The US government has increased the use of monitoring tools over the past decade. But President Donald Trumps employee purges are making workers worry about how their data could be abused.

Elon Musk is willing to spend a phenomenal amount of money and basically do everything he can to stay with the head of the pack on A.I. progress.

MacworldWith the launch of the iPhone 16e, Apple discontinued the iPhone 14 and SE 3 as expected. Upon learning that the new entry-level iPhone now starts at a staggering $599 (up from $429), I was certain Apple would discount the iPhone 15 to around $499effectively replacing the SE model for budget-conscious buyers. Boy, was I wrong. Instead, Apple has the courage to keep selling the iPhone 15 at the same $699 price. It makes no sense.The iPhone 15 and 16e share many specsFrom afar, the iPhone 16e may seem a bit dated compared to the iPhone 15. It is tainted by the controversial notch, packs a single rear camera, and costs $100 less. In reality, both phones share many internal specs and the same main set of features users typically expectincluding the universal USB-C connector.Despite being cheaper than the iPhone 15, the all-new 16e model offers a similar 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display, letting you consume crisp media and view true black levels. The two iPhones are also built from aluminum and glass, boasting the same IP68 rating for water and dust resistance. So, in terms of durability and everyday scrolling, the iPhone 15 and 16e are essentially comparable.Given how outdated the iPhone SE 3s rear camera is, the 16es single-lens setup may scare off potential buyers. Well, worry not, as Apple has equipped it with a 48MP camera, similar to that included with the iPhone 15. So, you can capture 4K video at 60fps, emulate 2x optical zoom without sacrificing the 12MP output quality, take portraits, etc. Your Instagram Stories wont look grainy, and your followers wont mistake it for an Android.Similarly, both the iPhone 15 and 16e pack a 12MP TrueDepth camera, enabling Face ID, Memoji, slo-mo video recording, HDR support, and more. So, the selfies you take on either device should look the same. The two iPhones both have a base storage of 128GB, and you can opt for 256GB or 512GB.Apple iPhone 16eAdvanced features at a lower priceWhile the iPhone 15 and 16e are built on the same foundation, they naturally feature exclusive perks. Surprisingly, the more affordable iPhone 16e includes newer technology absent from the 2023 model.For starters, its powered by Apples (binned) A18 chip, featuring 8GB of RAM, 6 CPU cores, 4 GPU cores, and 16 Neural Engine cores. Consequently, the iPhone 16e supports the full Apple Intelligence suite, including Writing Tools, Image Playground, ChatGPT integration, Genmoji, and more. For reference, the iPhone 15 packs an A16 chip, barring it from running Apples AI system.The iPhone 16e replaces the classic mute switch with the multifunctional Action button, a feature missing from the iPhone 15. So, you get to remap the key to execute custom shortcuts, including conditional tasks that adapt to your location, time of day, and other factors. You can even have it initiate Visual Intelligence, a perk curiously missing on the capable iPhone 15 Pro models.The iPhone 16e gives you the Action Button, the iPhone 15 does not.FoundrySpeaking of chips, the iPhone 16e is the first to pack Apples C1 modem. While this may sound like an insignificant tidbit aimed at geeks, it actually could impact casual users daily lives. Thanks to its improved power efficiency, the iPhone 16e boasts the longest battery life among 6.1-inch iPhones. According to Apples claims, the iPhone 15 and 16e can play video on a single charge for up to 20 hours and 26 hours, respectively.Another noteworthy iPhone 16e perk you wont find on the iPhone 15 is the Audio Mix feature. With this utility, you can control the audio of your video footage to highlight a specific speaker or ambient noise. Coupled with wind noise reduction, you can create better-sounding content without necessarily relying on professional microphones.FoundryInsignificant iPhone 16e no-showsIt goes without saying that the pricier iPhone 15 also packs some features that are excluded from the 16e variant. However, theyre arguably not worth the above-mentioned trade-offs and $100 upcharge.Perhaps the most noticeable omission is the Dynamic Island, which keeps Live Activities visible at all times. As an alternative, you could simply check the Notification Center or Lock Screen on your iPhone 16e.Another iPhone 16e absentee is the Ultra Wide lens, which enables the 0.5x zoom on the iPhone 15. This lets users capture more subjects or elements within the cameras frame. While a useful addition, its hardly essential, and many users rarely take advantage of it.If you buy an iPhone 15, you wont get Apple Intelligence featurescurrent or future.FoundryIn the video department, the iPhone 15 supports the Action and Cinematic modes. The former stabilizes shaky videos, while the latter adds a depth of field to your footage for subject isolation. Both features are usefulI personally rely on thembut choosing the more affordable iPhone 16e means going without them.Otherwise, the iPhone 15 offers the U2 Ultra Wideband chip for Precision Finding and the mmWave technology for superior connectivity. Still, the iPhone 16e offers standard 5G and Find My functionality, so you shouldnt be missing out on much.A more notable con is the lack of embedded magnets, meaning the iPhone 16e doesnt natively support MagSafe and is limited to Qi wireless charging. It also misses out on the vibrant color options and only comes in white and black. Fortunately, MagSafe cases can remedy both flaws on the iPhone 16e.Discount or discontinue the iPhone 15Considering the pros and consand factoring in the price differencethe iPhone 16e clearly offers more value for less money. While the iPhone 15 does have a few exclusive features, they simply dont compare to the iPhone 16es future-proof A18 processor. As Apple rolls out more AI-powered tools with iOS 19 and beyond, the iPhone 15 will only become less relevant, as it wont support any of them.If youre not looking to spend $799 on an iPhone 16, the $599 iPhone 16e is the obvious choice. At $699, I cant recommend the iPhone 15 to a single category of customers. Apple should have either dropped its price to $499 or discontinued it entirely.

MacworldI suppose the verdict will vary depending on who you ask, but the iPhone 16e is a disappointment to me. I thought we were going to get a budget phone with surprisingly good specs. Instead, we got a mid-priced phone with some surprisingly bad features. And its all Apple Intelligences fault.But things could have been so different. Apples AI platform was always going to cast its shadow over this launch, but it seemed possiblelikely, eventhat it would be one of those nice positive shadows. The shadow of a cactus giving solace to a parched cowboy in the desert, perhaps.Apple Intelligence is one of Cupertinos key business priorities at the moment, so it has to be a success. For strategic reasons, therefore, its imperative that any new iPhones support the platform, which requires high specs of at least 8GB of RAM and an A18 processor. Those specs seem like a godsend for customers: What a wonderful motivating factor when it came time to replace the 3rd-gen iPhone SE, which has just 4GB of RAM and an A15 chip. Thank you, Apple Intelligence!As we now know, it didnt work out like that. Apple did replace the 3rd-gen iPhone SE with a phone equipped with those specs, but it didnt keep the price at $429 or anywhere near. It announced instead that the entry-level phone would start at $599. Now, technically we cant describe this as a price hike, because the new handset has been explicitly branded as a member of the iPhone 16 generation, and to be fair, it has far more in common with those phones than the departed SE.Its no mistake that Apple Intelligence occupies one of the biggest boxes.AppleSo, rather than set out to build an AI-infused iPhone SE, Apple built the iPhone 16e around the necessary Apple Intelligence specs and then shaved off just enough features to hit a reasonable price point. As such, Apple has given up on the budget market entirely, the exact opposite of what I meant when I wrote recently, and optimistically, about the power of accessibility.Its also worth pointing out that, along with Apple Intelligence, the iPhone 16e has plenty of compromises, the sort of compromises we would have expected and accepted from a $429 device, but which seem oddly stingy when it starts at $599. Theres just one camera on the rear, of course. (Fun fact! Apples first phone with two cameras on the rear was the iPhone 7 Plus in 2016. It added a third to the 11 Pro in 2019. But sure, why expect a $599 iPhone in 2025 to have more than one camera?)You also miss out on the iPhone 16s Camera Control, you get a notch instead of a Dynamic Island, and theres one fewer core on the GPU. All of these were expected and even understandable. But Apple has also decided not to include MagSafe, which is a big disappointing surprise (and, Apple insists, unrelated to the C1 modem).What Im getting at is that this phone is somehow both more expensive and less impressive than I was expecting, and Im not happy. Apple Intelligence is fine, but it doesnt make up for what the iPhone 16e sacrifices. Maybe this will all make sense in a years time, when the iPhone 17e comes out, the 16e can get a price cut, and the range shuffles back to some kind of normality. Maybe I was naively optimistic not to realize that the inevitable spec bump would be accompanied by an inevitable price jump. And maybe, just maybe, this is yet another thing we can blame on AI.

Tech press-landi and the tech blogosphere were abuzz last week with news that both Apple, the company that makes the iPhone, and Meta, the company that makes everybody on Facebook confront a daily flood of horrible AI-generated slop, are making full-size, humanoid robots.The trouble is, theyre not doing that. Heres whats really happening.Dont call Apples robot the iRobotTF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuowrote on the X social networkon Feb. 12 that Apple is exploring both humanoid and non-humanoid robots for its future smart home ecosystem.According to Kuo, these products are in the proof-of-concept stage and will enter production in 2028 or later.Apples proof-of-concept stage for any possible product direction is exactly what it sounds like. Theyre exploring possibilities, and in that exploration, theyre already leaning away from the humanoid robot, based on the very limited information we have.Kuo said in his tweet that Apple uses the word anthropomorphic instead of humanoid because it cares more about user perception of the device rather than its form. Even at this very early stage, Apple is already banning the H-word internally.The experimental lamp robotI wrote about recentlyuses humanlike body language but is shaped like a lamp. Its anthropomorphic but not humanoid. Apple is investing in a systematic exploration of robots that express themselves in reaction to a human user without that robot looking anything at all like a person and even without robot speech.Apples first robot will likely be an Apple HomePod that moves. Internally code-named J595, the device has been described by leakers as having an iPad-like display at the end of a robotic arm that tilts, rotates, and moves. It locates and faces the user during their interactions or when the user is making a FaceTime call using it. Based on Apple Intelligence, the gadget might be used for controlling smart home devices and security systems.One reasonable expectation is that Apples research for making home appliances anthropomorphic but not humanoid will be applied to the device. That research, which I detailed last week, is called ELEGNT. But its not just a science project. ELEGNT is a framework for designing movement in non-anthropomorphic robots. It combines functional attributes (like task efficiency) with expressive qualities (such as conveying intention, attention, and emotions) to create a better user experience.Apple reportedly aims to launch the tabletop robot by 2026 or 2027, with an estimated price of around $1,000.When will it ship the humanoid robot Kuo held out as a possibility? Theres no evidence to suggest Apple ever will. I think its extremely unlikely.No humanoid robot coming from Meta, eitherThose claiming that Meta is planning humanoid robots arent reading the fine print, either.Whats really happening is that Meta has formed a new team inside its Reality Labs hardware division headed by Marc Whitten (former CEO of self-driving car company Cruise) to work on developing sensors, AI and other software; those products can then be sold to companies building humanoid robots, such as Unitree Robotics and Figure AI, according to reporting by Bloomberg. Meta apparently believes in the vision of consumer robots, the size and shape of people, who cook, clean, and mow the lawn.Why would the social networking company formerly known as Facebook want to be involved in creating Rosey the Robot? The answer can be found in an internal memo written by Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth and seen by Bloomberg: The core technologies weve already invested in and built across Reality Labs and AI are complementary to developing the advancements needed for robotics. We believe that expanding our portfolio to invest in this field will only accrue value to Meta AI and our mixed and augmented reality programs.My own fear is that,given the Meta tools I written about before including tools where social media users can clone themselves and have AI avatars interact with followers Meta might want to extend this paradigm into the real world and have robots interacting with others in the real world on behalf of Meta customers.Building robots can only accrue value to Meta AI and our mixed and augmented reality programs if users are seeing through the eyes of their robot avatar using Meta mixed-reality glasses.(Meta is very much one of those torment nexus companies that scour 20th-century dystopian sci-fi looking for bad ideas to make real.)How to understand the Applebots and MetadroidsWhats really happening here is that Apple is just being Apple, and Meta is just being Meta as we slide into the Age of Robotics.Apple wants to use robotics technologies to improve the user experience of its consumer electronics, delighting users with friendly, responsive products via AI and robotics.Meta wants to use robotics to get people to socially network with non-human entities, possibly by having cameras and sensors in the home that can harvest personal data.One of the big challenges for both companies is personnel. The companies compete with hundreds of other companies and universities for rare robotics talent. Its likely this is one reason Apple is publishing research like the ELEGNT project its a way to get robotics researchers interested in working for the company.But as surprising as these companies entry into the robot business may seem, its only surprising if you dont appreciate the impact robotics will have on the world over the next decade.The total value of the robotics market is projected to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars by 2035. Robots of varying kinds will appear in factories, offices, healthcare, and homes.The coming ubiquity of robotics is a near certainty. Whats far less clear is the form these robots will take. Will they be mechanical humans humanoid robots that directly assist and replace people just as people would? Or will everyday appliances simply become robotic? In other words, will our lawns be mowed by more advanced versions of todays automated mowers, and our floors swept and mopped by more advanced versions of todays home-cleaning robots? Or will a humanoid robot push a mower and use a mop?Certainly both, right? In the meantime, the major Silicon Valley companies need to compete for robotics engineers and designers so they can set themselves up for success in the future, and figure out where their missions align with whats possible in future products.Of course, Apple and Meta are working on and investing in robotics and, for that matter, so are Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and all the usual suspects. Theyd be irresponsible not to.The robots are coming. And if Silicon Valley wants to stay relevant, theyre going to need robots of their own.But dont expect humanoid robots to be built and sold by either Apple or Meta.

This article first appeared in The Checkup,MIT Technology Reviewsweekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first,sign up here.Yesterday marks a month since the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th US president. And what a month it has been. The Trump administration wasted no time in delivering a slew of executive orders, memos, and work notices to federal employees.On February 18, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to make IVF more accessible to people in the US. In some ways, the move isnt surprisingTrump has expressed his support for the technology in the past, and even called himself the father of IVF while on the campaign trail last year.Making IVF more affordable and accessible should give people more options when it comes to family planning and reproductive freedom more generally. But the move comes after a barrage of actions by the new administration that are hitting reproductive care hard for people around the world. On January 20, his first day in office, Trump ordered a 90-day pause in United States foreign development assistance for such programs to be assessed. By January 24, a stop work memo issued by the State Department brought US-funded aid programs around the world to a halt.Recent estimates suggest that more than 8,000 women will die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth over the next 90 days if the funding is not reinstated.On January 24 Trump also reinstated the global gag rulea policy that requires nongovernmental organizations receiving US health funding to agree that they will not offer abortion counseling and care. This move alone immediately stripped organizations of the funding they need to perform their work. MSI Reproductive Choices, which offers support for reproductive health care in 36 countries, lost $14 million as a result, says Anna Mackay, who manages donor-funded programs at the organization. Over 2 million women and girls would have received contraceptive services with that money, she says.The US Agency for International Development (USAID) had a 2025 budget of $42.8 billion to spend on foreign assistance, which covers everything from humanitarian aid and sanitation to programs promoting gender equality and economic growth in countries around the world. But the stop work memo froze that funding for 90 days.The impacts were felt immediately and are still rippling out. Clinical trials were halted. Jobs were lost. Health programs were shut down.I think this is going to have a devastating impact on the global health architecture, says Thoai Ngo at Columbia Universitys Mailman School of Public Health. USAID is the major foreign funder for global health Im afraid that there isnt [another government] that can fill the gap.Reproductive health care is likely to lose out as affected governments and health organizations try to reorganize their resources, says Ngo: In times of crisis women and girls tend to be deprioritized in terms of access to health and social services.Without information on and access to a range of contraceptive options, unintended pregnancies result. These have the potential to limit the freedoms of people who become pregnant. And they can have far-reaching economic impacts, since access to contraception can improve education rates and career outcomes.And the health consequences can be devastating. Unintended pregnancies are more likely to be ended with abortionspotentially unsafe ones. Maternal death rates are high in regions that lack adequate resources. A maternal death occurred every two minutes in 2020.Its difficult to overstate how catastrophic this freeze has been over the last several weeks, says Amy Friedrich-Karnik, director of federal policy at the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization focused on global sexual and reproductive health and rights. Every single day that the freeze is in place, there are 130,000 women who are being denied contraceptive care, she says.The Guttmacher Institute estimates that should USAID funding be frozen for the full 90 days, around 11.7 million women and girls would lose access to contraceptive care, and 4.2 million of them would experience unintended pregnancies. Of those, 8,340 will die from complications during pregnancy and childbirth, says Friedrich-Karnik.By denying people access to contraception, not only are you denying them tools for their bodily autonomyyou are really risking their lives, she says. Thousands more women will die down the road.USAID plays such a central role in supporting these life-saving programs, says Ngo. The picture is bleak.Even online sources of information on contraceptives are being affected by the funding freeze. Ben Bellows is a chief business officer at Nivi, a digital health company that develops chatbots to deliver health information to people via WhatsApp. Two million users have used the bot, he says.He and his team have been working on a project to deliver information on contraceptive options and family planning to women in India, and they have been looking to incorporate AI into their bot. The project was funded by a company that, in turn, is funded by USAID. Like the funding, the work is frozen, says Bellows.Weve slowed [hiring] and weve slowed some of the tech development because of the freeze [on USAID], he says. Its bad [for] the individuals, its bad [for] the companies that are trying to operate in these markets, and its bad [for] public health outcomes.Reproductive health and freedoms are also likely to be affected by the Trump administrations cuts to federal agencies. The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been in the administrations crosshairs, as has the Food and Drug Administration.After all, the FDA regulates drugs and medical devices in the US, including contraceptives. The CDC collects and shares important data on sexual and reproductive health. And the NIH supports vital research on reproductive health and contraception.The CDC also funds health programs in low-income countries like Ethiopia. Following Trumps executive order, the countrys ministry of health terminated the contracts of more than 5,000 health workers whose salaries were supported by the CDC as well as USAID.Thats midwives and nurses working in rural health posts, says Mackay. Were turning up to support these staff and provide them with sexual reproductive health training and make sure theyve got the contraceptives, and theres just no one at the facility.So, yes, it is great news if the Trump administration can find a way to make IVF more accessible. But, as Mackay points out, its increasing reproductive choice in one direction.Now read the rest of The CheckupRead more from MIT Technology Reviews archiveLast November, two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned, 10 US states voted on abortion rights. Seven of them voted to extend and protect access.My colleague Rhiannon Williams reported on the immediate aftermath of the decision that reversed Roe v. Wade.Fertility rates are falling around the world, in almost every country. IVF is great, but it wont save us from a looming fertility crisis. Gender equality and family-friendly policies are much more likely to be effective.Decades of increasingly successful IVF treatments have caused millions of embryos to be stored in cryopreservation tanks around the world. In some cases, they cant be donated, used, or destroyed and appear to be stuck in limbo forever.Ever come across the term women of childbearing age? The insidious idea that womens bodies are, above all else, vessels for growing children has plenty of negative consequences for us all. But it has also set back scientific research and health policy.There are other WhatsApp-based approaches to improving access to health information in India. Accredited social health activists in the country are using the platform to counter medical misinformation and superstitions around pregnancy.From around the webThe US Food and Drug Administration assesses the efficacy and toxicity of experimental medicines before they are approved. It should also consider their financial toxicity, given that medical bills can fall on the shoulders of patients themselves, argue a group of US doctors. (The New England Journal of Medicine)Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new US secretary of health and human services, has vowed to investigate the countrys childhood vaccination schedule. During his confirmation hearing a couple of weeks ago, he promised not to change the schedule. (Associated Press)Some scientists have been altering their published work without telling anyone. Such stealth corrections threaten scientific integrity, say a group of researchers from Europe and the US. (Learned Publishing)The US Department of Agriculture said it accidentally fired several people who were working on the federal response to the bird flu outbreak. Apparently the agency is now trying to hire them back. (NBC News)Could your next pet be a glowing rabbit? This startup is using CRISPR to level up pets. Their goal is to eventually create a real-life unicorn. (Wired)

Maggie Barnidge, 18, has been managing cystic fibrosis her whole life. But not long after she moved out of her home state to start college, she came down with pneumonia and went into liver failure. She desperately wanted to get in touch with her doctor back home, whom shed been seeing since she was diagnosed as an infant and who knew which treatments worked best for herbut he wasnt allowed to practice telemedicine across state lines. The local hospital, and doctors unfamiliar with her complicated medical history, would have to do.A lot of what Maggie needed wasnt a physical exam, says Barnidges mother, Elizabeth. It was a conversation: What tests should I be getting next? What did my labs look like? She just needed her doctor who knew her well. But doctors are generally allowed to practice medicine only where they have a license. This means they cannot treat patients across state lines unless they also have a license in the patients state, and most physicians have one or two licenses at most. This has led to what Ateev Mehrotra, a physician and professor of health policy at the Brown University School of Public Health, calls an inane norm: A woman with a rare cancer boarding an airplane, at the risk of her chemotherapy-weakened immune system, to see a specialist thousands of miles away, for example, or a baby with a rare disease whos repeatedly shuttled between Arizona and Massachusetts.While eligible physicians can currently apply to practice in states besides their own, this can be a burdensome and impractical process. For instance, lets say you are an oncologist in Minnesota, and a patient from Kansas arrives at your office seeking treatment. The patient will probably want to do follow-up appointments via telehealth when possible, to avoid having to travel back to Minnesota.But if you are not yet licensed to practice in Kansas (and you probably are not), you cant suddenly start practicing medicine there. You would first need to apply to do so, either through the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (designed to streamline the process of obtaining a full license in another state, but at a price of $700 per year) or with Kansass board of medicine directly. Maybe this poses too great an administrative hurdle for youyou work long hours, and how will you find time to compile the necessary paperwork? Doctors cant reasonably be expected to apply for licensure in all 50 states. The patient, then, either loses out on care or must shoulder the burden of traveling to Minnesota for a doctors visit. The only way to access telehealth, if thats what the patient prefers, would be to cross into the state and log inan option that might still be preferable to traveling all the way to the doctors office. These obstacles to care have led to a growing belief among health-care providers, policymakers, and patients that under certain circumstances, doctors should be able to treat their patients anywhere.Lately, telehealth has proved to be widely popular, too. The coronavirus emergency in 2020 served as proof of concept, demonstrating that new digital platforms for medicine were feasibleand often highly effective. One study showed that telehealth accounted for nearly a quarter of contacts between patients and providers during the first four months of the pandemic (up from 0.3% during the same period in 2019), and among Medicare users, nearly half had used telehealth in 2020a 63-fold increase. This swift and dramatic shift came about because Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had passed legislation to make more telehealth visits temporarily eligible for reimbursement (the payments a health-care provider receives from an insurance company for providing medical services), while state boards of medicine relaxed the licensing restrictions. Now, more providers were able to offer telehealth, and more patients were eager to receive medical care without leaving their homes.Though in-person care remains standard, telehealth has gained a significant place in US medicine, increasing from 0.1% of total Medicare visits in 2019 to 5.3% in 2020 and 3.5% in 2021. By the end of 2023, more than one in 10 Medicare patients were still using telehealth. And in some specialties the rate is much higher: 37% of all mental-health visits in the third quarter of 2023 were telemedicine, as well as 10% of obstetric appointments, 10% of transplant appointments, and 11% of infectious-disease appointments.Telehealth has broadened our ability to provide care in ways not imaginable prior to the pandemic, says Tara Sklar, faculty director of the health law and policy program at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.Traditionally, patients and providers alike have been skeptical that telehealth care can meet the standards of an in-person appointment. However, most people advocating for telehealth arent arguing that it should completely replace visiting your doctor, explains Carmel Shachar, director of Harvard Law Schools Health Law and Policy Clinic. Rather, its a really useful way to improve access to care. Digital medicine could help address a gap in care for seniors by eliminating the need for them to make an arduous journey to the doctors office; many older adults find theyre more likely to keep their follow-up appointments when they can do them remotely. Telemedicine could also help address the equity issues facing hourly employees, who might not be able to take a half or full day off work to attend an in-person appointment. For them, the offer of a video call might make the difference between seeking and not seeking help.Its a modality that were not using to its fullest potential because were not updating our regulations to reflect the digital age, Shachar says.Last December, Congress extended most of the provisions increasing Medicare coverage for telehealth through the end of March 2025, including the assurances that patients can be in their homes when they receive care and that they dont need to be in a rural area to be eligible for telemedicine.We would love to have these flexibilities made permanent, says Helen Hughes, medical director for the Johns Hopkins Office of Telemedicine. Its confusing to explain to our providers and patients the continued regulatory uncertainty and news articles implying that telehealth is at risk, only to have consistent extensions for the last five years. This uncertainty leads providers and patients to worry that this type of care is not permanent and probably stifles innovation and investment by health systems.In the meantime, several strategies are being considered to facilitate telehealth across state lines. Some placeslike Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DCoffer proximal reciprocity, meaning that a physician licensed in any of those states can more efficiently be licensed in the others. And several states, like Arkansas and Idaho, say that out-of-state doctors can generally practice telemedicine within their borders as long as they are licensed in good standing in another state and are using the technology to provide follow-up care. Expanding on these ideas, some advocates say that an ideal approach might look similar to how we regulate driving across state lines: A drivers license from one state generally permits you to drive anywhere in the country as long as you have a good record and obey the rules of the road in the state that youre in. Another idea is to create a telemedicine-specific version of the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (which deals only with full medical licenses) in which qualifying physicians can register to practice telehealth among all participating states via a centralized compact.For the foreseeable future, telehealth policy in the US is locked in what Mehrotra calls hand-to-hand warfarestates duking it out within their own legislatures to try to determine rules and regulations for administering telemedicine. Meanwhile, advocates are also pushing for uniformity between states, as with the Uniform Law Commissions Telehealth Act of 2022, which set out consistent terminology so that states can adopt similar telehealth laws.Weve always advanced our technologies, like what I can provide as a doctormeds, tests, surgeries, Mehrotra says. But in 2024, the basic structure of how we deliver that care is very similar to 1964. That is, we still ask people to come to a doctors office or emergency department for an in-person visit.Thats what excites me about telehealth, he says. I think theres the potential that we can deliver care in a better way.Isabel Ruehl is a writer based in New York and an assistant editor at Harpers Magazine.

As usual for an Apple release, the online version of the Apple Store has temporarily gone offline, in preparation for preorders of the iPhone 16e.Apple's latest Store Down messageLaunched on February 19, the iPhone 16e is the latest iPhone in Apple's range. The spiritual successor to the iPhone SE, the new entry-level model will soon be available to preorder.During the announcement, Apple said preorders for the iPhone 16e start on February 21, with availability of the model from February 28. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

A new leak about the possible iPhone Fold includes yet another release schedule, and screen sizes that disagree with previous rumors.Render of a possible iPhone FoldIt has recently been reported that Apple was on the verge of choosing a manufacturer for a foldable display screen, although there are now always rumors about an iPhone fold. The latest one does back up previous claims that there won't be a folding iPhone until at least 2026, but otherwise it disagrees with the most recent rumors."Exclusive information, Apple's large folding, 5.49-inch outer screen is a bit like [the Otto] Find N, but it is shorter and fatter," writes "Digital Chat Station" on Weibo (in translation). "The 7.74-inch inner screen unfolds like an iPad." Rumor Score: Possible Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

For this week'scurated picksof architecture and design competitions listed on Bustler, we are featuring four calls seeking the best of Irish architecture across all types and scales, the exceptional design originating from the tri-state area, innovative designs for large underground structures, and proposals for the transformation of a historic Venetian villa into a sustainable, rural retreat.For the complete directory of newly listed competitions, clickhere.