Uber plans to invest $100 million in EV charging infrastructure to support current and future robotaxi fleets in cities like Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and Dallas, “eventually partner[ing] with multiple robotaxi companies on actual robotaxi deployment — WeRide, Waabi, Lucid, Nuro, May Mobility, Momenta, and Waymo of course,” reports CleanTechnica. From the report: “Cities can only unlock the full promise of autonomy and electrification if the right charging infrastructure is built for scale. That infrastructure needs to work for today’s drivers and the fleets of the future,” said Uber’s global head of mobility, Pradeep Parameswaran. In addition to building some infrastructure itself, the company is making “utilization guarantee agreements” with EVgo for various major US cities as well as Electra, Hubber, and Ionity in Europe.
On Uber’s latest shareholder call, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that the company would make “targeted growth-oriented investments aligned with the 6 strategic areas of focus.” That includes self-driving vehicles/robotaxis. “With the benefit of learning from multiple AV deployments around the world, we’re more convinced than ever that AVs will unlock a multitrillion-dollar opportunity for Uber. AVs amplify the fundamental strengths of our platform, global scale, deep demand density, sophisticated marketplace technology, and decades of on-the-ground experience matching riders, drivers, and vehicles, all in real time,” Khosrowshahi added.
Ever since 3D printing has become a popular tool, the question of waste has been looming in the background. The sad reality of rapid prototyping is that you’re going to generate a lot of prints that just don’t aren’t fit for purpose, even if your printer runs them off perfectly every time. Creality has some products on the way aimed at solving that problem, and [Embrace Making] on YouTube has got his hands on a pre-production prototype of the Creality M1 Filament Maker to give the community a first look.
The M1 is actually only half of the system; Creality is also working on an R1 shredder to reduce your prints into re-usable shreds. [Embrace Making] hasn’t gotten his hands on that, but shredding prints isn’t the hard part. We’ve featured plenty of DIY shredders in the past. Extruding filament reliably at home has traditionally proven much more difficult, which is why we mostly outsource it to professionals.
Lacking the matching shredder, and wanting to give the M1 the fairest possible shake, [Embrace] tests the machine out first using Creality-supplied PLA pellets. The filament diameter isn’t as stable as we’ve gotten used to, and the spool rolling setup needs a bit more work.
Again, this is an early prototype. Creality says they’re working on it and claims they’ll get to ±0.05 mm precision in the production models. Doubtless they’ll also fix the errors that led to [Embrace]’s messy spool. That’s probably just software given that the winding mechanism did a pretty good job on the Creality-supplied spool.
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Most importantly, the M1-produced filament does print. The prints aren’t perfect due to the variation in diameter, but they turn out surprisingly well for home-made filament. [Embrace] also shows off the ability to mix custom colors and gradients, but, again, using raw PLA rather than shredded material. Hopefully Creality lets him test drive the R1 shredder once its design is further along.
Apple’s new MacBook Neo design makes it startlingly quick and simple to repair, with Self Service Repair program instructions proving the point.
MacBook Neo’s keyboard is now easier to repair
Apple first announced its Self Service Repair program back in 2021, and it was really a case of doing it before being forced to by law. It’s slowly expanded out, launching first for the iPhone in April 2022, and later expanding to Macs. Throughout, it’s been criticized for being expensive and for making users go through hoops to get the work done. Now, though, Apple appears to be embracing the Right to Repair pressures it has faced, and do so both with the program, and with its designs. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
Phased-array radars are great for all sorts of things, whether you’re doing advanced radio research or piloting a fifth-generation combat aircraft. They’re also typically very expensive. [Nawfal] hopes to make the technology more affordable with an open-source radar design of their own.
The design is called the AERIS-10, and is available in two versions. Operating at 10.5 GHz, it can be built to operate at ranges between 3 or 20 kilometers depending on the desired spec. The former uses an 8 x 16 patch antenna array, while the latter extends this to a 32 x 16 array. Either way, each design is capable of fully-electronic beam steering in azimuth and can be hacked to enable elevation too—one of the most attractive features of phased array radars. The hardware is based around an STM32 microcontroller, an FPGA, and a bunch of specialist clock generators, frequency synthesizers, phase shifters, and ADCs to do all the heavy lifting involved in radar.
Radar is something you probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about unless you’re involved in maritime, air defence, or weather fields. All of which seem to be very much in the news lately! Still, we feature a good few projects on the topic around these parts. If you’ve got your own radar hacks brewing up in the lab, don’t hesitate to let us know.
Budget airlines were beginning to emerge, promising cheaper fares and simpler service models. Traditional carriers still dominated major routes, but a new generation of low-cost airlines was challenging the status quo.
For many entrepreneurs, it was an opportunity.
One of them was Dennis Choo—a Singaporean travel industry veteran who had spent decades quietly building connections across airlines and tourism networks.
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While his name rarely appeared in headlines, Choo would eventually make one of the boldest moves in Singapore’s aviation scene: buying out Temasek Holdings to take majority control of Jetstar Asia.
But his story began long before that.
It all started with a small travel agency
In 1972, Choo founded Holiday Tours & Travel Group (HTT Group) as a modest airline ticketing agency in Singapore.
At the time, travel agencies played a critical role in airline distribution. Before the era of the Internet, booking flights typically meant visiting an agent who handled ticketing, reservations, and itineraries.
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Choo saw opportunity in this system and, over the years, expanded into parallel verticals, diversifying his business across tours, airline representation, cruise operations, and hospitality.
Holiday Tours eventually started acting as a General Sales Agent (GSA) for several international carriers in the region, handling sales, marketing, and distribution in markets where airlines lacked a strong local presence.
More importantly, the group cultivated deep relationships with airlines, giving Choo unique insight into how carriers operated behind the scenes. In 1984, these ties were formalised when Qantas acquired a majority stake in HTT Group’s holding company. Company ownership information from the airline’s 2025 financial report shows that Qantas now holds a significant stake in the group (about 75%).
This helped cement Choo’s reputation within the travel industry. It also gave him something even more valuable: insight into how airlines worked behind the scenes.
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Moving from selling seats to owning airlines
By the early 2000s, the aviation landscape in Asia was changing rapidly. Low-cost carriers (LCCs) were gaining momentum, inspired by models like Southwest Airlines in the United States and Ryanair in Europe.
Singapore’s aviation sector began seeing new entrants in 2004. Alongside established players like Singapore Airlines, several budget carriers were launching to tap into regional demand.
Image Credit: Getty Images
First to take off was Valuair, a Singapore-based low-cost airline launched in May that year, backed by a group of local investors and led by former Singapore Airlines executive Lim Chin Beng.
But unlike many LCCs of the time, Valuair offered perks such as free hot meals, assigned seating and generous baggage allowances while still charging fares significantly lower than full-service airlines—a model that would ultimately struggle in an intensifying aviation scene.
It made the airline more expensive to operate than the leaner low-cost carriers that were entering the market, including Tiger Airways and Jetstar Asia. Both were backed by deep-pocketed investors—Singapore Airlines and Qantas, respectively—bringing intense price competition to the region.
Left with few options, the airline turned to consolidation as a solution.
In Jul 2005, Valuair agreed to merge with Jetstar Asia, forming a new holding company called Orange Star, whose shareholders included Qantas, Temasek, and private investors in Singapore, with the former two holding the largest stakes—approximately 45% and 33.5%, respectively. The two airlines continued operating as separate brands under the same parent company.
Choo would come into the picture in 2009.
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Despite the merger and additional funding, Valuair’s operations continued to face challenges, and the airline was ultimately struggling to remain profitable. Furthermore, Temasek’s decision to take an 11% stake in rival Tiger Airways had created an awkward dynamic—Qantas found itself sharing an ownership structure with an investor that was simultaneously backing its direct competitor.
This led to a restructuring of Orangestar, creating an opportunity for new investors.
The restructuring resulted in the creation of Newstar Investment Holdings, a new holding company to consolidate ownership of Jetstar Asia. Through his wholly-owned private investment company, Westbrook Investments, Choo acquired a 51% majority stake in Newstar, including Temasek’s shares, while Qantas retained a 49% minority stake.
And just like that, the man who had spent decades selling other airlines’ seats was now in control of two major low-cost carriers in the region.
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Overseeing the development of two low-cost carriers
As chairman of Jetstar Asia, Choo oversaw the development of the airline, as well as Valuair, as regional low-cost carriers.
A Jetstar Airways aeroplane sits at a gate at Singapore Changi Airport./ Image Credit: 1000 Words via Shutterstock.com
Operating out of Singapore’s Changi Airport, both airlines connected travellers to cities across Southeast Asia, East Asia, and beyond. For many travellers in the region, they became synonymous with affordable flights.
Like most airlines, however, Valuair and Jetstar faced a volatile industry environment.
Low-cost carriers operate on razor-thin margins, and competition in Southeast Asia only intensified over the years with the rise of new players. Eventually, Valuair was fully absorbed into Jetstar Asia in 2014, with its flights and routes integrated under the Jetstar brand.
Jetstar Asia continued operating for more than a decade afterwards—until it reached its final chapter in 2025. It ceased operations on Jul 31, 2025, citing rising costs and mounting competitive pressures.
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Beyond Jetstar Asia
Throughout these developments, Dennis Choo has remained a relatively low-profile figure compared with many other business leaders in Singapore, despite his influence in aviation and travel.
Current information on his activities is scarce, but his company’s website still lists him as Group CEO, and under his leadership, Holiday Tours & Travel Group has grown to 10 entities across nine countries and territories in the Asia Pacific region.
With over 150 employees, these operations span China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.
It is an impressive reach, and despite Jetstar Asia eventually closing down, Choo remains a notable presence in the region’s travel and airline sector.
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He didn’t get there overnight.
Choo spent 37 years building relationships in the travel industry before making his biggest move—acquiring Temasek’s shares to take majority control of Jetstar Asia, proving that steady experience and long-term vision can open doors in a competitive sector.
Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.
Featured Image Credit: Bandaranaike International Airport/ Getty Images
Released in 2016, Pokemon Go quickly became a worldwide phenomenon. Even folks who weren’t traditionally interested in the monster-taming franchise were wandering around with their smartphones out, on the hunt for virtual creatures that would appear via augmented reality. Although the number of active users has dropped over the years, it’s estimated that more than 50 million users currently log in and play every month.
From a gameplay standpoint, Go is brilliant. Although the Pokemon that players seek out obviously aren’t real, searching for them closely approximates the in-game experience that the franchise has been known for since its introduction on the Game Boy back in 1996.
But now, instead of moving a character through a virtual landscape in search of the elusive “pocket monsters”, players find them dotted throughout the real world. To be successful, players need to leave their homes and travel to where the Pokemon are physically located — which often happens to be a high-traffic area or other point of interest.
As a game, it’s hard to imagine Pokemon Go being a bigger success. At the peak of its popularity, throngs of players were literally causing traffic jams as they roamed the streets in search of invisible creatures. But what players may not have realized as they scanned the world around them through the game was that they were helping developer Niantic build something even more valuable.
The Imaginary Gig Economy
The game has used augmented reality (AR) to bring the world of Pokemon to life since day one, but it wasn’t until the fall of 2020 that Niantic introduced AR Mapping. With this new feature, players could scan real-world locations and objects by walking around them while the software captured images from their smartphone’s camera. This was presented to the player as “Field Research”, and once completed, it would unlock various rewards in the game.
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For those with a technical mindset, the implications of this are immediately obvious. Through the Research system, Niantic could direct Pokemon Go players anywhere they wished. Once the imagery from these Research scans were uploaded, they could be used to create detailed 3D models through the use of photogrammetry. The more players that perform Field Research on a particular location, the more accurate the results.
If Niantic wanted to create a 3D model of a statue in a park or the front of a building, they simply needed to assign it a Field Research task and the players would rush out to collect the data. Forget Google’s Street View — rather than sending a camera-laden car out once every year or so to grab new images, Niantic could sit back while millions of players uploaded high resolution pictures of the world around them in exchange for in-game trinkets that have no physical value.
No Such Thing as a Free Pokemon
In the tech world there’s a common saying: “If something is free, you’re the product.”
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The idea being that if you’re using some service without paying for it, there’s an excellent chance that the company providing said service is somehow making money off of the situation. So for example when a user looks up a particular topic with a search engine, they can be presented with contextually appropriate advertisements. By selling this ad space to companies, the search engine provider generates a profit for each “free” search performed by its users. The personal relevancy offered by such bespoke advertisements can be more effective than traditional TV or print ads, which in turn means the search engine provider can charge a premium for them.
Just as in our hypothetical search engine example, Pokemon Go is offered up to players on Android and iOS free of charge. To date, it’s been downloaded by over a billion total users. To make the game financially viable, Niantic eventually needed to find a way to turn all those free downloads into a revenue stream.
The answer is Niantic Spatial. This spin-off company was announced in March of 2025, and offers a Visual Positioning System (VPS) created in part using the photogrammetry data collected by Pokemon Go. Through this service Niantic Spatial offers centimeter-scale positioning for millions of high-traffic locations all over the globe, even in areas where GPS may be inaccurate.
Earlier this week, Niantic Spatial announced they had entered into an agreement with Coco Robotics to provide VPS for their fleet of delivery robots. Images captured by the robot’s onboard cameras can be fed into the VPS to provide a more accurate position than is possible with GPS, even in the best of conditions. This is particularly important for a robot that not only needs to navigate an ever-changing urban landscape, but must arrive at a precise location to successfully complete its delivery.
Always Read the Fine Print
At this point, you may be thinking to yourself that this all seems a bit shady. Can Niantic really take the data that was provided to them by Pokemon Go players and spin that off into a commercial venture that monetizes it? Of course they can, because that’s precisely what players agreed to when they installed the game.
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Section 5.2 of the Niantic Terms of Service, titled “Rights Granted by You – AR Content”, states that the company retains wide-ranging rights over anything that users upload through the AR functions of their products:
In short, not only can Niantic do anything they want with player submitted data, but they can pass that freedom on to other entities as they see fit. So while Coco Robotics didn’t even exist when the AR Mapping feature was added to Pokemon Go, all of the imagery that players captured since that time — plus any images that they continue to capture — is fair game.
In the end, it’s unlikely that many players will lose any sleep over the fact that they have unwittingly been collecting training data to help robots more effectively deliver pizzas. But it’s also not hard to imagine a scenario in which that data ends up getting licensed out for some purpose they aren’t comfortable with.
If that happens, their options may be limited. A reading of Niantic’s Privacy Policy would seem to indicate that uploaded AR imagery is anonymized during processing, and as such doesn’t need to be treated in the same way that personally identifiable information would be. As such, players have the right to opt-out of uploading additional data going forward, but can’t remove what’s already been pushed into the system.
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Regardless of whether or not this situation impacts you directly, it’s an important cautionary tale in an interconnected world where more and more of what users do online is tracked, filtered, processed, and sold off to the highest bidder. Perhaps something to keep in mind before clicking “I Agree.”
Apple’s MacBook lineup usually holds its value well, so it is always interesting when a new entry like the MacBook Neo appears with a small early discount.
Positioned as an accessible entry point into Apple’s laptop ecosystem, this model focuses on everyday productivity while still benefiting from the efficiency and performance advantages of Apple silicon.
The Apple MacBook Neo runs on the A18 Pro chip, which is designed to handle common daily tasks such as web browsing, spreadsheets, media editing, and even light AI-assisted workloads.
For students and casual users, that means the laptop should feel responsive when juggling multiple apps, switching between browser tabs, or working through productivity software.
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The Apple MacBook Neo features a 13-inch Liquid Retina display with a 2408 by 1506 resolution, which helps text appear sharp while still delivering bright and colourful images for everyday use.
Inside, the device includes 8GB of unified memory and a 256GB SSD, providing enough headroom for common workflows such as document editing, light creative work, and general multitasking.
Battery life is also designed to support a full day of use, with Apple estimating up to sixteen hours depending on the workload.
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Within Apple’s broader lineup, the MacBook Neo sits below the MacBook Air models, which typically offer larger displays, more powerful chips, and higher starting memory configurations.
If you prefer a compact yet more powerful machine, the MacBook Air 13-inch with the M5 chip offers stronger performance and more memory, while the MacBook Air 15-inch prioritises a larger screen for productivity, whereas the MacBook Neo focuses on affordability and everyday usability.
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At this slightly reduced price, the Apple MacBook Neo becomes an even more attractive option for students or everyday users who want a capable Mac without stretching to the MacBook Air range.
There’s a moment in John Williams’s Star Wars overture when the brass surges upward. You don’t just hear it; you feel propulsion turning into pure possibility.
On 16 March 1926, in a snow-dusted field in Auburn, Mass., Robert Goddard created an earlier version of that same feeling. His first liquid-fueled rocket—a spindly, three meter tangle of pipes and tanks—lifted off, climbed about 12.5 meters, traveled roughly 56 meters downrange, and crashed into the frozen ground after 2.5 seconds. A few witnesses, Goddard’s helpers, shivered in the cold. The little machine defied common sense. It rose through the air with nothing to push against. Anyone who still insisted spaceflight was impossible now faced a question: Why had this contraption risen at all?
Six years earlier, The New York Times had ridiculed Goddard, declaring that rockets could never work in a vacuum and implying that he had somehow forgotten high-school physics. Nearly half a century later, as Apollo 11 sped moonward, the paper published a terse, almost comically understated correction. By then, Goddard had been dead for 24 years.
The Alpha Trap
Breakthroughs often demand qualities that facilitate early success but later become obstacles. When the world insists something is impossible, the pioneer needs an inner certainty strong enough to endure mockery and isolation. Later, though, that certainty can become a liability. Call this the “alpha trap”: The mindset and habits that once made creation possible can later block growth. This “alpha” has nothing to do with dominance or bravado. It means epistemic stubbornness, the fierce insistence on testing reality against a consensus that says the work isn’t merely hard, but impossible.
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Such efforts often begin with a lone visionary. But most ideas eventually need a team. The first stage selects for people willing to stand entirely alone, and that’s when the trap starts to close.
The mockery scarred Goddard. It drove him inward, toward a small circle of confidants. Through the early 1930s, his rockets climbed higher each year. The Guggenheim family and Smithsonian Institution funded him, giving him the rarest resource in early innovation: time. By the mid-1930s, his designs were reaching more than a thousand meters.
But the work gradually changed. The impossible had become merely difficult—and difficult tasks demand teams, not loners. And yet Goddard acted as though he were still guarding a fragile, misunderstood dream. He resisted collaboration and despite conversations with the U.S. military never established a partnership, instead concentrating expertise in his own workshop. Elsewhere in the United States more freewheeling amateurs and academics partnered to develop early liquid-propelled and later solid-fuel rockets.
Meanwhile, on the Baltic coast at Peenemünde, hundreds of German engineers divided labor into synchronized streams of propulsion, guidance, structures, testing, and production. By 1942, they were flight-testing the V-2. Postwar analysts studying the wreckage saw many of Goddard’s ideas reflected there: liquid propellants, gyroscopic stabilization, exhaust vanes, fuel-cooled chambers, and fast turbopumps, all concepts he’d tested or patented in painstaking, protracted isolation.
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Doctor’s Orders
The alpha trap had caught others before him. In 1846, physician Ignaz Semmelweis noticed that one maternity ward at Vienna General Hospital had far higher death rates than another. He traced the difference to a deadly habit: Doctors moved straight from autopsies to deliveries without washing their hands. When he required handwashing with chlorinated lime, deaths plummeted within months.
But the medical establishment resisted. Many refused to accept that physicians themselves could spread disease. Rejection embittered Semmelweis. He grew combative, antagonizing colleagues and publishing in ways that failed to persuade, and framing disagreement as a moral failure rather than as dialogue. Brilliant scientifically, he was disastrous socially. Isolation replaced alliance building, and alliance building was precisely what his discovery needed. In 1865, he died in an asylum, his ideas dismissed as delusions. Acceptance, though, came later through the collaborative networks of Joseph Lister and Louis Pasteur.
The same trait that lets an inventor defy consensus can also blind them to what they need next. When allies became essential, Semmelweis’s anger slowed adoption. When scale became essential, Goddard’s secrecy slowed diffusion. The stubbornness that shielded them early began to repel the help their work required. Goddard kept behaving as though the main problem was still disbelief, and not coordination.
Both men leave visionary and cautionary legacies. A NASA Center bears Goddard’s name despite his isolation; Semmelweis is remembered as the doctor who could have saved countless lives had he found a way to connect with his colleagues rather than combat them.
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We love to celebrate the lone genius, yet we depend on teams to bring the flame of genius to the people. The alpha mindset can conquer the impossible and then become its own obstacle. Both men were right about their breakthroughs. But ideas born in solitude must eventually live among multitudes. A founder’s duty is to know when to shift from sole guardian to steward of something larger. That shift requires self-awareness: the discipline to ask whether isolation still serves the work or has become a hindrance.
Escaping the alpha trap means treating stubbornness as an instrument, not an identity. Stubbornness and its cousin, suspicion, are vital when you truly stand alone, but dangerous the moment potential allies appear. Goddard’s dream touched the stars, but it took teams of others to lift it there. And that orchestral surge in Star Wars? It swells from the ensemble, not a single bold trumpet.
Even the folks behind generative AI writing are embarrassed at how bad it is, but Grammarly ripping off the voices of well-known modern writers is indicative of a much larger problem.
Grammarly turned people — both living and dead — into ghost editors
Apparently, Grammarly had a feature that encouraged users to rip off other well-known writers’ styles. TechCrunch has a great piece on it, in which you find out that Grammarly would offer “expert review” — sans experts. It seems that, as you wrote, the tool would pop in and suggest revisions from the perspective of experts. Of course, the experts in question, like Platformer’s Casey Newton didn’t know this was happening. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
Thousands of people packed the ballroom of the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square for CanJam NYC 2026, the largest headphone show in North America. From the moment the doors opened each morning last weekend, the listening tables were surrounded three and four deep with enthusiasts waiting to hear the latest gear. And yet, walking the show floor for even ten minutes revealed something that would have sounded ridiculous just a few years ago: wired headphones are becoming even more popular?
Which makes the debut of the Grado Signature S550 Open-back Headphones feel less like nostalgia and more like a statement about where serious listening is headed next.
Grado Signature S550 Open-back Headphones at CanJam NYC 2026
Some audiophiles and the Head-Fi crowd will undoubtedly scoff at the headline. To many of us who never abandoned cables in the first place, the idea that wired headphones are “back” is almost comical. We kept using them while the rest of the world drowned in a tidal wave of Bluetooth earbuds, ANC travel cans, and disposable wireless gadgets that needed charging every few hours.
But something interesting is happening outside the audiophile bubble.
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Even the mainstream media is starting to notice. A feature published this week by BBC argued that the cable may actually have the advantage again, noting bluntly that “wired headphones offer better sound quality than Bluetooth” and avoid many of the compromises inherent in wireless audio transmission.
That realization was impossible to ignore at CanJam NYC 2026. The crowds weren’t just clustered around wireless experiments or streaming gear. They were lining up to hear wired headphones and IEMs from companies like Grado, Audeze, HiFiMAN, Meze, Campfire Audio, and dozens of smaller builders pushing the limits of what a simple cable and a great driver can do.
And when the Grado table unveiled the Signature S550, the reaction from the crowd made one thing clear.
The cable never really died.
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It just waited for people to remember what better sound actually feels like.
Grado Signature S550 Arrives as the Cable Refuses to Die
Grado Signature S550 Open-back Headphones
Grado Labs continues to expand its Signature Series with the $995 Signature S550, an open-back dynamic headphone that sticks closely to the company’s long standing Brooklyn playbook while introducing a slightly more relaxed tonal balance. As the fourth model in the Signature line, the S550 carries forward the core Grado philosophy: low mass dynamic drivers, fast transient response, and a presentation that favors speed, clarity, and immediacy over studio safe politeness.
The shift this time comes down to voicing.
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Where some Grado models lean forward and a little impatient, the S550 pulls back just enough to add a touch more warmth and a smoother top end while preserving the punch and energy the brand is known for. Having already spent time with the Signature S950, which impressed with its control and refinement, the S550 feels like a slightly more forgiving interpretation of the same formula designed for longer listening sessions.
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Under the hood sits Grado’s 50mm S2 dynamic driver, paired with an all wood open back enclosure. Instead of launching an entirely new driver platform, Grado focused on refining how the existing S2 interacts with the acoustic behavior of the wooden housing. The goal is simple and very Grado: preserve speed, detail, and openness while nudging the tonal balance toward a warmer and more approachable presentation.
The S550 also introduces Grado’s new detachable Silver cable, a welcome shift away from the brand’s historically stubborn fixed leads. Each earcup uses a 4 pin balanced mini XLR connector, allowing users to swap cables depending on their source. The included cable terminates in 3.5mm with a 6.3mm adapter, making it easy to pair with portable players, desktop DAC amps, and traditional headphone outputs.
Pad rolling is still very much part of the Grado experience. The S550 ships with new B cushions, but remains compatible with the company’s S, F, L, and G pads, each subtly reshaping soundstage width, bass weight, and treble energy.
Grado Signature S550
On paper, the numbers are solid. The S550 uses a 38 ohm driver with 112dB sensitivity, frequency response rated from 6 Hz to 44 kHz, total harmonic distortion under 0.2 percent at 100dB, and an impressively tight 0.005dB driver matching tolerance. Weight comes in at 335 grams without the cable, which keeps it manageable for a full size open back design.
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This is not a headphone that demands a nuclear reactor for amplification. With its high sensitivity and moderate impedance, the S550 should play nicely with portable DAPs, desktop DAC amps, and even competent integrated amplifier headphone stages.
When I walked into CanJam NYC 2026 about twenty minutes before the show officially opened, Rich Grado spotted me immediately and waved me over.
“Sit down. Get comfortable. Don’t touch anything quite yet.”
Classic Brooklyn hospitality.
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Geshelli Labs ARCHEL3 Pro Amp and J3 Pro DAC
The listening chain was courtesy of Geshelli Labs, and because I showed up early, I had a rare window with the S550 before the show floor turned into chaos.
Getting there early wasn’t exactly optional. NJ Transit’s ongoing “infrastructure improvements” — which is a polite way of saying the weekend trains run whenever they feel like it, forced me onto a much earlier ride from the Jersey Shore. For once, their mistakes worked in my favor.
Nu? Think Warm Bialy and Black Coffee, Not Extra Hot Pastrami
So how did the Signature S550 actually sound?
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Different. Immediately different from the S950.
Grado’s claim about a calmer voicing holds up. The S550 doesn’t jump forward the way some of the brand’s more aggressive models can. It’s still unmistakably Grado, but the edges are rounded just enough to make the presentation feel more relaxed and a little warmer. That said, I’m willing to wager the Geshelli Labs signal chain had a hand in that as well.
Bass was tight and well controlled, never bloated. The open back design still allowed for surprisingly good passive isolation, which helped keep the focus on the music even as the room started filling up. Comfort was solid too. The headband felt supportive, and the weight distribution didn’t create any pressure hotspots during the session.
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Vocals came through smooth and clean. Maybe even a little too smooth at times, though again that could easily be the system voicing. The top end had zero hardness, which is not always a given with Grado if the pairing isn’t right.
Where the S550 really clicked was with rock, electronic music, and jazz. Electric guitars had bite without turning sharp, electronic tracks had pace and structure, and jazz recordings carried that sense of space and flow that open back designs tend to handle well when the tuning is right.
My instinct says these will respond well to a brighter or more analytical amplifier and DAC, something that pushes a bit more illumination into the upper registers. That’s already on the list for when the review sample arrives, which should be happening soon.
One thing feels clear after hearing them.
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Grado is firing on all cylinders right now.
And that’s exactly what needed to happen. The wired headphone category is more competitive than it’s been in years, with serious pressure coming from Audeze, Meze, HiFiMAN, and a growing number of boutique builders.
One more thing before the vinyl crowd starts emailing me.
Headphones aren’t the only thing Grado has cooking this quarter.
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If you’re the type who still flips records instead of swiping playlists, you might want to pay attention to what’s coming next. Brooklyn isn’t done yet.
Editor’s note: GeekWire publishes guest opinions to foster informed discussion and highlight a diversity of perspectives on issues shaping the tech and startup community. If you’re interested in submitting a guest column, email us at tips@geekwire.com. Submissions are reviewed by our editorial team for relevance and editorial standards.
At a meeting in San Francisco a few months ago, an icebreaker asked where we’d live if we could live anywhere in the world. I was the only one in the room whose answer was the same place I already call home. Over the years, opportunities have tried to entice me away, and I’ve turned down offers worth multiples of what I was earning to stay. I’m certain I’d have been in a position to be affected by a higher tax bracket sooner if I had followed them, but I’m equally certain it would not have made me happier.
My relationship with Washington started when I fell in love with Seattle during a visit in 2004. Shortly after, I moved to Alaska, co-founded my first company, and when it was acquired by a Seattle startup in 2006, my dream of living here came true. That move changed my life. It landed me in a place that felt alive with lush beauty, non-ostentatious ambition, and a kind of defiantly clever creativity, all surrounded by pioneers building new things that mattered. In high school and college I had followed the story of Microsoft and the early engineers who helped create an entire technology ecosystem. At the same time I of course loved the music coming from the Seattle scene. Washington felt like a place where innovation could coexist with culture, where a generation of makers and artists fostered the foundations of the next. Twenty years of living here later, that still feels true.
I’ve done pretty well here. I’ve founded companies here and worked alongside venture capitalists at Madrona Venture Labs and Pioneer Square Labs and seen firsthand how startup ecosystems actually work. For years I hoped I might someday be able to invest myself, and now I can. I’m excited to keep participating in the same cycle of building that drew me here in the first place. But one of the things I love most about this region is that it’s never been just a tech ecosystem.
Some of the people I care most about in this community are artists, musicians, and creatives. They shape the culture and spirit of this place in ways no economic model can capture. As someone who has benefited enormously from working in technology and AI, I feel a real responsibility to support the broader community that makes this region vibrant. Honestly, it’s that community that has kept me from burning out during the hardest stretches of my career.
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That’s why my view on Washington’s proposed tax on very high incomes is simple: if I’ve found myself in the position of making that much in a year, I can afford to contribute a little more to the place that helped make that circumstance possible.
As someone who started my career in Georgia, a red state that does have personal income taxes, it’s always struck me as strangely backward that we don’t. People here have long pointed out that Washington’s tax system is among the most regressive in the country. In that context, and after observing the past 20 years of attempts at a fix, the proposed wealth tax feels like one of the few realistic ways to make the system more balanced.
Is the proposal perfect? Of course not. Washington’s laws and constitution make this kind of policy exceptionally hard to design. But as I once heard at a talk at Y Combinator in 2008, perfect is the enemy of good enough, and sometimes good enough is the enemy of at all. “Imperfect” is not a compelling argument for doing nothing forever.
I’m certainly not an expert on this topic. But I also don’t think my job is to pretend I know more about tax design than the people whose job is to work on it. We elect legislators to make difficult tradeoffs in public and represent the interests of the entire community. I take that process seriously and trust democratic representatives far more than I trust whatever pithy inflammatory argument happens to be boosted by algorithms on social media. Governing, like building companies, is iterative. We try things. We improve them. If something doesn’t work, we fix it or elect new people and try again. We act with agency.
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I keep hearing that taxes like this will drive founders and business away, that investors will leave, that Washington will stop being a place where ambitious or creative people build things. Whether or not you can scrounge up data to support that case, I’m at best skeptical. But for me at least, as someone who has actually started companies, that just feels obviously wrong.
Founders don’t decide where to build by researching marginal tax rates. They build from their homes, in coffee shops or garages, where their supportive friends and collaborators live. They build where their community is. They build where their loved ones can live and where they can survive the grind of years of stressful and uncertain work. Building a company is too consuming and too personal to optimize around a hypothetical line item on a spreadsheet of imagined future outcomes.
One of the things I love most about Washington is that it doesn’t feel like a place that belongs to just one kind of person. It’s beautifully wild, culturally and environmentally diverse, and a little weird in the best ways. It has quirky cities and cozy neighborhoods, incredible scenery and nature, and a long tradition of people showing up to build things, have them literally burn down, and rebuild them one story up. In investor parlance this is our unfair advantage. People will keep moving here because of all of our natural assets. Some will start companies. Some will work at successful ones. Some will sell shovels. Some will strike gold.
What I care about for myself is that finding wealth here comes with a sense of reciprocity. If someone becomes extremely highly compensated in Washington and decides that a reasonable tax on their very high income means they no longer want to be part of this place, fine! That’s their choice. I’m certainly not leaving. Some have said “just donate.” I do. But anyone who has run a business knows that one-time lump sums are not the predictable source of funds required to plan a future and sustain an ecosystem.
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It’s worth saying that obviously supporting this proposal doesn’t mean I wouldn’t mind some changes. I’d especially like to see clearer connections between new revenue and the quality-of-life issues that determine whether Washington remains livable: housing, transportation, education, and the ability for people from many backgrounds and situations to stay rooted here. We should measure and adjust accordingly.
Ultimately for me, it comes down to this: I feel lucky to be here. A thriving community pulled me into this region and gave me the chance to build new things, work alongside investors I respect, among wonderful and creative people I love, and eventually become someone who can pay it forward. I benefited from what earlier generations built here and I feel responsible to the next. This is just my personal perspective. I can’t speak for everyone affected by this policy proposal or even for those who hope that one day they might. But if my circumstances and lifestyle make it easy to afford to contribute more to the place that helped shape the best years of my life, I think I should.
And if this proposed bug fix to a design flaw in our revenue collection code is enough to make someone give up on Washington, sell the boat, and move to Florida, cool. Personally, I’d be happy to invest in the next cohort of folks who love it here as much as I do and want to build a life in this magical place.
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