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Why Apple Vision Pro’s $3,500 price is actually a selling point
We know Apple Watch saves lives, but did you know Apple Vision Pro is helping surgeons save lives? Harry McCracken reports for Fast Company that Apple’s Vision Pro is gaining traction in healthcare, particularly in surgery and medical training.
Surgeons at UC San Diego Health have used the headset to streamline operating room displays, reducing physical strain and improving workflow. Meanwhile, Sharp HealthCare has launched a Spatial Computing Center of Excellence and is hosting a summit with 300 attendees exploring Vision Pro’s potential in surgery, medical education, and beyond.
Apple’s Susan Prescott shared that even Apple has been surprised by how the medical field has adopted Apple Vision Pro. Perhaps even more surprising is what makes Apple Vision Pro effective in the operating room: its price.
more…Canada will retaliate against Trump with tariffs on US goods
Canada will set its own tariffs against US goods in retaliation to broad 25 percent tariffs President Donald Trump announced Saturday on Canadian imports. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a 25 percent tariff on a total of $155 billion worth of American goods — $30 billion of that on Tuesday when Trump’s tariffs go into effect, then an additional $125 billion after 21 days. Trudeau also warned that the US tariffs will harm both countries’ economies, particularly the auto industry. “This is a choice that, yes, will harm Canadians, but beyond that, it will have real consequences for you, the American people,” he said in a press conference Saturday.
Trudeau offered a “far-reaching” list of products that would be subject to import taxes, including American alcohol, orange juice, clothing, appliances, lumber, and plastics, along with “much, much more.” Non-tariff moves like reexamining public procurement policies are also on the table. However, he said that actions like limiting energy exports would require more careful consideration because “no one part of the country should be carrying a heavier burden than any other.”
The sweeping US tariffs, which include a lower 10 percent tariff on energy products from Canada, are a major shift in trade policy between the two countries. Trump claims the tariffs — which he also imposed on Mexico, and increased on goods from China — are meant to incentivize these countries to stem the flow of illegal fentanyl into the US.
The US tariffs include a clause seeking to prevent retaliation, outlets including The Wall Street Journal report, which would increase the penalties should the countries impacted impose their own tariffs. Despite this, Trudeau says that Canada’s new tariffs “are strong but appropriate in this case, and we will continue to defend Canada, Canadians, and our future.”
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The CDC’s Website Is Being Actively Purged to Comply With Trump DEI Order
Large parts of the CDC’s website and several important databases were taken down on Friday and Saturday to comply with Trump’s executive orders banning DEI content. Saturday, a message at the top of the CDC’s home page said the website “is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
CDC websites and databases taken offline include the CDC Atlas, the CDC Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, a CDC website about HIV treatment, and the CDC Social Vulnerability Index. Some of these removals were earlier reported by NBC News. Some of the pages were replaced with messages that read “Page Not Found or Temporarily Unavailable” or “The page you're looking for was not found.” There was widespread uncertainty throughout Friday as to whether a broader takedown across the government would happen.
“Our team’s government affairs firm is advising that as of 5pm today, all U.S. government agency websites will be taken down,” an internal email obtained by 404 Media earlier Friday read. “According to reports, agencies are unable to comply fast enough with President Trump’s EO ordering all government entities to remove all DEI references from their websites, so these websites will be taken offline. There is no word on when they will be made available again.”
At 5pm Friday, however, no widespread, cross-government takedowns happened. Throughout the day Friday and Saturday, however CDC pages continued to disappear. Saturday, a message at the top of the CDC’s website said “CDC’s website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
404 Media has reported on U.S. government pages about gender identity were taken down; that GitHub commits showed the Trump administration scrubbing government web pages in real time; and how archivists are working to save thousands of datasets disappearing from Data.gov.
Some federal contractors and federal employees spent much of Friday afternoon panicking about the deletions, and there was uncertainty about what would be taken offline and how widespread the takedowns would be. A CDC employee that 404 Media granted anonymity to speak about sensitive issues said that they were told by the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer of the Department of Health and Human Services that all employees were told they had to delete their preferred pronouns from their email signatures by 5 PM Friday.
Agencies were also ordered to “review all agency programs, contracts, and grants, and terminate any that promote or inculcate gender ideology” and to “take down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) that inculcate or promote gender ideology,” with a deadline of 5 PM Eastern Friday. Agencies were forced to “send an email to all agency employees announcing that the agency will be complying with Defending Women and this guidance.” Agencies have been ordered to create a report within the next week that includes “a complete list of actions taken in response to this guidance.” The specific executive order is Trump’s “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (Defending Women).”
A similar message was posted to Reddit earlier on Friday. “We are being told that the CDC website is scheduled to go down by EOD today. Please share this with your partners and encourage them, as well as you should plan to download any significant information,” it reads.
There have been several efforts to archive data that already existed across the federal government, including the End of Term Archive, a volunteer effort that saved hundreds of terabytes of data before Trump was inaugurated.
9to5Mac Overtime 039: The story of Nomad w/ co-founder and CEO Noah Dentzel
Nomad co-founder and CEO Noah Dentzel joins us to discuss the company’s early beginnings, the product development process, success, and learning experiences.
9to5Mac Overtime is a weekly video-first podcast exploring fun and interesting observations in the Apple ecosystem, featuring 9to5Mac’s Fernando Silva & Jeff Benjamin. Subscribe to Overtime via Apple Podcasts and our YouTube channel for more.
more…The NTSB chooses Elon Musk’s X to update the press on plane crashes
The National Transportation Safety Board will only update the press about the plane crashes in Washington, DC and Philadelphia on X — not over email, as reported earlier by The Desk. The agency announced on Saturday that it will use its @NTSB_Newsroom account to share ”news conferences or other investigative information.“
The NTSB later said, “Reporters should email [email protected] for all other inquiries,” claiming that it was meant to “better manage the volume of” emails about the two incidents n. “The NTSB media relations team has always used Twitter/X to inform the media and public on the time and location of media briefings. We cannot respond to every email asking for the details of media briefings,” the NTSB said, without explaining the process behind the decision or why an agency would rely solely on one privately owned social media platform.
At the same time, the US Department of Defense is also removing major outlets, like NBC News, The New York Times, NPR, and Politico, from their dedicated workstations in the Pentagon, according to a report from NBC. Instead, the DoD will impose an “annual media rotation program” that will replace the outlets with conservative-leaning ones, like One America News Network, the New York Post, and Breitbart. It also includes HuffPost even though it doesn’t have a Pentagon correspondent, NBC notes.
The Trump administration is targeting media networks in other ways, too, as the Federal Communications Commission ordered investigations into NPR and PBS over their financial sponsors.
US tariffs: how Trump’s tax is impacting big tech and beyond
President Donald Trump has announced that he’s imposing a tariff on goods from some of the US’s biggest trade partners: Canada, Mexico, and China. Under the executive orders signed on February 1st, Canada and Mexico will face a 25 percent tariff, while goods from China will be subject to a 10 percent tax. Energy resources from Canada will also have a lower 10 percent tariff.
Trump positioned the tariffs as a way to “halt the flood of poisonous drugs into the United States,” referring to fentanyl. The change will have a big impact on the cost of a wide variety of goods imported from each country, including electronics, produce, clothing, and much more.
Though Trump previously said the tariffs will “enrich” citizens, consumers are expected to bear the brunt of the fees as they typically lead to higher prices. Here’s all the latest news on Trump’s tariffs.
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X expands lawsuit over advertiser ‘boycott’ to include Lego, Nestlé, Pinterest, and others
X is now suing more advertisers in an antitrust lawsuit focusing on what the company’s CEO Linda Yaccarino has claimed is a “systematic illegal boycott.” The company formerly known as Twitter first filed the lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers and its brand safety initiative the Global Alliance of Responsible Media in August 2024. […]
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Trump imposes sweeping tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China
The US is officially imposing tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China. President Donald Trump announced that goods imported from Mexico and Canada will face a 25 percent tariff, while goods from China will face a 10 percent tariff. There will also be a lower 10 percent tariff on energy resources from Canada. In a series of posts on X announcing the tariffs, the administration claimed they were happening to “hold China, Mexico, and Canada accountable for their promises to halt the flood of poisonous drugs into the United States” while repeatedly referencing fentanyl.
The tariffs are set to go into effect on Tuesday, February 4th, according to The New York Times. They’re expected to have an impact on a huge swath of goods, ranging from the electronics we use every day to necessities like clothing, pharmaceuticals, and lithium batteries.
With tariffs in place, the company importing the goods is the one that pays the additional fee — not the exporting country, as Trump has often claimed. These additional fees are typically passed to the consumer in the form of higher prices.
“This was done through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) because of the major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs killing our Citizens, including fentanyl,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “We need to protect Americans, and it is my duty as President to ensure the safety of all.”
Tariffs were one of Trump’s major campaign promises, and he’s floated additional ones, like a tax on semiconductors from Taiwan. (He’s also made threats against Denmark and Colombia.) During Trump’s inauguration speech, the president said he will “immediately begin the overhaul” of the US trade system. “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens.”
Update, February 1st: Added information about timing.