhone revenue setting a March-quarter record on demand for the iPhone 17 lineup, while Services reached a new all-time high.

“During the quarter, Services achieved yet another all-time record,” Cook said. “We were excited to introduce remarkable new products to our strongest lineup ever.”

Apple also generated more than $28 billion in operating cash flow during the quarter. Earnings grew faster than revenue, showing Apple’s cost structure held as the business expanded.

“The demand was off the charts,” Cook told Reuters. “And there’s just a little less flexibility in the supply chain at the moment for getting more parts.”

The iPhone result confirms the latest lineup is driving demand in Apple’s largest business. Apple’s board authorized an additional $100 billion share repurchase program and raised its quarterly dividend to $0.27 per share, a 4% increase.

The dividend will be paid on May 14 to shareholders of record as of May 11. Shareholders must own the stock before the record date to be eligible for the payment.

Apple kept its capital return structure unchanged, continuing to prioritize buybacks and dividends over shifting spending to new initiatives.

Services and installed base continue to grow

Services hit another all-time high during the quarter, showing Apple is continuing to expand revenue beyond hardware sales. Apple also reported a record installed base, giving the company more users it can reach with services, upgrades, and accessories.

“We are investing a lot,” Cook said. “We see it as a huge opportunity, both for consumer and for business. We’re all in, and personalized Siri is on schedule for this year.”

The quarter didn’t include any clear increase in AI-related spending or a shift in priorities. Questions remain about how aggressively the company plans to compete in that area.

For now, Apple is still growing at a pace that supports its current strategy, even as attention shifts to what comes next. The results show the company hasn’t needed to change course to keep delivering growth.

The Norway-founded company’s vertically integrated NEO factory in Hayward marks the first US-scale push to put a general-purpose humanoid robot into private homes, with shipments planned this year and a competitive field that is already crowded

1X Technologies has opened a 58,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Hayward, California, to produce its NEO humanoid robot at consumer scale, with capacity for 10,000 units in year one and a target of more than 100,000 units annually by the end of 2027.

The Norway-founded, OpenAI-backed company described the plant as the first vertically integrated humanoid robot factory in the United States. First customer shipments are planned for 2026.

The factory currently employs more than 200 staff and is scaling. NEO is being manufactured with critical components built in-house, motors, batteries, structures, transmission systems, soft goods, and sensors, in a configuration the company describes as bottom-up American manufacturing.

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“This is more than just a factory opening, it’s proof that the future of humanoid robotics is being built right here in the U.S.,” 1X CEO and founder Bernt Børnich said in the announcement.

The Hayward facility is intended as a stepping stone to a larger plant under construction in San Carlos, California.

The product

NEO is positioned as a general-purpose home robot, designed to operate alongside humans in domestic environments rather than as an industrial bipedal for warehouses or factory floors.

The robot is available in three colours (Tan, Gray, and Dark Brown) and offered through two commercial models: an Early Access purchase at $20,000 with priority delivery in 2026, or a subscription at $499 per month.

NEO is powered by Nvidia’s Jetson Thor onboard computing platform and trained using Nvidia’s Isaac open robotics simulation framework.

Demand has reportedly outstripped initial expectations. The company says first-year production capacity sold out within five days of preorders opening in October 2025. 

1X raised $100 million in its push to bring NEO to market; the robot is designed with explicit safety constraints: it is light, soft to the touch, and configured without pinch-points or other hazards, a deliberate choice given the company’s ambition to deploy in private homes rather than industrial settings, where heavier and harder humanoids dominate.

NEO learns household tasks through embodied AI, the technique under which robots acquire skills by interacting with their environment. Customers can also manually demonstrate tasks using a VR headset and controllers, and the robot includes conversational functionality that Børnich has compared to ChatGPT.

Whether those capabilities translate to reliable performance across the variety of unstructured tasks a real home presents, the open question for every consumer humanoid, is something the customer shipments later this year will start to answer.

Two routes to market

Beyond the consumer product, 1X has structured its commercial strategy around a parallel enterprise track. In December 2025, the company struck a partnership with private equity firm EQT to deploy up to 10,000 NEOs to companies in EQT’s portfolio between 2026 and 2030 across facility operations, manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare.

The two-track structure gives 1X higher-margin enterprise revenue from its early units, plants and warehouses pay full price for performance, while the home model can scale down in cost over time. It is the same playbook electric vehicles followed, with luxury and commercial customers subsidising the consumer rollout.

The 10,000-unit annual production target is a meaningful number in a field where most humanoid robot makers are still measured in the hundreds. Tesla, however, is the comparison that matters most. Tesla’s China president Wang Hao described the Shanghai Gigafactory as a “golden key” to mass-producing the company’s Optimus humanoid robot. Tesla has discussed manufacturing a few hundred Optimus units in 2026, scaling to thousands and then tens of thousands annually by 2027 and 2028, with internal targets of one million units per year from Shanghai that have not been confirmed in any public filing.

Elon Musk’s long-stated goal is pricing Optimus below $20,000 per unit, the same price point at which 1X is selling Early Access NEOs today.

China’s humanoid robotics sector is moving rapidly in parallel. Unitree’s G1 and H1 robots are commercially available at price points well below Tesla’s indicated targets. Agibot, UBTECH, Fourier Intelligence, and a growing roster of Chinese startups are all targeting the same market.

China’s central and local governments have identified humanoid robots as a strategic technology, with subsidies and policy support that other regions have been slower to match. The competitive dynamic places 1X’s American-manufactured, vertically integrated approach against Chinese state-backed scale and Tesla’s automotive manufacturing infrastructure simultaneously.

Europe is also building. Neura Robotics, founded in Germany in 2019, has scaled to more than 600 employees and raised €120 million in January 2025. Founder David Reger has told TNW he sees Tesla as his only real competitor in the segment.

Europe’s humanoid robotics sector is positioning regulatory clarity, the AI Act, the updated Product Liability Directive, the General Product Safety Regulation, and the Machinery Regulation, as a competitive advantage, on the argument that investors and industrial partners commit resources where compliance risks are predictable.

The factory opening is the easy part. Manufacturing a humanoid robot at scale, while difficult, is fundamentally a known engineering problem with known suppliers and known cost curves. The harder question, the one no manufacturer has yet definitively answered, is whether a general-purpose home robot can perform the variety of unstructured tasks a private home demands at a level customers will pay $20,000 or $499 a month for. 

1X’s answer to that question is, in part, to ship and iterate. Robots produced at the Hayward facility are currently being routed to internal testing, validation, and the company’s own R&D Lab and Internal Home Testing programmes before customer deliveries begin.

The vertically integrated manufacturing approach was chosen specifically to enable rapid hardware iteration as feedback comes in. If that iteration speed is fast enough to close the gap between the demonstrations on the launch reel and the messy reality of the average American home is, ultimately, the bet behind the entire factory.

If you grew up playing Mega Man 2 on the NES and the game holds a special place in your heart, this smartwatch is going to be right up your alley.

The Mega Man: My Play Watch is a collaboration between MyPlayWatch and Capcom, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: a smartwatch that lets you play a reimagined version of Mega Man 2 right on your wrist.

But how does it actually play?

The gameplay has been redesigned from the ground up for a touchscreen. Mega Man auto-runs through each stage while you tap to fire, time your jumps, and dodge hazards. It sounds simple, and that’s the point. 

You are not going to replicate the full NES experience on a 1.91-inch screen, and the developers know that. Instead, they have created something that captures the feel of the original game.

There are three game modes to choose from. Classic Mode lets you pick Robot Master stages, defeat bosses, and eventually unlock Dr. Wily’s Castle. Arcade Mode cranks up the speed and difficulty as you chase high scores. Play Time Mode turns the watch into an animated Mega Man display, which honestly might be my favorite mode.

What else the Watch can do?

The watch is not just for playing games but also has built-in sensors that can track your steps, heart rate, and calories throughout the day, all wrapped in Mega Man-inspired visuals. The watch faces feature pixel art and animated characters, so it looks great even when you’re not playing.

The best part might be what it doesn’t do. There is no Bluetooth, no Wi-Fi, no notifications, and no apps. It’s a focused, distraction-free device built purely for play and health tracking.

In a world where everything screams for your attention, that’s genuinely refreshing. The watch is available for pre-order now for $79.99 from GameStop‘s website.

Despite geopolitical instabilities, Apple managed a double-digit growth across all its geographic segments.

Apple posted its “best March quarter ever”, according to outgoing CEO Tim Cook, with a revenue of $111.2bn – up 17pc year on year. The company managed a 16pc revenue jump in its previous quarter, reporting a $143.8bn “record” revenue.

Despite geopolitical instabilities threatening the company’s supply chain, Apple, this quarter, managed a double-digit growth across all its geographic segments. Overall, net sales grew by around 16.6pc, with products and services showing 16.7pc and 16.2pc growth respectively.

“iPhone achieved a March quarter revenue record, fuelled by such extraordinary demand for the iPhone 17 lineup,” Cook said. New additions to its product line-up this quarter include the latest in its more affordable iPhone ‘e’ series, the new iPad Air powered by its in-house M4 chips, alongside the new MacBook Neo – which saw an overall positive reception from reviewers.

iPhone sales grew 21.6pc quarter over quarter to nearly $60bn, while Mac grew 5.6pc and Apple services, including iCloud, App Store and Apple Pay, grew 16.2pc.

“Continued strong customer demand for our products and services once again helped us achieve a new all-time high for our installed base of active devices across all major product categories and geographic segments,” said Apple’s chief financial officer Kevan Parekh.

The quarter past generated more than $28bn in operating cash flow. Company shares rose 2.7pc in after-hours trading.

Earlier this month, Apple announced that Cook will be stepping down as CEO after 15 years in the role, handing his position to senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus. In the earnings call yesterday, Cook told investors that the transition “is the right one”.

“Our roadmap is incredible,” he said. “And most importantly, we have the right leader ready to step into the role.

“There is no one on this planet I trust more to lead Apple into the future than John Ternus. John is a brilliant engineer, a deep thinker, a person of remarkable character, and a born leader.” Analysts believe Ternus’ background as a hardware engineer signals a potential for a regained focus into physical products.

“[Ternus] must resist the temptation of incrementalism that has plagued Apple of late and escape the iPhone’s gravitational pull in his quest for the next disruptive form factor,” commented Forrester VP principal analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee earlier this month. The company is still heavily reliant on the iPhone for growth.

Following the latest results, Chatterjee said that Apple’s latest performance is vindicatory, underscoring the company’s ability to sustain growth through product experience, even amid persistent criticism that it lags in AI.

Apple is, however, making a step change towards that direction with reports that it is moving away from ChatGPT exclusivity for its Siri voice assistant in an attempt to bolster its AI offerings. It was also reported that the company is testing a new standalone app for Siri.

“Its strategy remains consistent – treating AI not as a standalone feature but as an embedded layer within the broader ecosystem that delivers exceptional customer experiences in the moments that matter,” Chatterjee continued.

“As Tim Cook prepares to hand over to John Ternus, the focus will shift from execution to vision. The question is not whether Apple can still grow. It is whether the company can escape the gravitational pull of its own success to reimagine a different future.”

Apple announced a new Dublin office in February set to house 300 workers. Meanwhile, the company’s Big Tech contemporaries Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet all posted positive results this quarter with massive AI spending plans in place for the year.

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Version 1 said the merger would create a ‘combined organisation of 4,250 employees with annual revenues of more than €500m’.

Dublin technology consultancy services company Version 1 is to acquire UK technology services provider CreateFuture for an undisclosed amount.

Version 1 said the merger would create a “combined organisation of 4,250 employees with annual revenues of more than €500m” aiming to deliver “AI-driven digital transformation programmes at scale across complex, regulated environments in both public and private sectors”.

CreateFuture specialises in working as “a practitioner-led, AI-native partner to large enterprise clients” in highly regulated industries such as i-gaming – or online gambling – financial services and utilities, “where technical precision and regulatory compliance are critical”, according to Version 1.

“This acquisition is a strong strategic fit for Version 1, strengthening our capabilities and expanding the markets we serve,” said Roop Singh, CEO of Version 1.

“CreateFuture is an exceptional business, with high‑calibre talent, deep client relationships and sector expertise that directly complements our own.”

CreateFuture currently employs around 550 in Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Manchester and Sofia, Bulgaria. Its existing leadership team will remain in place following the acquisition.

“We started CreateFuture 16 years ago with a simple belief that the best work happens when great people are trusted to do great work for clients who care about the outcome,” said founder Euan Andrews.

“That belief has not changed, and this partnership accelerates our ambition for CreateFuture with a highly culturally aligned partner in Version 1.”

In a LinkedIn post, the UK company said its “strengths in strategy, design and AI-native delivery” would complement Version 1’s “depth in data, transformation and managed service”.

Version 1 was founded in Dublin in 1996 and offers a range of technology services to global organisations. In March, it chose its new Dublin HQ to house a new, cutting-edge AI studio and also said it would add 250 roles locally.

Earlier that month at the UK-Ireland Summit, Version 1 said it would create 1,000 jobs across the UK, including Northern Ireland, as part of its plans for a £40m investment in that market.

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Back in the day, Verizon proved their expansive reach with the spokesperson who asked “Can you hear me now?” With the spokesman pulling a Benedict Arnold and moving to T-Mobile, Verizon is now called the “Network America Relies On,” proven by their 4G LTE network covering 99% of the U.S. population, and 5G network expanding daily (though hovering around 13% now). We know how important it is to stay in communication, so we’ve rounded up the best ways to save money this month, with Verizon promo codes, free phone promotions, and holiday bundle deals.

45% Off Streaming Services With Verizon

If you’re looking to switch phone plans or carriers, now’s a great time to switch to Verizon. With more freedom than ever before, you can pick the plan that fits best for your needs, and get up to four lines for only $25 per line with an Unlimited Welcome plan. You’ll also have a guaranteed three-year locked price plan, and to top it off, you can also get 45% off top streaming services.

Save up to $1,100 With Top Verizon Coupons

Both new and existing customers have options to save with today’s lineup of 2026 deals. Better yet, some of the brand’s most impressive devices are eligible for up to $1,100 off, like the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7, Samsung Galaxy S25+, Z Flip 7, S25 Ultra, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. The iPhone 16 Pro and Google Pixel 10 have limited time deals too, at up to $800 off.

There’s more, you can get a free phone with any new plan, plus free overnight shipping so you can use your new toy ASAP. And if you happen to be switching to Verizon internet this winter, you’ll get a free Samsung 43” Class Q7F QLED (worth $400). Plus, you can get $90 off the OnePlus Nord Buds 3 Pro (read our review here) when you buy a Samsung device.

Verizon Switch Offers: New Customers Can Get 4 Phones on Verizon and $25 Plans

Verizon just seems to be handing out phones at this point—you can get cutting edge smartphones including the iPhone 16 Pro Google Pixel 10, Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, and Samsung Galaxy S25+ with AI for free—with no trade-in required. You’ll need to get a new line or upgrade your plan to qualify, but you’ll be saving $1,100 after credits over 3 years. And with new deals this month, you’ll get 4 iPhone 17, Pixel 10, or Galaxy S25 phones on Verizon, plus 4 lines for only $25 per line.

You can also get a Samsung Galaxy Watch8, Apple Watch SE3, or iPad for free when you sign up for an Unlimited Plan, and even without a trade-in, four iPhone 17 phones with a new myPlan line.

When you sign up for Unlimited, you can get 4 lines for as low as $25 per line on Unlimited Welcome when you sign up for Auto Pay. All plans include unlimited talk, text and data on Verizon’s 5G network, and now also include a 3 year price lock guarantee, so you can have peace of mind that your bill won’t get jacked up in the future.

Our Favorite Verizon Phones From $5 per Month

Apple’s iPhone 16 is available right now, and looking better than ever—it’s ready for Apple’s new AI rollout, a battery that’s easier to replace, and has a host of games. We put together a handy guide to which iPhone 16 or Galaxy you should buy, in case the various iPhone 16 models to choose from are a bit overwhelming, along with some great cases and accessories to keep your most-used device safe and stylish. If you’ve been eyeing an iPhone 16 Pro, Verizon is offering a great deal where you can get the phone for as little as $5 per month—or it’s free when you add a new line. Stay tuned here for updates, because most Verizon promo codes are for new customers.

We at WIRED review and write about the newest line of Samsung products as well, and have created a guide to help you decide which Samsung Galaxy S24 model you should buy and some of our favorite Samsung Galaxy S24 accessories to upgrade your device. Like competitors, Samsung has worked to continuously integrate AI to make the phone even smarter, helping test for Google’s Gemini.

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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