At a media workshop at Samsung’s US headquarters last month, we got to spend some quality time with Samsung’s new 2026 OLED TVs, including the S90H and S95H flagship. Both sets offer impressive performance but they do differ in some important ways like peak brightness and color gamut coverage. In fact, both TVs feature the same video processor and 165Hz native OLED panels, but they’re tuned for different performance levels with the S95H offering much higher peak brightness, making it better suited for bright room viewing.
Bot the S90H and S95H also feature the latest version of Samsung’s Glare Free screen treatment which reduces the reflection of ambient room light. Meanwhile, Samsung’s S85H OLED comes with a more traditional glossy screen with a 120 Hz native OLED panel.
The Samsung S95H OLED TV features a unique “Float Layer” design.
One thing that varies significantly on the S90H and S95H is the cosmetic design. The S95H sports a new “Float Layer” industrial design which features an integrated (non-removable) picture frame around the edges of the panel. The set also comes with an innovative flush wall-mount bracket that allows the TV to sit completely flat against the wall. The design makes the S95H look more like artwork when not in active use. But unlike Samsung’s “The Frame” and “The Frame Pro” TVs, the outer frame itself is neither replaceable nor customizable.
Museum Quality TV?
For the first time on an OLED TV, Samsung has given owners of the S95H access to the Samsung Art Store, a curated collection of artwork which can be displayed on the set when you’re not actively using it to watch video. Although “given” is an odd word to use here. While customers can access up to 30 different pieces of art per month for free, access to the full art store with over 5,000 pieces of art incurs a subscription fee, currently $5.00/month or $50/year.
Compared to last year’s flagship S95F, the S95H does away with the separate One Connect box which had moved all the inputs and outputs to a separate component, connected to the TV by a proprietary cable. This year, all of the inputs and outputs on the set are integrated into the side of the TV itself, but in a discrete manner in which they are not visible when the TV is mounted to the wall using the included flush wall-mount hardware.
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Check out the S90H and S95H up close and personal.
Customers who want a simpler installation for the S95H can purchase a wireless One Connect dongle which plugs into a proprietary port in the back of the TV. This allows you to connect all your video source and components to a separate wireless One Connect box, located up to 30 feet away from the TV. With this option, the only cord the S95H needs is a power cord. And, since all of the HDMI ports on the TV and on the OneConnect box are accessible, technically you can connect up to 8 separate sources via HDMI 2.1 if you use the wireless OneConnect box. That’s a lot of ports!
The S90H features a traditional thin black bezel.
Meanwhile the S90H offers a more traditional cosmetic design, with a thin black bezel and all input and output ports recessed into the side/back of the TV. Unlike last year’s S90F, the S90H now includes Samsung’s Glare Free screen treatment which reduces reflections from ambient room lighting. If you prefer a glossy type of screen, Samsung offers the S85H OLED TV without the Glare Free coating.
Samsung’s S85H OLED TV will offer a traditional glossy screen.
QD or Not QD?
In terms of underlying panel differences, Samsung is once again using different panels within a specific model line, depending on screen size. Some use a QD-OLED (Quantum Dot Organic Light-Emitting Diode) panel from Samsung Display, while others use a WOLED (White Organic Light-Emitting Diode) from LG Display. Both offer exceptional black levels thanks to self-emissive pixels, as well as excellent off-axis viewing and freedom from artifacts like Dirty Screen Effect, blooming and haloing around bright objects. QD-OLED panels generally have a slightly wider color gamut than WOLED panels, though this isn’t normally evident while viewing real world content on Blu-ray, streaming or even UHD Blu-ray Disc.
From what we could see (and measure) the 65-inch S95H seems to be using the latest QD-OLED panel from Samsung Display. BT.2020 color gamut tests came in at around 88.4% of BT.2020, which is consistent with a QD-OLED panel. If Samsung takes the same strategy as last year, then we expect that the 55-inch and 77-inch screen sizes of the S95H will also use a QD-OLED panel (at least in the United States), while the 83-inch screen size will use a WOLED panel. The S85H will use a W-OLED panel in all screen sizes.
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It gets a little trickier with the S90H. Last year, the “90” model (S90F) used a QD-OLED panel in select screen sizes (55, 65 and 77 inches), but the measurements we made on the S90H in a 65-inch screen size suggest that this new model actually uses a WOLED panel. While it can reach 98.6% of the P3 color standard, it only manages to reproduce 74.77% of the BT.2020 color gamut. And while this isn’t a serious limitation on most of today’s content, it does suggest that the underlying panel is actually WOLED, not QD-OLED.
This may be subject to change, particularly outside the North American market. And we can only report on the actual sample that we viewed and measured at the workshop. Production samples may differ.
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With a voice remote and Vision AI on-board, you can talk to your TV… and it will talk back.
Samsung Vision AI – The Next Generation
All of Samsung’s 2026 MiniLED, Micro RGB and OLED TVs are taking full advantage of Artificial Intelligence, both in picture processing and in the overall end user experience. More than simple recommendations about what else to watch, Samsung’s Vision AI allows you to interact with your TV with normal language questions and get not only content recommendations but also natural answers to these questions. You can even get real time language translations in a number of different languages via on-screen subtitles (on select content).
Both the S90H and S95H use Samsung’s NQ4 AI Gen3 Processor, the same processor from last year’s flagship OLED TV. This brings several AI-based picture enhancement options to bear, including 4K AI Upscaling Pro to improve the look of lower-resolution content, AI Motion Enhancer Pro, and an Adaptive Picture function that uses AI to optimize the image based on the content being viewed. This assures that sports programs will have blur-free fast motion while movies will preserve a more cinematic look.
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In honor of this year’s World Cup, Samsung is offering a new AI Soccer mode which accentuates the green grass of a soccer pitch and enhances the detail and clarity of the moving soccer ball while also giving the crowd noise a more spacious sound effect. We saw a demo of this and have to say it was pretty effective at making you feel like you’re actually at a match, but without any pesky football hooligans.
One UI Tizen FTW
All three of Samsung’s 2026 OLED TVs include the latest version of Samsung’s Tizen Operating System. This platform offers all of the major streaming apps and is one of the better user interfaces when it comes to finding and presenting content without excessive advertising. In our use, we found the menu navigation and apps to be smooth and zippy, and the AI-enhanced search found content from a variety of streaming apps and sources as expected. Samsung says they will provide free upgrades to the O/S for up to 7 years, so customers will get enhanced operation and new features over time without having to buy a new TV every year.
As with Samsung’s 2025 TVs, the S85H, S90H and S95H support HDR10 and HDR10+ HDR options, but not Dolby Vision. They do support Dolby Atmos audio as well as Samsung’s new Eclipsa Audio immersive audio format (but not DTS).
Thoughts on Performance
We spend several hours with both the S90H and S95H using a Kaleidescape Strato E movie player loaded with challenging content as well as a few UHD Blu-ray Discs. Initial tests showed that both the S90H and S95H offer excellent color saturation and detail. Black levels in a darkened room were exceptionally inky, and still pretty strong when we turned on the lights. Unlike the first generation of Samsung’s Glare Free screen treatment, the latest version manages to nearly eliminate light reflections on the screen without sacrificing black levels too drastically.
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Even with room lights on, the Samsung S95H was able to create a bright punchy image on 4K/HDR titles like “F1” (photo by Al Griffin).
Skin tones were particularly well represented on both sets as evidenced by test clips on Spears and Munsil’s UHD Benchmark discs. And using 4K/HDR content mastered for 4,000 nits of peak brightness (like the film “Alpha”), we could see that both sets’ on-board HDR Tone Mapping did a great job adjusting the HDR scale so that bright specular highlights were maintained as well as dark shadow details, even when both appeared on screen at the same time.
Skin tone reproduction was spot on with the Samsung S90H (pictured) and S95H OLED TVs as seen in this clip from Spears and Munsil UHD Benchmark disc.
The S95H provided a more punchy and dynamic image overall, thanks to its higher peak brightness, though this advantage was less obvious when we dimmed the lights.
S90F vs. S95H, By the Numbers
Using the latest version of CalMAN software on the S95H, we measured a peak brightness of 2,553 nits in a 10% field white window in Standard mode and 1,072 nits in Filmmaker mode. The brightness measurement in Standard mode is exceptionally high for an OLED TV and about 25% higher than last year’s S95F. And the lower brightness in Filmmaker mode seems to be consistent with recent OLED TVs from both LG and Panasonic, each of which is targeting a closer visual match to the broadcast reference monitors in use in the film industry to master theatrical content for home. Meanwhile the S90H peaked at 1,190 nits, again using a 10% window in Standard mode and 1,295 nits in Filmmaker mode.
In terms of color gamut, both sets were able to reproduce close to 100% of the P3 color standard (99.9% on S95H, 98.6% on S90H), but they differed a bit on the BT.2020 color gamut tests, as we mentioned earlier. The S95H was able to hit 88.4% of BT.2020 while the S90H only managed to hit 74.77% of BT.2020 in the CalMAN tests. This leads us to believe that the S95H is using a QD-OLED panel while the S90H may be using a WOLED panel. Does this matter in real life? Maybe not. Most content on streaming and even on UHD Blu-ray Disc stays within the P3 color space, which both sets are more than capable of reproducing,
In terms of overall color accuracy, we measured the average “Delta E” (color variation from reference) at under 3 for grayscale and under 2 for color on both sets, both in Filmmaker mode. Specifically the S95H averaged 2.9 dE for grayscale and 1.6 for color dE. The S90H actually turned in slightly better out-of-the-box measurements with an average dE for grayscale of 2.8 and an average dE for color of 1.1. These are both impressive measurements for out-of-the-box settings and it’s likely that even better results could likely be attained with a full calibration.
Overall, both sets offered solid performance for an OLED TV. Or really for any display. Whether you’re gaming, streaming, watching HD Blu-ray Discs or 4K UHD Blu-rays, or 4K/HDR movies on Kaleidescape, you’ll be in for a visual treat with either of these sets.
Specs and pricing of the S85H OLED TV are also included below with the S90H and S95H details, but we have not yet spent any hands-on time with the S85H.
Speaker Type: 4.2.2CH Output Power (W): 70W Dolby Atmos Object Tracking OTS+ Q-Symphony: Active Voice Amplifier (AVA) Pro Adaptive Sound: Pro Bluetooth Audio 360 Audio
Speaker Type: 83″-48″: 2.1CH, 42″: 2CH Output Power (W): 83″-48″,40W,42″: 20W Object Tracking: OTS Lite Q-Symphony: Active Voice Amplifier (AVA) Pro Adaptive Sound: Pro Bluetooth Audio 360 Audio
Speaker Type: 2CH Output Power (W): 20W Dolby Atmos Object Tracking Sound (OTS): OTS Lite Q-Symphony Active Voice Amplifier (AVA): AVA Pro Adaptive Sound: Pro Bluetooth Audio 360 Audio
TV Design
FloatLayer 4 Bezel-less Front Color: Slate Black Stand Type: Round Feet Stand Color: Black Adjustable Stand: N/A
LaserSLim 4 Bezel-less Front Color: Graphite Black Stand Type83″ – 48″: Simple Plus Blade 42″: Simple Blade Stand Color: 83″- 48″: Space Titan 42″: Black Adjustable Stand: 83″-48″: N/A 42″: Yes
83″ – 55″: Contour 48″: LaserSlim 4 Bezel-lessFront Color: Graphite Black Stand Type: 83″ – 55″: Simple Linear. 48″: Simple Blade Wide Stand Color: Black Adjustable Stand: 83″-55″: N/A, 48″: Yes
Connectivity
Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth (BT5.3) One Connect Box: N/A 4 x HDMI HDMI Maximum Input Rate: 4K 165Hz (for HDMI 1/2/3/4) HDMI Audio Return Channel: eARC HDMI-CEC: 3 x USB-A Ports 1 x Ethernet (LAN): 1 x Digital Audio Out (Optical): 1 z RF Connection: Y 1 x RS-232C Input
Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth (BT5.3) One Connect Box: N/A 4 x HDMI HDMI Maximum Input Rate: 4K 165Hz (for HDMI 1/2/3/4) HDMI Audio Return Channel: eARC HDMI-CEC: 3 x USB-A Ports 1 x Ethernet (LAN): 1 x Digital Audio Out (Optical): 1 z RF Connection: Y 1 x RS-232C Input
Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth (BT5.3) One Connect Box: N/A 4 x HDMI HDMI Maximum Input Rate: 4K 120Hz (for HDMI 1/2/3/4) HDMI Audio Return Channel: eARC HDMI-CEC: 2 x USB-A Ports 1 x Ethernet (LAN): 1 x Digital Audio Out (Optical): 1 z RF Connection: Y 1 x RS-232C Input
Samsung Vision AI
Vision AI Companion: AI Soccer Mode: AI Sound Controller: Pro Live Translate Generative Wallpaper: Multi AI Agents (Copilot & Perplexity) Pet & Family Care: Home Insight:
Vision AI Companion: AI Soccer Mode: AI Sound Controller: Pro1 Live Translate Generative Wallpaper: Multi AI Agents (Copilot & Perplexity) Pet & Family Care: Home Insight:
AI Soccer Mode: AI Sound Controller: Live Translate Multi AI Agents (Copilot & Perplexity) Pet & Family Care:
Mobile to TV TV initiates mirroring Sound Mirroring Wireless TV On
Mobile to TV TV initiates mirroring Sound Mirroring Wireless TV On
Mobile to TV TV initiates mirroring Sound Mirroring Wireless TV On
Multi-View
Up to 2 videos
Up to 2 videos
Up to 2 videos
Buds Auto Switch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Works with Apple AirPlay
Yes
Yes
Yes
Works with Google Cast:
Yes
Yes
Yes
Daily+
Yes
Yes
Yes
Now Brief
Yes Voice/User Detection
Yes Voice/User Detection
Yes Voice/User Detection
Workout Tracker
Yes
Yes
Yes
Karaoke Mic
Yes
Yes
Yes
Multi-Control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Storage Share:
Yes
Yes
Yes
Gaming Support
Gaming Hub: Cloud Gaming:-Xbox, NVIDIA GeForce Now, Luna, Blacknut, Antstream, Boosteroid AI Auto Game Mode ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) Game Motion Plus Super Ultra Wide Game View Game Bar Mini Map Zoom AMD FreeSync: Freesync Premium™ Pro NVIDIA G-SYNC HGiG Hue Sync:
Gaming Hub: Cloud Gaming:-Xbox, NVIDIA GeForce Now, Luna, Blacknut, Antstream, Boosteroid AI Auto Game Mode ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) Game Motion Plus Super Ultra Wide Game View Game Bar Mini Map Zoom 83″- 48″: AMD FreeSync: Freesync Premium™ Pro 42″: Freesync Premium™ NVIDIA G-SYNC HGiG Hue Sync:
Gaming Hub: Cloud Gaming:-Xbox, NVIDIA GeForce Now, Luna, Blacknut, Antstream, Boosteroid AI Auto Game Mode ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) Game Motion Plus Super Ultra Wide Game View Game Bar Mini Map ZoomAMD FreeSync: Premium™ NVIDIA G-SYNC HGiG Hue Sync:
Security
Knox Vault: N/A Knox Security: Yes
Knox Vault: N/A Knox Security: Yes
Knox Vault: N/A Knox Security: Yes
Power
Power Supply (V): AC110-120V~ 50/60Hz Stand-by Power Consumption (W): 0.5 Typical Power Consumption (W) 83″: 236W 77″: 192W 65″: 145W 55″: 127W Max Power Consumption (W): 83″: 650W 77″: 770W 65″: 600W 55″: 470W Eco Sensor Auto Power Saving Auto Power Off
Power Supply (V): AC110-120V~ 50/60Hz Stand-by Power Consumption (W): 0.5 Eco Sensor: Yes Auto Power Saving: Auto Power Off
Power Supply (V): AC110-120V~ 50/60Hz Stand-by Power Consumption (W): 0.5 Eco Sensor: Yes Auto Power Saving: Auto Power Off
Included Accessories
Remote Control: BT SolarCell™ Remote TM2660H Power Cable Slim Fit Wall-mount Support
Remote Control: BT SolarCell™ Remote TM2660H Power Cable Slim Fit Wall-mount Support
Remote Control: BT SolarCell™ Remote TM2660H Power Cable Slim Fit Wall-mount Support
Sizes and U.S. Pricing of Samsung’s 2026 OLED TVs:
S95H OLED TV
55-inch S95H: $2,499.99
65-inch S95H: $3,399.99
77-inch S95H: $4,499.99
83-inch S95H: $6,499.99
S90H OLED TV
S85H OLED TV
The Bottom Line
With Samsung’s 2026 line-up of OLED TVs, it’s clear that the company is still committed to this category, even as they continue to enhance their LCD TV line-up with both Mini LED and Micro RGB backlighting. The 165 Hz OLED panel, impressive peak brightness, advanced AI processing, deep black levels and accurate color reproduction should appeal to those who want exceptional picture performance without the requirement to turn out the room lights or close the drapes.
Samsung’s industrial design has always had its share of fans and detractors. Incorporating a picture frame into the chassis of the S95H will likely appeal to those who want their TVs to pass as artwork when not in use, but it may be a sticking point for those who want a more traditional thin bezel design. For those who like the idea of the Frame TV but want something with higher picture performance, we believe the S95H will offer a compelling choice.
We also believe moving away from the required One Connect box on the S95F by including the input/output ports on the S95H TV itself and offering a wireless One Connect option for those who want to move the cables to a separate box is a great move. This makes the S95H even easier to install than its predecessor with more options for the consumer and custom installer.
For those who appreciate the wider color gamut reproduction of a QD-OLED panel but dislike the matte finish of Samsung’s Glare Free screen treatment or aren’t fans of the framed design of the S95H, Samsung isn’t really offering an alternative this year. Whether this turns out to be a misstep or just a trivial checklist item remains to be seen.
But what we’ve seen so far of the Samsung OLED line suggests that the flagship S95H will likely be one of the top performing TVs of the year.
As part of the 50th anniversary celebrations, Apple employees can check out a private exhibition of products and key moments from the company’s history, all in Apple Park.
The exhibition in Apple Park – Image Credit: @AlSultan_Meriam/X
After weeks of public celebration in the run-up to the 50th anniversary, the festivities are now all internal for Apple now. In the latest event, it has been revealed that employees are now being able to look back at the products and hardware that helped build the company. Images shared by Meriam Al Sultan on X show a large room containing images and products in display cases. Described as a 50th anniversary exhibition, the shots are apparently in “Section 2” of Apple Park, but there are other exhibits on show in other HQ areas. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
LCLDIY set out to create a portable computer / laptop that embodied the gritty feel of a civilization being rebuilt after disaster strikes. That’s exactly what he’s accomplished with this monster, a massive, heavy beast of a device that appears to have been assembled from spare pieces gathered from the local hardware shop.
The exterior of this thing is a dead giveaway, a big 3D print job created from digital files by LCLDIY using a Nokia port of Blender. The walls are thick, and the edges are all sharp angles, as if someone simply duct-taped a lot of things together for an emergency fix, you know? The screen tilts, which is convenient, but the whole design seems robust while remaining portable enough to fit in a backpack.
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Inside, there’s a 10-inch electroluminescent display that lights up on its own and casts a nice glow throughout. The display is very stunning: a faint halo surrounding the active area adds depth, and the entire thing exudes an old-school vibe that’s ideal for the theme. These panels aren’t cheap; they either come from aerospace surplus stock or a specialized supplier, and LCLDIY chose the fancy-schmancy LJ64H052 or EL640.480 series after some testing because they’re expensive, but the light output is excellent for low-light environments, and it just feels right at home with the overall theme.
Driving that display is a different story, since regular GPUs aren’t well-suited to this particular technology, so LCLDIY had to think outside the box and create a unique open-source graphics card based on the obsolete CHIPS 65548/5 processor. You know what? It works flawlessly, and the design files are available online for anybody to use as a blueprint for customizing the display for future projects.
The rest of the system is rather simple, which is good given the overall ‘survivalist’ vibe. An old cash register motherboard does the heavy lifting, as it’s not exactly rocket science here, and keeping things basic keeps the power demand low and the internal architecture clean. Let’s be honest: the whole point of this device is to be robust, thus the system is meant to run quietly and cool, with no fans that might break the instant you take it out of the house.
Keyboard input is a laser projection device that pops out from the side, similar to having a little projector keyboard that displays a full layout onto whatever flat surface you require, and it even has mouse mode for cursor control. The best thing is that when you close the lid, all your valuables are safe and sound while you’re on the move. [Source]
Some weekends are for comfort, others are for chaos. This one? A bit of both. Whether it’s revisiting a gaming icon that defined an era, diving into a massively upgraded open-world epic, or trying out this generation’s cult classic title set to leave Game Pass soon, this lineup has range.
1. Tomb Raider I-III Remastered
There’s something oddly magical about going back to where it all began, and Tomb Raider I-III Remastered absolutely leans into that feeling. This collection bundles the original adventures of Lara Croft with a fresh coat of paint, letting players toggle between classic visuals and modern remastered graphics on the fly. At its core, though, this is still the same methodical, puzzle-heavy platforming experience that defined the late ’90s with its deliberate jumps, environmental traps, and that constant sense of isolation.
Aspyr / Crystal Dynamics
What makes this worth playing today isn’t just nostalgia, but how distinct it feels compared to modern action-adventure games. There’s no hand-holding here. Levels are sprawling, secrets are genuinely hidden, and figuring things out feels earned. That slower, more thoughtful pacing can be surprisingly refreshing if most recent games have felt a bit too guided or cinematic.
Add to that, the remaster does a great job of smoothing out rough edges without stripping away the original charm. More importantly, the controls, while still rooted in the classic grid-based movement, feel far more approachable than they used to. Right now, this one’s a no-brainer if you’re subscribed to PlayStation Plus, where it’s been newly added. Otherwise, it typically sits around $29.99 in the US.
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2. Crimson Desert
Crimson Desert has been in the news, and on top of Steam charts, for what feels like forever, but recent updates have quietly transformed it into something far more compelling than its earlier previews suggested. Built by Pearl Abyss, the game blends large-scale open-world exploration with cinematic storytelling, placing players in a war-torn continent filled with political intrigue, brutal combat, and dynamic encounters.
Pearl Abyss
The core gameplay revolves around fluid melee combat, large battle sequences, and emergent world events. But what’s really started to click post-launch is how reactive the world feels. Recent patches have significantly improved movement and abilities, making traversal a lot more engaging, without wasting a lot of the player’s time. Performance has also seen noticeable gains. Earlier complaints around stuttering and inconsistent frame pacing have largely been addressed with optimization updates, especially on mid-to-high-end PCs.
At around $59.99 in the US, it’s positioned as a premium experience, and while it may not be perfect, it finally feels complete. This weekend is a great time to jump in, especially if the initial skepticism kept it off the radar before.
3. Grand Theft Auto V
Few games need an introduction quite like Grand Theft Auto V, but this weekend, it comes with a bit of urgency attached. The game is set to leave Xbox Game Pass later this month, which means this might be the perfect (and possibly last) excuse to jump back into Los Santos without spending a dime. Whether it’s revisiting the story or just causing absolute chaos in free roam, GTA V remains as easy to pick up and play as ever.
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Rockstar Games
At its core, the game follows three protagonists (Michael, Franklin, and Trevor), whose lives intertwine through a series of heists, betrayals, and high-stakes missions. But let’s be honest, most players aren’t coming back just for the story. The real magic of GTA V lies in its sandbox. It’s one of those rare games where simply existing in the world is entertaining enough. Even today, Los Santos feels alive in a way few open-world games manage.
And if the single-player doesn’t hook, there’s always GTA Online, which continues to evolve with new content, modes, and absurdly over-the-top activities. With a usual price hovering around $29.99 in the US, depending on the edition, getting access through Game Pass right now is a steal, especially with the clock ticking.
Instead of raising prices again, Netflix may have to lower its subscription costs in Italy. A court in Rome recently ruled that Netflix owed its Italian users a refund for price hikes between 2017 and January 2024 and a reduction to previous subscription costs. On top of the refunds, Netflix Italia would have to inform its affected subscribers of their right to a refund.
The lawsuit was originally filed by Movimento Consumatori, a consumer rights organization based in Rome. The group’s president, Alessandro Mostaccio, said in a press release that more than 25,000 Netflix users have complained to Movimento Consumatori that they’re not satisfied with the price increases over the years. According to the lawyers representing the consumers, Premium subscribers are entitled to a refund of roughly 500 euros, while Standard tier customers should get back about 250 euros.
Mostaccio also said that if Netflix doesn’t immediately reduce prices and refund its customers, the consumer rights organization would pursue a class action lawsuit to recover funds. A Netflix spokesperson told Reuters that it would appeal the Italian court’s ruling, adding that the company takes “consumer rights very seriously and believe our terms have always complied with Italian laws and practice.” On the other side of the world, Netflix again raised prices for its US customers, this time across all of its subscription tiers.
Microsoft wants to offer the ‘most complete AI and app agent factory’.
Microsoft has released three new AI foundational models, created in-house, in a move that places the company in direct competition with enterprise AI rivals, despite its deep ties with OpenAI.
The new foundational models target three of the most commercially viable modalities: transcription, voice and images. The models are already powering Microsoft’s products, including Copilot, Bing and Azure Speech, the company said, and will be available in a preview via the Microsoft Foundry and MAI Playground.
With this, Microsoft is furthering its goals of delivering “the most complete AI and app agent factory”, it said.
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‘MAI-Transcribe-1’ is a first-generation speech recognition model expected to deliver “enterprise-grade accuracy” across 25 languages at around 50pc lower GPU costs than its alternatives. The model scores lower than 4pc average ‘word error rate’ on accuracy benchmarks, while GPT-Transcribe is at 4.2pc and Gemini 3.1 Flash is at 4.9pc.
‘MAI-Voice-1’ is a speech generation model that, according to Microsoft, can produce 60 seconds of expressive audio in under one second on a single GPU.
Together, the two models are meant to deliver an audio AI stack capable of assisting in call-centre workflows and other voice-driven services, such as providing live captioning, automatic subtitling and converting interactions into structured data for research.
Microsoft’s second-generation image model, ‘MAI-Image-2’, is expected to offer artists a way to “explore” different visual directions. The model is created in “close collaboration” with artists, the company said, and is meant to help enterprises create branding and communication material.
Microsoft, valued at $2.7trn, already offers several AI-embedded apps and platform services. Its Copilot Studio lets users build agents, while the Foundry services offer a place to train and scale models.
In short:Anthropic has blocked Claude Pro and Max subscribers from using their flat-rate plans with third-party AI agent frameworks, starting with OpenClaw. The move, which took effect on 4 April 2026, shifts the cost of running autonomous agents onto users through a pay-as-you-go billing tier. The creator of OpenClaw, who joined OpenAI in February, called the decision a betrayal of open-source developers. Thousands of users now face cost increases of up to 50 times their previous monthly outlay.
Anthropic has ended a quiet subsidy that made its Claude models the engine of choice for the open-source AI agent community. Starting on 4 April 2026, users of Claude’s Pro and Max subscription tiers can no longer pipe their plan’s usage limits through third-party frameworks such as OpenClaw. If they want to keep using those tools with Claude, they must pay separately under a new “extra usage” billing system. Anthropic says it will extend the restriction to all third-party harnesses in the coming weeks.
The announcement landed as a jolt for thousands of developers who had structured their personal AI setups around the assumption that a flat monthly subscription was enough. For many of them, it no longer is.
The economics that broke the model
The logic behind the change is straightforward even if the timing was not. Claude’s subscription plans were designed around conversational use: a human opens a chat window, types a query, and reads a response. Agentic frameworks operate on a fundamentally different model. A single OpenClaw instance running autonomously for a full day, browsing the web, managing calendars, responding to messages, executing code, can consume the equivalent of $1,000 to $5,000 in API costs, depending on the task load. Under a $200-per-month Max subscription, that is an unsustainable transfer of compute costs from the user to Anthropic.
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“Anthropic’s subscriptions weren’t built for the usage patterns of these third-party tools,” said Boris Cherny, Head of Claude Code at Anthropic. “Capacity is a resource we manage thoughtfully and we are prioritising our customers using our products and API.”
The scale of the problem was significant. More than 135,000 OpenClaw instances were estimated to be running at the time of the announcement, and industry analysts had noted a price gap of more than five times between what heavy agentic users paid under flat subscriptions and what equivalent usage would cost at API rates. Anthropic’s subscription business was, in effect, quietly cross-subsidising a class of usage it had not priced for.
What OpenClaw is, and why this matters
OpenClaw is an open-source AI agent framework created by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger. Originally released in November 2025 under the name Clawdbot, it was a side project: Steinberger wanted to see what would happen if you gave a large language model persistent memory, tool access, and the ability to communicate through messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram. The answer, it turned out, was that an enormous number of people wanted exactly that.
The project was renamed twice in three days in late January 2026: first to Moltbot, after Anthropic raised trademark concerns about the phonetic similarity to “Claude,” and then to OpenClaw three days later. By 2 March 2026, the repository had accumulated 247,000 GitHub stars and 47,700 forks. It had become what many observers were calling the fastest-growing GitHub project in history, reaching 100,000 stars in under 48 hours at its peak. The framework supports more than 50 integrations and works across Claude, GPT-4o, Gemini, and DeepSeek.Tencent built an enterprise platform directly on top of it, demonstrating that OpenClaw’s influence had already extended well beyond individual hobbyists.
A convenient timing problem
The restriction becomes more pointed given what happened in February. On 14 February 2026, Steinberger announced he was leaving his own project to join OpenAI. Sam Altman posted publicly that Steinberger would “drive the next generation of personal agents” at the company, and that OpenClaw would be moved to an open-source foundation with OpenAI’s continued support. Steinberger wrote in a blog post that “teaming up with OpenAI is the fastest way to bring this to everyone.”
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Anthropic’s restrictions were announced and enforced within weeks of that move, a timeline that has not escaped notice. Steinberger and fellow investor Dave Morin attempted to negotiate a softer landing, approaching Anthropic directly, but by their account only managed to delay enforcement by a single week.
“First they copy some popular features into their closed harness, then they lock out open source,” Steinberger wrote in response to the ban.
Whether the timing reflects competitive calculation or coincidence, the effect is the same. The most popular open-source agent framework, now loosely affiliated with OpenAI, has been effectively priced off Claude’s subscription tier.
The cost shock for users
For developers accustomed to unlimited agentic runs under a flat plan, the new billing structure is a significant disruption. Under pay-as-you-go extra usage, per-interaction costs are estimated at $0.50 to $2.00 per task, which makes heavy agentic use expensive in ways that a fixed monthly plan obscured. Some users report facing cost increases of 10 to 50 times their previous outlay. Hobbyist developers and solo practitioners, the cohort that built OpenClaw’s early adoption, are most exposed.
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Anthropic has offered two concessions to smooth the transition. Subscribers receive a one-time credit equal to their monthly plan cost, redeemable until 17 April. Users who pre-purchase extra usage bundles can receive discounts of up to 30%.
Users who want to continue running OpenClaw with Claude can do so either through those extra usage bundles or by supplying a separate Claude API key, which bypasses subscription limits but charges at full API rates: $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens for Claude Sonnet 4.6, and $15 and $75 respectively for Claude Opus 4.6.
Anthropic’s closing ecosystem
The decision fits a broader pattern.Anthropic committed $100 million to its Claude Partner Network in March 2026, formalising a web of enterprise consulting and integration relationships built around its own products. Separately,the company has launched a marketplace for Claude-powered software, allowing enterprise customers to purchase third-party applications without Anthropic taking a commission, but through channels Anthropic controls. The pattern is consistent: Anthropic wants the revenue, the data, and the governance that comes with owning the customer relationship, and it is making it incrementally less attractive to route that relationship through tools it did not build.
Claude Code, Anthropic’s own developer environment, is included in Pro and Max subscription plans and is not subject to the new restrictions. The message to developers is implicit but legible: build inside Anthropic’s ecosystem, or pay API rates to build outside it.
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Anthropic’s $3 billion raise in early 2026was accompanied by language about building “artificial super-intelligence for science” and expanding its research infrastructure. What it also reflects is the commercial pressure of running one of the most computationally intensive products in the world at scale. Compute costs do not flatten because users prefer flat subscription pricing. Foran AI industry that spent 2025 racing to acquire users, 2026 is increasingly about working out who actually pays for them, and how much.
Sometimes you can go into a bit of a panic when your car isn’t working and find yourself rushing to the nearest mechanic with an opening. However, it can sometimes pay off to take a deep breath, take out your phone, and use Google. That’s what one TikToker realized after his brake switch broke and he got a quote from Pep Boys for $280 — $80 for the part, $200 for labor.
“About $300 to get my car functional again? I thought, ‘I guess that’s pretty worth it,” TikTok user @joseroselloaesthetics said. “But you know what? Let me shop around a little bit.” And after a short Google search at home, he found out that the broken part was available on Amazon for just under $11. At this point, he figured he should see what it would take to fix himself. He found a seven-minute YouTube video with step-by-step instructions, which showed that the broken part was located underneath the dashboard and didn’t even need a tool to swap out.
I went to Pep Boys for a repair and was quoted $280 — $80 for the part and $200 for labor. After doing my own research, I found the same part online for $10.88. The fix required no tools and took less than 10 minutes. This is why it’s important to always double check mechanic quotes, look up parts online, and understand basic DIY car repairs. You can save hundreds of dollars by doing simple fixes yourself. Not all mechanics are bad, but being informed can protect you from overpaying. . #pepboys#carrepair#mechanic#diycarrepair#savemoney
The repair went from $280 to $11. All he could say was “Wow.”
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Is Pep Boys scamming customers?
Koldo Studio/Getty Images
Pep Boys was not setting out to scam @joseroselloaesthetics, nor are most mechanics — although some locations are rated better than others. In general, auto parts will be cheaper online or at an auto parts retailer than from a repair shop for a number of reasons beyond the mechanic hoping to make an easy profit.
First, mechanics order parts at wholesale prices, meaning buying parts in bulk. They will then charge you a marked-up rate of 25% to 50% above what they paid to make some money back. Second, mechanics often charge extra to cover the costs of running their business, including paying for garage liability insurance and certified repair technicians. Shops also take time training employees.
There are plenty of simple repairs you can learn to do yourself, but if you find yourself needing a mechanic for a trickier repair, you can always buy the part ahead of time and bring it to the shop. The price you pay will depend on where you buy the part and where you live, as well as whether you get original equipment manufacturers (OEM) car parts or aftermarket parts.
Prove said the roles would be across product, software engineering, research and development, and data science, supporting global product development and growth.
Digital identity verification platform Prove is to create 50 Irish jobs with a $5m investment in its Ireland-based operations.
The company said it sees Ireland as a central hub for the company’s product development, culture and international growth, having set up in the country in 2022 and increased Dublin headcount by 50pc in the past six months.
Prove said the new “high-value” roles would be across product, software engineering, research and development, and data science – with “many” to be available this year – and would support global product development and growth.
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It credited its existing Irish operations with playing “a critical role in the rapid acceleration of innovation” over the past year across several product and feature launches.
“The growth of our Ireland team has been an important chapter in Prove’s journey,” said Laura Brittingham, its senior vice-president of people.
“The talent we’ve found there brings deep technical expertise and a collaborative, innovative and dependable spirit that has led to an outsized impact at Prove. There is no version of Prove’s future that doesn’t include Ireland at its centre.”
Prove’s identity verification and authentication tools aim to “streamline onboarding, prevent fraud and deliver seamless customer experiences across channels”, according to the company, by “verifying real people, businesses and agents in real time without friction or guesswork”.
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Its customers are in areas such as banking, fintech, crypto, gaming, commerce, insurance and healthcare, and include Visa, Starbucks, Uber and DocuSign.
Prove’s expansion in Ireland is supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland.
Its CEO Michael Lohan said: “Prove’s decision to expand its R&D and innovation footprint here highlights Ireland’s strength as a global hub for advanced digital identity, data, and technology development.
“This expansion underscores Ireland’s ability to support companies as they scale internationally, innovate at pace and serve global markets.”
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Prove was founded in 2008 as Payfone and rebranded in 2020. It employs more than 400 people globally – across hubs in the US, UK, Ireland and Brazil – and claims to verify 30bn transactions annually and own more than 200 patents in areas around identity and authentication.
Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke, TD said: “This significant investment and the creation of 50 new high-value roles reflect great confidence in Ireland’s talented workforce and in our strong environment for RD&I.
“Ireland is well-positioned to support companies like Prove at the forefront of digital transformation.”
Ari Motors’ engineers have been working on the Ari 458 Pro, a compact electric camper that is redefining people’s perceptions about short vacations. At only 12.5 feet long and 4.9 feet wide, this vehicle fits into a conventional parking place and can even fit into narrow roadways where larger motorhomes cannot. You can park it almost anywhere and yet have enough room to make a spontaneous stop at a lake or a forest clear-cut, without having to worry about hookups and whatnot.
It’s based on a delivery truck platform, but an insulated box added to the back transforms the entire structure into useful living space. Inside, you have around 6 feet of headroom and approximately 30 square feet of area. Ari ships the item very much bare, so you may customize it however you like. They do the wiring for you, so you’ll have electricity outlets, solar panels on your roof, and water hookups ready to go. Simply add your own bed, table, kitchenette, and other necessities, or choose for an ultra minimalist factory conversion in Saxony.
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The power comes from a single 15-kilowatt electric motor that produces around 20 horsepower. The top speed is a rather relaxed 43 mph, which is ideal for backroad cruising rather than highway driving. You may select between a 15kWh battery, which will carry you 75 to 112 miles, and a larger 23.5kWh pack, which can get you up to 143 miles. And the greatest thing is that electricity expenses are really inexpensive – approximately 4 Euro per 100 kilometers.
The front side features a modest interior with two seats, power windows, central locking, a digital display, a reversing camera, and Bluetooth. There’s even one cup holder thrown in for good measure. If you want to add air conditioning or a trailer to tow some light gear, that’s an option; don’t worry, it’s all L7e compatible, so it’s small and light while being safe for regular usage.
The Ari 458 Pro costs little over 30,000 euros including tax in Germany, making it much more accessible to anyone who want to get into camping. They even have a base delivery model that is slightly less expensive, but the camper setup includes all of the necessary accessories straight out of the box. Production takes place in Borna, just outside of Leipzig, with orders beginning in May. If you enjoy basic travel, you’ll appreciate how this thing is all about freedom rather than squandering your wallet on frivolous luxuries. [Source]
The controversy around Delve appears to have cost the compliance startup its relationship with accelerator Y Combinator.
Delve is no longer listed among YC’s directory of portfolio companies, and the Delve page seems to have been removed from the YC website. In addition, the startup’s COO Selin Kocalar posted on X that “YC and Delve have parted ways.”
“I still remember the day we took our YC interview at MIT,” Kocalar said. “We’re so grateful to the community and every founder friend we’ve made.”
YC isn’t the first investor to distance themselves from Delve. Insight Partners also appears to have deleted posts about its investment in the company, although its primary blog post was later restored.
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Meanwhile, Delve continues to push back against anonymous claims that it misled clients by telling them they were compliant with privacy and security regulations while allegedly skipping important requirements and auto-generating reports for “certification mills that rubber stamp reports.”
Those claims were first published in an anonymous Substack post attributed to “DeepDelver,” who described themselves as a former Delve customer who became suspicious after receiving leaked data about the startup’s clients.
Meanwhile, Delve became part of a related controversy when malware was discovered in an open source project developed by Delve customer LiteLLM.
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In the company’s latest blog post, Delve’s COO Kocalar and CEO Karun Kaushik declared their intention to set “the record straight on anonymous attacks.” Among other things, they claimed that the company has hired a cybersecurity firm “to help us understand what happened,” and said the “evidence points to a malicious attack rather than a genuine whistleblower.”
“It appears that an attacker purchased Delve under false pretenses, maliciously exfiltrated data, including Delve’s internal company data, and used it to launch a coordinated smear campaign against us,” they said. The blog post also includes a screenshot that they said “shows the attacker exfiltrating our audit tracking spreadsheet via file.io.”
Beyond this accusation, Delve also described DeepDelver’s criticism as “a mix of fabricated claims, cherry-picked screenshots, and data taken out of context.” For example, they said DeepDelver “dismisses our AI while acknowledging it automated 70% of a security questionnaire.”
On the question of using open source tools, Delve said it “built on an Apache 2.0 open-source repository, which explicitly permits commercial use, and significantly rebuilt it for compliance use cases.”
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However, the executives also said they’ve been taking steps to ensure customers “feel confident in our platform and compliance outcomes.”
Those steps supposedly include cleaning up the company’s network to remove auditing firms “that don’t meet our standards,” “offering complimentary re-audits and penetration tests to all active customers,” and making it “unambiguously clear” that Delve’s templates for things like board meeting notes “are designed to be starting points only.”
In a post on X, Kaushik made many of the same points but also said, “[W]e grew too fast and fell short of our own standard. To our customers, we deeply apologize for the inconveniences caused.”
TechCrunch has reached out to Y Combinator and DeepDelver for any response to Delve’s comments.
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