Oppo has officially launched the Enco Air 5 Pro TWS earbuds in India, featuring premium audio, robust active noise cancellation, and long battery life. The new earbuds are designed for users who listen to music, attend calls, travel frequently, or stream content daily. Oppo is offering the earbuds in Matte Black and Pearl White.

Oppo Enco Air 5 Pro Specifications and Features

The Enco Air 5 Pro earbuds feature up to 55dB of Active Noise Cancellation for a quieter, more focused listening experience. Oppo claims the earbuds can reduce noise across a broad 5,000Hz frequency range, helping block voices and background sounds more effectively. Adaptive ANC automatically adjusts noise cancellation based on the user’s environment. The earbuds have also received TUV Rheinland certification for high-performance noise cancellation.

Oppo has added a triple-mic system to the earbuds for better call quality. The AI-backed noise cancellation feature focuses on the user’s voice while lowering unwanted environmental sounds. The earbuds are claimed to deliver clearer calls even in windy conditions or busy outdoor areas.

For audio performance, Oppo uses the Enco Air 5 Pro with 12mm titanium-coated drivers to deliver deeper bass, balanced vocals, and detailed sound. Hi-Res Audio certification, as well as the LHDC 5.0, ensure high-quality audio signal transmission. Oppo also features Alive Audio, which provides a broader, richer sound experience for music, streaming, and gaming.

The Enco Air 5 Pro offers up to 54 hours of combined battery life along with the charging case. The earbuds alone can run for up to 13 hours on a single charge with selected settings. Fast charging support is also available, and a 10-minute charge can deliver enough power for long listening sessions. Oppo notes that battery life may vary depending on whether ANC or high-resolution LHDC audio is enabled.

Price and Availability

Oppo has launched the Enco Air 5 Pro in India at a price of Rs 4,999. The earbuds are currently available for pre-order on Oppo India’s official website, with official sales beginning on May 28, 2026.

Purported images of Apple’s clear cases for the iPhone 18 range are causing unfathomable excitement for how different the MagSafe markings are.

There’s a strong chance you never noticed this, and perhaps quite a strong one that you’d now have to look at these images to spot the difference. Yet if you cared about this, you apparently cared a great deal and the latest clear-case leaks may be making you happy.

While there’s no confirmation of this at the time of writing, it’s claimed that images of the new cases have been circulating on Chinese social media. But wherever they are being shown or circulated, there are images that claim to be of the new Apple clear cases.

Previously on Apple’s clear iPhone cases… the company had a circle image on the back to show you where to position the phone for MagSafe charging. For the iPhone 17 range’s clear cases, Apple scrapped that in favor of nothing very much.

Instead of a circle or a sometimes broken circle, the clear cases had a large white region. It was mostly rectangular, though since this is Apple, the corners were neatly rounded.

Left: a new purported iPhone 18 range clear case. Right: Apple’s current model. Image credits: MyDevices (r) and Apple (l)

It made no difference to how MagSafe works, and there was no special reason it had to happen just because the MagSafe magnets were lowered.

Only, it did mean that if you had this clear case, it wasn’t really all that clear at all. Whatever color iPhone you had bought, it was chiefly covered by that white region.

This is why new reports showing the iPhone 18, iPhone 18 Pro, and iPhone 18 Pro Max clear cases have gotten some attention. The large white panel is seemingly gone, and the old circle or broken circle is back.

Reports of the new images were first spotted by MacRumors via Chinese news site MyDrivers.

There is the argument that a clear case ought to actually be clear, and it’s true the one for the iPhone 17 range was not.

But perhaps Apple was saving users from revealing they’d bought the horrible orange, or perhaps pink, color iPhone.

The Boys wrapped its five-season run just two days ago, and Prime Video is already keeping the hype train moving. The first trailer for Vought Rising, the prequel spinoff set in 1950s New York City, just arrived – and it looks promising.

The show follows a young, wide-eyed Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) suiting up for the very first time, teaming up with a fresh squad of supes who believe they’re a gift from God. Spoiler: they’re not!

What is Vought Rising about? The Boys prequel trailer explained

The trailer wastes no time establishing its world. Vought Rising is set around the creation of the first-ever superhero team, powered by V-One. It is the early version of Compound V, the drug that awakens superpowers in people.

You’ll recognize the Sage Grove Center from The Boys season 2, where Vought ran brutal experiments on psychiatric patients. Here, it’s shown in its earliest form, with an unnamed character played by Jorden Myrie being injected with V-One and breaking out of containment.

This detail carries more weight when you factor in Vought’s Nazi roots and notice who is being experimented on. Back when V-One was first developed, Vought’s public-facing heroes were predominantly white, while their test subjects were Black men. It’s a dynamic that mirrors the Isaiah Bradley arc from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, where an all-Black unit was used to try to replicate the serum behind Captain America‘s powers.

The cast includes Mason Dye’s Bombsight, Will Hochman’s Torpedo, and Elizabeth Posey’s Private Angel. Aya Cash returns as Clara Vought, better known as Stormfront. She is the secret Nazi villain from season 2 who co-leads the series with Ackles.

Can Vought Rising win back The Boys fans who are disappointed by the finale?

A lot of fans (including me) felt burned by season 5, which spent a big chunk of its runtime setting up Vought Rising rather than nailing its own landing. Soldier Boy dominated screen time across the season only to end up right back on ice, with nothing truly resolved for his character. It felt like a bait-and-switch.

The cancellation of Gen V, the interesting college-set spinoff that never got its third season, only deepened the frustration. The combination of letdowns makes it reasonable to approach Vought Rising with caution. The trailer, though, is hard to dismiss on its own merits.

The 1950s aesthetic is sharp, the production looks distinctly stylish, and there is a sense of renewed identity this universe badly needs. Vought Rising is also one of two planned spinoffs, the other being The Boys: Mexico, led by Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, which is still early in production.

Vought Rising arrives on Prime Video sometime in 2027, and how it lands could shape the future of this entire universe.

The merchandise website of FBI director Kash Patel was taken offline on Friday after reports that it had been hijacked by hackers trying to infect visitors with malware, as first reported by Straight Arrow News.

As of this writing, the website of Based Apparel is offline. On Thursday, an X user who goes by Debbie posted that the brand’s website apparently had malware on it, in particular an infostealer, a type of malicious software designed to infect victims and steal their credentials and passwords. A security researcher later analyzed the malware. 

Brand Apparel could not be reached for comment. TechCrunch emailed a Gmail address previously associated with Patel, but we have not received an answer.  

This was not a good week for security for MAGA-associated business ventures. 

On Friday, President Trump’s cellphone provider and maker of Trump Mobile confirmed that the company left customers’ personal information exposed online, including names, email addresses, mailing addresses, cell numbers, and order identifiers. The confirmation came days after a researcher alerted two YouTubers who had purchased Trump Mobile’s phone, that their personal data was exposed on the internet. 

Over three decades, I’ve watched consumer behavior evolve across television, search, and social media. Each shift changed tactics, but not the underlying logic of decision-making.

What I am watching happen right now is different. And I know I am not alone. Every seasoned marketing professional I speak to, whether they built their career in offline media or digital platforms, says some version of the same thing: something fundamental has shifted, and the old playbooks are no longer working the way they used to.

This is not just a platform change. It is a psychological one. For the first time in my career, I am watching users move from searching for information to seeking certainty, and that distinction changes everything.

When Behavior Was Predictable

I remember the era when a celebrity’s face on a television screen was essentially a guarantee. Brand loyalty tracked closely with fan loyalty. If your brand ambassador had a devoted following, that following would follow them to your product. It was a simple, time-tested formula: attention creates association, association creates purchase. And it worked, consistently, for decades.

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When the internet arrived, it digitized that predictability rather than dismantling it. Google and Yahoo turned discovery into a structured, keyword-driven system. Users searched, engines returned ranked results, and businesses that showed up at the top of those results won the customer. For the better part of a decade, through multiple algorithm updates, through the rise of paid search, through the SEO arms race, the core principle held: be visible, and you will be chosen.

Both eras rewarded the same thing: reach. Who could get in front of the most people, most often? That question shaped marketing strategy for nearly thirty years.

What Has Actually Changed

The change I am describing is not about which platform is winning or losing. It runs deeper than that, it is about how people make decisions.

Celebrity credibility has eroded in a way it simply had not before. It is not that people distrust celebrities, it is that modern consumers understand the commercial ecosystem they operate inside. They know that an endorsement is a transaction. And with global information available at their fingertips at all times, they also know that a single endorsement is not a sufficient reason to spend money.

Younger consumers in particular, Gen Z and late millennials, have moved almost entirely toward first-hand experience. Their own experience, or that of someone in their immediate circle, their age group, their specific context. Not someone famous. Someone relatable. And even then, they verify.

The online and offline distinction has also largely dissolved. A consumer who sees a product in a store will pull out their phone before they put it in their cart. A consumer who hears a recommendation from a friend will cross-check it before acting on it. The behaviors that once lived in separate worlds, browsing a physical shelf, reading an online review, asking a peer, now happen simultaneously, fluidly, and constantly.

What the Research Showed Me

To test whether what I was observing professionally reflected broader behavioral patterns, I ran an in-person field survey from mid-2025, nearly 500 people, not a formal academic study, but a deliberately diverse one: college students, working professionals, homemakers, and retirees across different age groups and economic backgrounds. The results confirmed the pattern I had been sensing.

Among 16 to 20 year olds, 87% said their primary trust for purchase decisions sits with friends, parents or teachers, people in their immediate circle. In the 21 to 30 age group, 73% blend peer input with social media and select individuals they follow, but 96% of that same group said they re-verify suggestions before acting on them. Nearly everyone. Among 31 to 40 year olds, 65% exhibit similar verification behavior. Even in the 41-and-above segment, 44% now follow the same pattern, slower adoption, but the same direction.

The common thread across every age group: trust is no longer accepted. It is earned and then verified. Consumers of every generation have become active validators, not passive recipients.

Are LLMs an Innovation or a Response to Market Pressure?

Looking at technology history, a pattern emerges roughly every ten to fifteen years: radio gave way to television, television to the internet, the internet to search engines, search engines to social media. Each revolution did not just create a new platform, it changed how buyers behaved. Which means, if you are a marketer trying to understand the AI era, the first question is not “how do I optimize for this platform?” It is “how has buyer behavior changed, and why?”

The rise of large language models – ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and others, is a direct response to the psychological shift I have been describing. These tools did not create the verification instinct in modern consumers. They answered it.

Traditional search engines offered a list of options and left the user to sort through competing claims. LLMs synthesize. They aggregate information from multiple sources and return a structured answer. For a consumer whose instinct is to verify, cross-check, and reach certainty before deciding, that is not just convenient, it is exactly what they were already trying to do, done faster.

Here is the insight that I think gets missed: the tech giants who have invested most aggressively in this space – OpenAI, Google, Microsoft – were not motivated purely by innovation. They understood something more uncomfortable. The audience that once lived on their platforms was fragmenting. Attention was splitting across social media, e-commerce platforms, and dozens of other channels. LLMs are, in part, a strategic attempt to re-aggregate that audience under a single, trusted interface.

They are not building these tools because they want to. They are building them because remaining passive risks losing the next interface layer of the internet.

And that changes the stakes considerably. Because an LLM that users trust enough to make purchase decisions through is an LLM that must remain unbiased. The moment users sense commercial favoritism in a recommendation, they abandon it, and move to the next tool that feels more neutral. The entire value proposition of these platforms depends on being perceived as trustworthy.

What This Means for Brands

The shift from visibility to credibility is not a subtle one. In the old paradigm, a brand that showed up frequently enough and loudly enough would eventually be chosen. In this paradigm, showing up is necessary, but nowhere near sufficient. If your brand cannot survive the moment a potential customer decides to verify your claims, through an AI tool, peer networks, reviews, or independent sources, you are unlikely to remain in the consideration set.

A useful example of this shift can be seen in how consumers now make even relatively small purchase decisions. A user may first discover a product through TikTok or Instagram, search for reviews on YouTube, cross-check opinions on Reddit, compare alternatives through Google, and finally ask ChatGPT or Perplexity to summarize the best option before purchasing. What matters is not the number of platforms involved, but the behavior itself.

Another example: Take a procurement manager evaluating CX outsourcing vendors. They may first encounter a shortlist through an AI Overview, cross-check reviews on Clutch, G2 or Trustpilot, look for case studies on the vendor’s site, scan Reddit or industry forums for unfiltered opinions, and finally ask ChatGPT to compare the top options. A company that has invested in verified reviews, documented case studies, and third-party editorial coverage survives that journey. One that hasn’t, doesn’t.

Consumers are no longer relying on a single source of authority. They are building confidence through layered verification, and for brands, that behavioral shift has a concrete consequence.

Practically, this means thinking less about impression count and more about information integrity. Are your claims verifiable? Are you consistent across every surface a user might check – your website, third-party reviews, forum discussions, AI-generated summaries? Is there enough legitimate, high-quality information within trusted ecosystems for an LLM to surface your brand accurately? These are not marketing questions. They are infrastructure questions.

Most brands are still optimizing for the old game: reach, frequency, creative impact. The ones pulling ahead are doing something different. They are making themselves easy to trust at the exact moment a skeptical consumer decides to look closer, not by being louder, but by having nothing to hide when someone does.

The Deeper Shift

What I keep coming back to, after everything I observed in my survey and in three decades of watching markets move, is that the underlying human need has not changed. People have always wanted to feel certain before they commit. What has changed is the threshold for that certainty, and the speed at which they expect to reach it.

Search has not become less important. It has become more decisive. Increasingly, users are not looking merely to explore; they are looking to reduce uncertainty quickly. And if your brand cannot be part of that moment, in a way that holds up to scrutiny, then in that specific moment of decision, your brand simply does not exist.

That is a harder problem than getting your SEO right. But it is also a more honest one, because it forces brands to ask not just “how do I get found?” but “do I deserve to be chosen?”

In the AI era, that is the only question that actually matters.

from the follow-the-science? dept

As statehouses ramp up for 2026, we’re seeing a familiar and concerning trend of lawmakers rushing to regulate the internet based on shockingly shaky science. From the California State Assembly to the Massachusetts and Minnesota legislatures, a wave of bills is crashing against the digital lives of young people, with proponents of these measures framing social media access as a “public health epidemic,” or a “mental health crisis,” even though we have yet to see any of the settled science that those labels usually invoke.

As a digital rights organization dedicated to the civil liberties of all users, EFF’s expertise lies in reminding lawmakers that young people enjoy largely the same free speech and privacy rights as adults. EFF is not a social science research shop, but we can read the emerging research. What that research shows is much more nuanced than what is claimed by those proposing to ban young people from social media, and it is clear that research and theories used to justify these sweeping bans is far from settled. The rush to ban access to digital platforms is being fueled by “pop psychology” narratives and a collection of statistically flawed studies that do not meet the rigorous standards required for such a massive infringement on youth autonomy and constitutional rights.

The Lie of A “Settled” Consensus

The current legislative push relies heavily on a specific, media-friendly narrative that the “great rewiring” of the adolescent brain is a proven fact. This theory suggests that smartphones and social media are the primary, if not sole, drivers of a global uptick in teen anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self harm, etc. While this narrative makes for a compelling airport-bookstore read, it quickly collapses under the scrutiny of the broader scientific community.

Independent researchers, including developmental psychologists from institutions like the University of California, Irvine, and Brown University, have repeatedly found that the evidence for such claims is mixed, blurry, and often contradictory. Large-scale meta-analyses covering dozens of countries have failed to show a consistent, measurable association between the rollout of social media and a decline in global well-being. In reality, we are seeing a classic case of what many of our middle school science teachers warned us about: “correlation” being sold as “causation.”  

Additionally, the studies used to support these measures often fail to account for or exclude significant alternative explanations for rising teen anxiety and depression, such as the lasting impact of pandemic-era isolation, the persistent threat of school gun violence, and mounting economic or climate-related stress. By focusing narrowly on social media, these findings frequently overlook the broader societal factors that also impact youth mental health.

The Cult of the “Anxious” Expert

The current push for blanket social media bans relies almost exclusively on the work of Jonathan Haidt, particularly his book The Anxious Generation. While Haidt is an amiable and brilliant storyteller, he is not a clinical psychologist or a specialist in child development. He is a social psychologist who writes about moral psychology at a business school. Nonetheless, the book has made it to every Best Seller list, and with Haidt revered as an expert on podcasts with massive reach, like Oprah, Joe Rogan, Michelle Obama, and Trevor Noah—his message has been heard by a large subset of society, which primarily relies on: no smartphones or social media before age 16, phone-free schools, and more “unsupervised, real-world independence.”

To highlight Haidt’s reach when it comes to legislation banning social media: the California committee analysis for the proposed California social media ban mentions Haidt 20 times; the Governor of Utah promoted the book as a “must-read” months before signing the nation’s first social media ban; Haidt is cited in bill analysis for the bill banning social media in Florida; his work is mentioned in a federal bill aiming to ban phones in schools; and he provided formal testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee (Subcommittee on Technology, Privacy, and the Law) in May 2022. 

While Haidt’s research has been paramount to legislation stripping millions of young people of their rights to expression and connection, his conclusions are not without challenge, and many experts in the field argue that the evidence is less than ironclad. 

The “Bad Science” Fueling Social Media Bans

While we can admit that Jonathan Haidt’s “great rewiring” theory makes for a gripping narrative, we cannot ignore that independent researchers and statisticians have identified significant flaws in the data used to justify it. Which means we are currently watching policymakers legislate blanket bans based on evidence that would be rejected in almost any other field of public health.

The reality is that research has consistently disproven the oft-assumed link between social media use and poor mental health in youth, and actually indicates that moderate internet use is a net positive for teens’ development, and negative outcomes are usually due to either lack of access or excessive use. In one major study of 100,000 adolescents, a “U-shaped association emerged where moderate social media use was associated with the best well-being outcomes, while both no use and highest use were associated with poorer well-being.” We also know that young people’s relationship with social media is complex, as it provides them essential spaces for civic engagement, identity exploration, and community building—particularly for LGBTQ+ and marginalized youth who may lack support in their physical environments. 

But again, the image Haidt presents in his book is increasingly at odds with the broader academic consensus. As mentioned, critics argue that the evidence for the mental health impacts of social media is mixed, blurry, and often misinterpreted. NYU statistics expert Aaron Brown, writing for Reason, notes that many of the studies in Haidt’s exhaustive reference list are statistically unreliable or fail to show a strong causal link. Prof. Candace Odgers, a leading voice in psychological science, explains the “selection effect” that legislators often ignore:

“Hundreds of researchers, myself included, have searched for the kind of large effects suggested by Haidt. Our efforts have produced a mix of no, small and mixed associations. Most data are correlative. When associations over time are found, they suggest not that social-media use predicts or causes depression, but that young people who already have mental-health problems use such platforms more often or in different ways from their healthy peers.”

This raises a fundamental question of legislative responsibility: If the science is not settled, how can legislators confidently declare a “public health crisis” to justify stripping away young people’s First Amendment rights? By bypassing the rigorous, nuanced findings of the scientific community in favor of a more convenient narrative, legislators are choosing emotion over evidence. Before imposing such draconian restrictions on young people’s access to information, policymakers have an obligation to do the heavy lifting: to dig into the actual research and listen to the experts who are sounding the alarm on oversimplified conclusions.

The Dangers of “Social Contagion” Narrative

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Haidt’s crusade is its overlap with ideological rhetoric that pathologizes the identities of marginalized youth, and how that makes its way through efforts to ban social media for youth. A recurring theme in the literature favored by proponents of social media bans is the idea of “social contagion“—specifically regarding the rise in young people identifying as transgender or non-binary. Haidt dedicates an entire chapter of his book to this (ch.6, pt 3, p. 165), talking about “Why Social Media Harms Girls More Than Boys,” stating that: 

“The recent growth in diagnoses of gender dysphoria may also be related in part to social media trends, […] the fact that gender dysphoria is now being diagnosed among many adolescents who showed no signs of it as children all indicate the social influence and sociogenic transmission may be at work as well.”

These harmful theories suggesting that social media is “infecting” young people with gender dysphoria are false and not supported by peer-reviewed clinical research. But by legitimizing “experts” who promote these debunked theories, legislators—especially those in states like California who pride themselves on being a sanctuary for LGBTQ+ youth—are inadvertently platforming the same rhetoric used in other states to ban gender affirming care for youth. This “social contagion” narrative is a tool of exclusion, not a scientific reality, and we must be wary of any “public health” argument that treats community-building and self-discovery among marginalized young people as a “purported mental illness” spread via TikTok.

A Better Path: Digital Wellness, Not Bans

Fortunately, there is a measured, evidence-based alternative already emerging. California’s A.B. 2071, for instance, is a student-authored “digital wellness” bill that offers a measured, evidence-based alternative rather than prohibition. The bill advocates for a curriculum that teaches students how to manage algorithms, recognize cyberbullying, and regulate their own relationship with technology. Instead of trying to completely shield young people from social media, education-based approaches empower young people and have the benefit of providing skills that stay with a young person long after they leave the classroom. 

JustLeadershipUSA, a criminal justice organization, has a slogan that rings true in this instance too: “Those closest to the problem are closest to the solution.” So let’s start listening to what our young people are asking us for—more education—instead of imposing paternalistic, disempowering bans.

Legislating With Precision instead of Emotion 

Adolescent mental health struggles are a complex, multifaceted crisis. It is a crisis that has existed for as long as time, and has been driven by economic instability, the opioid epidemic, the threat of school violence, amongst other issues. To pin all of society’s woes on a smartphone app is not just a scientific error; it is a policy failure that ignores the real, material needs of young people both online and off.

Legislators must stop legislating as “anxious parents” and start acting as measured policymakers. Because for some youth, social media platforms are a lifeline. UNICEF and other global human rights organizations have warned that age-related restrictions and blanket bans can backfire in three critical ways: isolating marginalized youth (like LGBTQ+ youth, students in rural areas, foster youth, or those with disabilities) who social media is often the only place they can find a supportive community; necessitating invasive mass collection of biometric data or government-issued IDs from all users, including adults; and pushing young people toward less-regulated, “darker” corners of the web where content moderation is non-existent and the risks of actual exploitation are significantly higher.

Legislators have a valid interest in protecting children, but that interest must be pursued through tailored, measured approaches. We cannot allow emotions or a collection of flawed data sets to justify a historic rollback of digital rights. 

Reposted from the EFF’s Deeplinks blog.

Filed Under: addiction, harm to children, jonathan haidt, protect the children, research, social media

Makers often look for computing devices that fit their daily routines rather than forcing routines to fit the devices. When Jankbu needed a new machine, he decided against buying a ready-made laptop. He spent months designing and assembling a cyberdeck around a Raspberry Pi 5 that delivers reliable power for browsing, running design software, and handling workshop tasks.

The main display here is a 10.1 IPS touchscreen that is mounted on a clever vertical sliding mechanism that folds down to cover the keyboard when you park the device. It’s lovely and firm, thanks to the use of steel linear rods and linear bearings; there’s no wobble in sight. The display connections are routed through a tiny cable chain repurposed from CNC machines. That way, they won’t be pinched or strained as the screen moves. The designers worked through multiple versions to get it perfect, and it shows in the smooth and consistent action you get.

Nintendo Switch 2 System

• The next evolution of Nintendo Switch
• One system, three play modes: TV, Tabletop, and Handheld
• Larger, vivid, 7.9” LCD touch screen with support for HDR and up to 120 fps

The base is a full-depth mechanical keyboard that is extremely comfortable to type on even after several hours of use. Large grab grips on the sides make it simple to move this thing about your desk. One side has bespoke scroll controls laid out in both directions, while the other has a trackball made from a Logitech Trackman Marble component that they hacked together. Buttons on the screen have a very simple arrangement, much like the industrial panels you see all the time, so you can get to what you need quickly without having to navigate menus.

This device runs on NP-F batteries, which are also used in camcorders. There’s no need to shut down to change them out, and you get a live voltage display right on the front so you can know how much runtime you have left at a look. The entire power module simply slides in and connects via the rail system, allowing for quick replacement in the field. Modularity is an important aspect of how this device is put together, since the entire chassis is lined with NATO rails, allowing you to clip on or clip off modules without getting out the tools. They also carry power and data connections, so the bits you add on communicate directly with the main board. Long story short, it’s incredibly simple to add more storage or switch in alternative sensors or ports depending on the job.

The printed parts are constructed of a particular form of polycarbonate combined with chopped up carbon fiber strands. It’s good enough to leave in a hot car without becoming soft and losing its shape, and it provides the stiffness required for a genuine chunky-feeling build. Some of the high-stress components, such as the handles and trackball housing, were machined from blocks of aluminum to provide additional strength where it is needed.

Project files are available on GitHub for anyone who wants to look at the design, print their own parts, or simply experiment with it to see if it works for them. There’s still a lot of work to do on the finishing touches, but as it stands, this device functions as a functional, repairable computer that is entirely yours. Every aspect demonstrates how intelligent choices can transform a Raspberry Pi into something that is ready for serious work, rather than just a flashy display.
[Source]

Patients who use mobile applications to manage medical conditions including depression and chronic pain might assume the apps have been evaluated by regulatory agencies to be safe and effective. But that isn’t necessarily the case.

Most of the more than 55,000 medical apps that claim to diagnose or treat a condition—or ones that provide clinical decision support, known as “therapeutic” apps—have never been assessed by any trusted neutral bodies or regulatory agencies to evaluate them for technical soundness, ethical design, or clinical benefit. The apps often don’t comply with regional data security and privacy laws to protect people’s sensitive health information.

Medical apps differ from traditional wellness apps, which provide users with insights into becoming healthier by, for example, tracking fitness activities, monitoring blood pressure, and analyzing sleep patterns.

There is no reliable way to verify that therapeutic apps deliver the results they indicate. To help ensure such apps are credible, the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE SA) recently launched the IEEE Global Medical Mobile App Assessment and Registry. The publicly searchable directory is designed to list apps that have been vetted by experts across several criteria including technical soundness, ethical design, compliance with data security and privacy regulations, and clinical efficacy, which is evidence of a clinical benefit for the patient.

“Patients, clinicians, payers, and health care systems often struggle to distinguish clinically meaningful therapeutic apps from those that are simply well-marketed,” says IEEE Senior Member Yuri Quintana, chair of the assessment and registry program. He is chief of the clinical informatics division at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston. “Our goal is to establish a standardized review method using criteria developed by experts.”

Why regulation is lacking

Because the apps are intended for medical use without being part of a medical implement, they fall under the designation of software as a medical device (SaMD), according to the International Medical Device Regulators Forum. SaMD is supposed to be regulated by public health agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but the apps have developed and grown in popularity so quickly that regulators haven’t been able to keep up, Quintana says. Some companies have received approval, but most have not, he says.

Many users are unaware of the regulatory gap, he says.

“Seeing an app from a well-known company often creates the impression that it has been meaningfully vetted for safety and efficacy, even when that is not the case,” he says.

Some companies are using deceptive advertising to sell their product, he adds. Marketing materials might claim that all of a company’s health apps are certified, even though only one app has been approved by a regulatory body to treat a particular condition. Or the verbiage might imply the company has clinical evidence proving its application works, even though the app has never been tested independently.

Another concern is that updated apps aren’t being vetted, says Maria Palombini, IEEE SA’s director of health care and life sciences global practice lead.

“The original app might have received approval from a regulatory agency, but not the updated version,” Palombini says. “There could have been significant changes from the original.”

“Not every medical-related app triggers the same regulatory classification or review across jurisdictions,” Quintana adds. “That leaves a large gray zone of clinically relevant but lower-risk apps that haven’t undergone an independent assessment. The IEEE registry was created to help fill these gaps.

“IEEE is the best organization to address this problem because this is fundamentally a standards, trust, interoperability, and conformity assessment challenge,” he says. IEEE “is the world’s largest technical professional organization, with deep expertise in developing globally recognized standards including in health care, cybersecurity, AI ethics, and interoperability.”

“Through the IEEE Conformity Assessment Program, we already run rigorous assessment and registry programs,” Palombini says. “Our neutral, consensus-driven, multidisciplinary approach—bringing together clinicians, regulators, developers, and ethicists without commercial bias—makes IEEE uniquely positioned to create trustworthy global guardrails that can scale across jurisdictions and support regulatory harmonization.”

How the registry works

The assessment framework was developed by a multidisciplinary group of 35 volunteer experts from 10 countries, Quintana says. The panel includes academics, AI experts, app developers, clinicians, ethicists, mental health experts, patient advocates, regulators, researchers, technologists, and those who assess safety in health care.

The registry is for any app used for clinical care or therapeutics that claims to demonstrate a medical benefit. That includes apps designed for cardiology, diabetes, mental health, neurology, oncology, rehabilitation, and respiratory diseases, Quintana says.

Initially, he says, the focus will be on apps that aim to treat mental health conditions, given the large number of offerings in that area and the registry committee’s expertise.

The submission of apps is voluntary. There is no government mandate that requires a company to use the IEEE registry.

The products will be evaluated against about 150 consensus-based criteria across three major areas:

• Clinical efficacy including therapeutic effectiveness, any sustained benefits, risk management, comparison to standard care, user engagement, and real clinical value.
• Technical soundness including accessibility, privacy and security, error handling, interoperability, AI governance, usability, and operational quality.
• Ethical design including bias prevention, patient consent, data governance, conflict-of-interest transparency, responsible use of AI and large language models, and prioritization of public health benefits.

IEEE charges a nonrefundable submission fee that covers the cost of the assessment plus the registry’s annual subscription for the first year.

Developers first must demonstrate they are a legally established entity before they can complete the app publisher registration form and then submit documentation and attestations about the product.

The IEEE review of an app is estimated to take six to eight weeks, Palombini says. The assessment results will be privately shared with the app publisher, she says, and to be listed in the registry, an app must achieve more than 85 percent compliance in each category.

Upgraded apps must be submitted and reassessed, Palombini says. Similar to how users are notified when an app on their smart devices has , the registry will be notified when listed apps have a new update available, she says.

Applicants who do not pass the assessment are to receive feedback explaining why. They will be given an opportunity to make changes or provide additional documentation, Palombini says.

“It’s a pretty methodological process, with checks and balances,” Quintana says. “We’re being very transparent about the process.”

Approved apps added to the registry receive an IEEE certification badge and submission identifier, which the company can display on its website, app store listings, and marketing materials.

“The badge serves as visible proof that the app has met the independent, consensus-based assessment for clinical value, technical robustness, and ethical design,” Quintana says.

The registry will be publicly available at no cost, he says.

Patients and families seeking safe, trustworthy apps—and payers and insurers evaluating reimbursement potential—will find the registry helpful, he says.

The application website is open. The public registry page does not yet list a specific count of approved apps because assessments are ongoing. Approved apps and their unique identifiers are to be published when the initial reviews are completed.

To learn more, you can watch a webinar recorded in March.

The assessment framework that underpins the registry is supporting the formal recognition of IEEE P3962 Standard for Criteria Assessment Framework f