Meze Audio has introduced the ASTRU ($899), a new top of the line single dynamic driver in-ear monitor (IEM) created for listeners who want true high end performance without venturing into the stratospheric pricing that now defines many flagship IEMs. Built around a focused design philosophy, ASTRU relies on a single dynamic driver to deliver a visceral, full bodied presentation that Meze says can rival the layering, imaging, and resolution typically associated with complex multi driver designs.
The new model will make its first public appearance at CanJam NYC 2026 this weekend. Meze says ASTRU will be available starting March 20 through mezeaudio.com, mezeaudio.eu, and selected retailers worldwide.
While Meze Audio is widely known for its award winning headphones such as the Empyrean II, 99 Classics 2nd Generation, 109 Pro, and the recently introduced STRADA, the Romanian brand has also shown it can build compelling in ear monitors as well. Its ADVAR IEM, which we reviewed favorably, stood out for its musical balance, solid build quality, and distinctive industrial design. With ASTRU, Meze appears ready to push further into the high end IEM space while sticking with a simpler single driver approach rather than joining the industry’s escalating multi driver arms race.
Meze Audio ASTRU
Advanced Multilayer Dynamic Driver Architecture
At the center of the ASTRU is a custom multilayer composite 10 mm dynamic driver designed to balance speed, control, and tonal weight. The diaphragm dome is constructed using more than 80 ultra thin layers of gold, applied through a 48 hour physical vacuum DC magnetron sputtering process. This technique allows extremely thin metallic layers to be deposited with high precision, helping maintain diaphragm rigidity while keeping mass low.
The gold layered dome is bonded to a titanium layer and mounted on a PEEK base, materials chosen for their strength, stability, and resistance to unwanted resonance. The result is a driver structure intended to deliver fast transient response, extended treble, and the fuller low frequency presence that dynamic drivers are known for, while maintaining clarity and control across the frequency range.
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Titanium Construction, Accessories, and Specifications
ASTRU’s housing reflects Meze Audio’s focus on durability, precision manufacturing, and long term comfort. The shell geometry has been carefully shaped to provide a secure and stable fit during extended listening sessions. Each earpiece is CNC machined from a single block of pure titanium and finished through a multi stage electroplating process that results in a smooth satin surface. According to Meze, producing each matched pair of shells requires up to seven days of precision machining and finishing, highlighting the level of manufacturing detail behind the design.
ASTRU is delivered as a complete listening package designed for portable high end audio use. The IEM includes a premium balanced cable equipped with CNC anodized aluminum hardware and a gold plated 4.4 mm balanced termination. This type of connection is commonly used with modern digital audio players and portable amplifiers because it offers improved channel separation and lower noise compared to standard single ended outputs. A 4.4 mm to 3.5 mm adapter is also included for compatibility with more traditional headphone outputs on Dongle DACs that may not offer a balanced output.
Additional accessories include five sizes of ear tips ranging from XS to XL to help users achieve a secure seal and proper acoustic performance. Meze also includes two carrying solutions: a protective pouch for everyday transport and a soft PU leather envelope designed for additional protection during travel or storage.
In terms of specifications, ASTRU offers a frequency range of 5 Hz to 35 kHz with a nominal impedance of 32 ohms and a sensitivity rating of 111dB SPL per milliwatt at 1 kHz. Total harmonic distortion is specified at less than 0.1 percent at 1 kHz. The IEM uses a standard 2-pin connector for cable attachment and weighs 13.4 grams (0.47 oz). These specifications indicate that ASTRU should be easy to drive with most modern digital audio players, portable DACs, and headphone amplifiers while still benefiting from higher quality source components.
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The Bottom Line
The Meze Audio ASTRU arrives at an interesting moment for the high end IEM market. With Empire Ears recently shutting down operations, one of the category’s most recognizable boutique brands has exited the stage, leaving more room for companies like Campfire Audio, Noble Audio, 64 Audio, and Astell&Kern to battle it out in the upper tier of the segment. Most of those competitors lean heavily into complex driver arrays, packing multiple balanced armatures, electrostatics, or hybrid configurations into increasingly elaborate designs.
Meze is taking a different path. Rather than joining the escalating multi driver arms race, ASTRU sticks with a single dynamic driver architecture and focuses on materials, diaphragm engineering, and acoustic tuning. The titanium housing, multilayer gold coated diaphragm, and balanced cable package suggest a product built with the same attention to industrial design and materials that has defined Meze’s headphone lineup.
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What ASTRU offers is a simpler approach to high end IEM performance aimed at listeners who prefer the coherence, bass weight, and natural timbre that dynamic drivers are known for. What it does not offer is the kind of driver count marketing that dominates much of the $800 to $1500 IEM category. At $899, that places it in direct competition with multi driver models from several established brands. Whether buyers prioritize driver complexity or the sonic character of a well executed dynamic design will ultimately determine where ASTRU lands in this crowded field.
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Price & Availability
ASTRU will be available for purchase starting March 20, 2026, on mezeaudio.com, mezeaudio.eu and in selected retailers worldwide, with a suggested retail price of $899.
The ten year war over Iceland is over and Iceland has come out the victor.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, be prepared to listen to a whole bunch of stupid. In 2016, we wrote about Iceland Foods, a UK grocer, which had somehow convinced the EU to give it a trademark for “Iceland” and which then went about bullying other companies and opposing trademarks for any that included the name of that country. One of the entities that Iceland Foods found itself in a trademark opposition with was Iceland, as in the country, when it attempted to trademark “Inspired by Iceland.” The Icelandic government didn’t take too kindly to that appropriation of its own name and petitioned to cancel the Iceland Foods trademark, which is exactly what happened. Rather than put an end to this absurdity, Iceland Foods appealed that decision, lost, then appealed it again, lost again, appealed a third time, only to lose there as well.
From there, Iceland Foods had but one final option for appealing all of these perfectly sane rulings, which would be to take this before the Court of Justice of the EU. And, while that would obviously be crazy, everything I’d seen to date led me to believe the grocer would do just that.
But sanity seems to finally be on the menu, I guess. Iceland Foods has publicly announced that it is ending the fight and surrendering.
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Executive chairman Richard Walker revealed the supermarket would drop the legal dispute, which centres on the right to use the phrase Iceland in the EU, following its third legal loss in July 2025.
Iceland had one fourth and final route of appeal, via the Court of Justice of the European Union, but Walker told the Financial Times it would instead use the “couple of hundred grand” it would save in legal fees to give a “rapprochement discount” to Icelandic shoppers.
Yeah, that’s how this should have been approached from the jump, folks. And this actually goes back even further, where this broad, geographic trademark by a private entity consisting of the name of a sovereign nation never should have been granted a trademark to begin with.
But that’s all over now. Iceland Foods’ trademark is invalidated. Iceland once more is free from being bullied over its own name, as would be other companies from the island nation. Iceland Foods can keep on operating as it always has, sans the ability to bully others with this ridiculous mark. Walker himself said as much, in a very frustrating manner.
“We lost for a third time. We’re going to throw in the towel,” Walker told the FT. “It’s actually fine — we don’t have to change our name.”
Exactly. You never had to. That was never in question. The only question is whether you got to keep your laughable trademark and bully others over it.
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Instead, the grocer wasted everyone’s time, and who knows how much of its own money, trying to wage this silly war.
The SGI O2 was SGI’s last-ditch attempt at a low-end MIPS-based workstation back in 1996, and correspondingly didn’t use the hottest parts of the time, nor did it offer much of an upgrade path. None of which is a concern to hobbyists who are more than happy to work around any hardware- and software limitations to e.g. install much faster CPUs. While quite a few CPU upgrades were possible with just some BGA chip reworking skills, installing the 900 MHz RM7900 would require some PROM hacking, which [mattst88] recently took a shake at.
The initial work on upgrading SGI O2 systems was done in the early 2000s, with [Joe Page] and [Ian Mapleson] running into the issue that these higher frequency MIPS CPUs required a custom IP32 PROM image, for which they figured that they’d need either SGI’s help or do some tricky reverse-engineering. Since SGI is no longer around, [mattst88] decided to take up the torch.
After downloading a 512 kB binary dump of the last version of the O2’s PROM, he set to work reverse-engineering it, starting by dissembling the file. A big part of understanding MIPS PROM code is understanding how the MIPS architecture works, including its boot process, so much of what followed was a crash-course on the subject.
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With that knowledge it was much easier to properly direct the Capstone disassembler and begin the arduous process of making sense of the blob of data and code. The resulting source files now reassemble into bit-identical ROM files, which makes it likely that modifying it to support different CPUs is now possible with just a bit more work.
Apple Music is introducing a new way to flag AI-generated music. However, it’s relying on the music industry itself to disclose it.
As reported by Music Business Worldwide, the streaming service has launched Transparency Tags, a new metadata system that allows record labels and distributors to mark when artificial intelligence has been used in different parts of a release.
The tags can be applied immediately. Eventually, they will become a requirement when partners deliver new content to the platform.
Rather than analysing songs itself, Apple is placing the responsibility on the supply chain. Labels and distributors will decide whether a track or release qualifies as AI-generated. They will apply the tags during the delivery process – this is similar to how genres or credits are currently submitted.
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The system covers four areas of a release. Artwork tags flag when AI is used to create album artwork or other visuals. Track tags indicate that AI helped generate the sound recording itself. Composition tags apply when lyrics or other songwriting elements are created using AI. Meanwhile, Music Video tags identify AI-generated visuals tied to releases.
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Apple says the goal is to give the industry better visibility into how generative AI is being used in music production. In a note to industry partners, the company described the tags as a “first step”. This is toward building clearer policies and best practices around AI-created content.
The approach stands in contrast to how some rivals are tackling the issue. Streaming platform Deezer, for example, has built its own AI detection system. It scans uploads automatically rather than relying on labels to self-report.
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That difference matters given how quickly AI-generated music is growing. Deezer said earlier this year that it now receives more than 60,000 fully AI-generated tracks every day. Synthetic music now accounts for roughly 39% of all uploads to the platform.
The company also claims most of that content is tied to streaming fraud rather than artistic experimentation. According to Deezer, up to 85% of streams on AI-generated tracks were fraudulent in 2025. Those plays were removed from the royalty pool.
Apple’s Transparency Tags don’t currently include a visible enforcement mechanism or verification system. This means the accuracy of the labels will largely depend on the honesty of the distributors supplying the music.
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For now, though, Apple’s move signals that AI disclosure is quickly becoming the next battleground for music streaming platforms.
The partnership news comes with official acceptance into the prestigious UK-based Race2Space 2026 International Propulsion competition.
The University of Limerick (UL) Aeronautical Society High-Powered Rocketry Team (ULAS HiPR) has announced a partnership with UL and Irish Manufacturing Research (IMR) to design and produce the first additive manufactured (3D-printed) liquid rocket engine in the Republic of Ireland, called the Lúin of Celtchar.
The engine is a high-performance 2 kilonewton, water-cooled, IPA/nitrous oxide bi-propellant system, which has been designed entirely by the ULAS HiPR student team and is now being manufactured at IMR’s Advanced Manufacturing Lab in Mullingar using metal additive manufacturing. It will be returned to UL for precision machining and assembly.
Established in 2022, ULAS HiPR has more than 100 members and is a combination of students from a range of disciplines, such as aeronautical, mechanical, software and design engineering – all of whom have an interest in designing, manufacturing and launching powerful rockets.
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The team has enjoyed some success having represented Ireland internationally at prestigious competitions, including Mach-24 and Euroc, the European Rocketry Challenge. Alongside the announcement of the partnership, ULAS HiPR has also officially been accepted into the UK-based Race2Space 2026 International Propulsion competition.
This is, according to ULAS HiPR, “a major milestone in advancing Irish student-led space propulsion capabilities”.
Speaking on the announcement, Jay Looney, the co-head of ULAS HiPR, said: “The acceptance of our project to Race2Space marks a defining moment not only for ULAS HiPR, but for Ireland’s student space community.
“The selection of the first additively manufactured liquid rocket engine in the Republic of Ireland into the competition validates the technical ambition of our student team, and the strength of collaboration between Irish university students with industry. It demonstrates that world-class propulsion innovation can now be designed, manufactured and tested entirely here in Ireland.”
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Mark Hartnett, a design for manufacturing senior technologist at IMR, added: “At IMR, supporting ambitious student teams like ULAS HiPR reflects our commitment to strengthening Ireland’s advanced manufacturing ecosystem and enabling the next generation of aerospace innovators.
“These are vital platforms for advancing cutting-edge technologies and building Ireland’s future engineering capability, and this ULAS HiPR propulsion project demonstrates how emerging technologies can move rapidly from concept to high-performance hardware.”
In late February, Silicon Republic attended the official launch of Ireland’s first European Space Agency Phi-Lab, which is headquartered at IMR in Mullingar and run in collaboration with the AMBER Centre at Trinity College Dublin.
One of 10 European Phi-Labs, it is designed to be Ireland’s national platform for space technology development and to anchor the country’s ambitions within Europe and the world’s rapidly-expanding space economy.
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An anonymous reader The Guardian: Humanity is heating the planet faster than ever before, a study has found. Climate breakdown is occurring more rapidly with the heating rate almost doubling, according to research that excludes the effect of natural factors behind the latest scorching temperatures. It found global heating accelerated from a steady rate of less than 0.2C per decade between 1970 and 2015 to about 0.35C per decade over the past 10 years. The rate is higher than scientists have seen since they started systematically taking the Earth’s temperature in 1880.
“If the warming rate of the past 10 years continues, it would lead to a long-term exceedance of the 1.5C (2.7F) limit of the Paris agreement before 2030,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-author of the study. […] The researchers applied a noise-reduction method to filter out the estimated effect of nonhuman factors in five major datasets that scientists have compiled to gauge the Earth’s temperature. In each of them, they found an acceleration in global heating emerged in 2013 or 2014. The findings have been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
X is testing a new ad format that inserts a recommendation directly underneath a post that references the company or its products. The initial test, spotted by an X user in Europe, displayed a suggestion to “Get Starlink” beneath a post from a user that said Starlink’s satellite service works great in Portugal. The link, when clicked, directed users to Starlink’s website.
X head of product Nikita Bier confirmed the test, responding, “Trying to make an ad product that isn’t an ad.”
The Starlink ad is not visible to all users at this time, but the placeholder where the ad sits is.
If you visit X user @levelsio’s post from March 6 (screenshotted below in case of deletion), you’ll see an outlined box beneath the text of his post. This box currently showcases a random X post, unless you’re in the market where the ad test is live.
In the thread, Bier also responded to a suggestion that X should allow affiliate links in this ad slot by saying, “No, then people will lie. I want to trust recommendations on here.”
Image Credits:Screenshot from X
X could not be immediately reached for comment. TechCrunch will update the article if the company responds.
The test follows news earlier this week that the company is rolling out “Paid Partnership” labels for creators. The labels can be applied to posts to comply with regulations around social media advertising, instead of requiring creators to use a hashtag like “ad” or “paid partnership.”
If creators’ sponsored posts were to be combined with an embedded link to an advertiser like the one being tested, X could potentially attract more marketers to the platform. That could boost creators’ use of the app, allowing it to better compete against larger social networks favored by creators, like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
X has been chasing creator content for some time — even before it was called “X” and before it was owned by Elon Musk. Yet the app has never quite found its footing in this space. So far, the company has rolled out a number of creator products, including payouts for viral content, ad-revenue sharing, creator subscriptions, and more.
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The company this week also revamped its Creator Subscriptions offering with a number of new features, including the ability to monetize individual threads.
In addition, X announced Friday that the integrated chatbot Grok is now capable of reading X’s long-form content, known as Articles. This feature, too, is underutilized, as creators who publish lengthy written text tend to prefer doing so through their own websites or newsletters.
Haier has introduced the Couture Care Collection, a two-product premium fabric care range comprising a stacked Laundry Centre and a wardrobe-style Clothes Drying Closet.
It’s a little boujee, but the collection is focused on offering complete fabric care for your clothes, rather than just traditional wash and dry functionality.
That’s because the Couture Care Collection 11 Laundry Centre combines washing and drying in a space-saving stacked format, with AI-powered Smart Link technology automatically syncing wash and dry cycles based on load type and fabric composition. The I-Refresh Pro steam function handles lightly worn garments without running a full wash cycle, while an Ultra Fresh Air system keeps laundry fresh for up to 12 hours after the cycle ends.
The Ultra Reverse Drum and Flexy Air technology apparently reduce tangling and creasing during the drying phase, which honestly sounds like a lifesaver given how crinkled my clothes look when I remove them from dryer at home – although that serves me right for not looking at the best tumble dryers before buying.
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Most interestingly of all though, is the Clothes Drying Closet, which looks like a wardrobe, but can dry delicate fabrics shoes, and accessories. If you’re used to running back and forth to the dry cleaners every week, this might be the home gadget you’ve been looking for.
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Quick refresh cycles run from around ten minutes for lightly worn clothing, while a combination of steam, UV, and plasma technology sanitises up to 99.99% of bacteria.
Both products connect to Haier’s hOn app for remote control, cycle customisation, and notifications, with pricing and availability for the Couture Care Collection expected to be confirmed closer to the product’s retail launch.
Apple’s industrial design chief says the MacBook Neo was created to bring the Mac into a much lower price tier without sacrificing the materials and design language associated with Apple laptops.
MacBook Neo
Apple vice president of industrial design Molly Anderson said in a rare March 6 solo interview that the MacBook Neo retains its MacBook identity despite its $599 starting price. Apple introduced the MacBook Neo on March 4 as its most affordable Mac laptop. The MacBook Neo uses the A18 Pro processor instead of the Apple Silicon M-series chips found in other Macs. Apple is targeting students and first-time Mac buyers who might otherwise choose inexpensive Windows laptops or Chromebooks. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
Usage of an automatic stoker. (Source: Claymills Pumping Station, YouTube)
Hacks are of all ages, with the Victorian-era Claymills Pumping Station being no exception. When its old Lancashire boilers from the 19th century were finally replaced with modern 1930s boilers, the 1920s-era automatic stokers were bodged onto the new boilers with a rather ill-fitting adapter plate, as there was no standard Lancashire boiler design. Nearly a hundred years later it was up to the volunteers at this Victorian-era pumping station to inspect and refurbish this solution, before fitting it back onto the boiler.
Lancashire boilers have two flue channels in which the coal is burned, which used to be done purely by hand. The automatic stokers are belt-driven devices that continuously add fresh fuel and massively lighten the workload. The 1920s stokers are still in place at this pumping station and a feature that they would love to retain.
Thus, after previously pressure-testing this #1 boiler to well beyond its operating pressure, the refurbished adapter plate was mounted back on with some percussive persuasion of the ‘very large beam’ variety.
Before the stokers could be mounted again, however, the boiler inspector had to give his OK to put the brickwork around the boiler back in place which helps to insulate it, among other functions. Once this is completed the boiler can finally see a fire again since it was last used in the 1970s. Whether these vintage stokers will work flawlessly will remain a surprise until then, but it’ll be a treat to see them operate.
Retail investors are famously locked out of the startup world. Robinhood is attempting to change that by allowing the general public to invest in a portfolio of what it calls “some of the most exciting private companies operating today.”
To do this, the company that pioneered the commission-free brokerage model has secured access to eight startups—including Databricks, Stripe, Mercor, and Oura—grouping them into a vehicle called Robinhood Ventures Fund I. The fund, which also includes Ramp, Airwallex, Revolut, and Boom, set out last month with an ambitious $1 billion target, but demand for this novel way of investing in private companies was lower than expected.
On Thursday, Robinhood announced the fund had raised $658.4 million — which could reach $705.7 million if underwriters exercise their full allotment. The shares, priced at $25 in the offering, began trading on Friday and closed the day at $21, a 16% decline.
RVI’s reception on Wall Street stands in stark contrast to another attempt to give individual investors exposure to buzzy startups. When Destiny Tech100 — a publicly traded, closed-end fund holding stakes in 100 venture-backed companies including SpaceX, OpenAI, and Discord — direct-listed on the NYSE in March 2024, its shares surged from a reference price of $4.84 to an opening trade of $8.25, eventually closing its first day at $9.00.
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Destiny Tech100 has kept climbing since its public debut. The fund closed trading on Friday at $26.61, a 33% premium to its net asset value of $19.97, meaning its shares trade well above the actual value of its underlying holdings.
So what explains why retail investors aren’t nearly as excited about Robinhood’s fund as they are about Destiny Tech 100? The most likely explanation is RVI’s lack of exposure to the companies widely expected to go public at enormous valuations: OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX.
Robinhood is looking to address this. RVI intends to add more startups to the fund, eventually aiming to hold what Robinhood Ventures President Sarah Pinto described to TechCrunch as “15 to 20 of the best late-stage growth companies out there.” The company’s CFO, Shiv Verma, told Axios Pro on Friday that Robinhood is eyeing exposure to OpenAI.
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San Francisco, CA | October 13-15, 2026
But securing access to these high-profile companies is far from straightforward. Robinhood is aiming to get directly onto their cap tables directly through primary capital raises or secondary share sales — and that’s difficult even for a firm with deep roots in Silicon Valley.
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A cap table — the official record of who owns equity in a company — is closely guarded at most high-profile startups, and winning a spot on one requires either being invited by the company or purchasing shares from existing investors with the company’s blessing.
“It’s very difficult to get into any of these companies, and the investment rounds are very expensive,” acknowledged Pinto.
That is just one of the reasons democratizing private markets is easier said than done, and why the companies most retail investors actually want to own remain, for now, out of reach.
