Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is facing scrutiny over an affair with an alleged Chinese spy. Now, The New York Times reports that Mr. Huang also had an extramarital relationship with Kimberly Powell, the company's vice president of health care and a direct report, raising questions about conflicts of interest and compliance with the company's policies governing personal relationships. From the report: The relationship, which has not been previously reported, was with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia's vice president of health care, said the people, who spoke under the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive information. Under Nvidia's code of conduct, employees are told to "avoid situations where our actions create conflict" including "personal relationships," and the company states that it "promptly investigates reports of misconduct." Many corporations have policies against managers having relationships with subordinates.

Mr. Huang, 63, and Ms. Powell, 48, were captured on video being affectionate at a San Jose, Calif., hotel during a Nvidia conference in March, according to two of the people who worked at the company. The New York Times has not seen the video. Both Mr. Huang and Ms. Powell are married to other people. [...] One bystander captured the interaction on their phone, three people briefed on the incident said. Mr. Huang's security witnessed the bystander with their phone and sequestered them, the people said. They made the person an offer to sign a nondisclosure agreement. Further reading: Nvidia and Jensen Huang Face Shareholder Lawsuit Alleging Investors Were Misled About Spy Affair

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

United Airlines is banning unauthorized third-party AI agents from booking flights, checking in passengers or making account changes on travelers' behalf. CBS News reports: To make an airline booking, an AI agent requires access to a customer's personal information, including credentials like payment information. United has a problem with that, saying that "sharing account credentials with personal, third-party, AI assistants can expose sensitive information, and actions taken by these tools may result in unintended purchases, account changes, or use of MileagePlus miles."

The carrier also said that using an AI agent to, for example, check in for a flight could violate federal regulations, including rules requiring travelers to verify in person that their luggage does not contain banned substances. "As a result, United is taking steps to restrict access -- directly within our digital platforms and indirectly via travel agencies and aggregators -- to prohibit use by unauthorized, third-party personal AI agents or assistants," said the airline, which is updating its booking and ticketing policies to reflect the new rule. "United is saying they don't want to add yet another, and potentially even more powerful, intermediary than they already face in terms of Google search, price-comparison metasearch sites and online travel agencies," said Henry Harteveldt, an aviation analyst at Atmosphere Research Group. "Flight searches cost airlines money, and undoubtedly United wants to avoid the expense associated with the surge of AI bot flight searches."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ANTALYA (ANP) - Bij de klimaattop in Antalya zijn sinds zaterdag 87 privévliegtuigen geland, meldt Oxfam Novib. Dat zijn er nu al meer dan tijdens de hele klimaattop in Brazilië vorig jaar.

De aangekomen privéjets zijn goed voor zo'n 777 ton aan CO2, aldus Oxfam. Dat is vergelijkbaar met een vlucht van drie keer de wereld rond.

Volgens de hulporganisatie Oxfam Novib zijn privévliegtuigen zeer schadelijk voor het klimaat en neemt het gebruik van dat soort toestellen de afgelopen jaren alleen maar toe. Zo'n 250.000 mensen zouden vliegen met dat soort eigen vliegtuigen, oftewel 0,003 procent van de wereldbevolking.

"Het belasten van privéjets kan jaarlijks circa 45 miljard dollar opleveren, bijna twaalf keer zoveel als rijke landen in 2025 aan VN-klimaatfondsen hebben bijgedragen", aldus Hilde Stroot, klimaatexpert van Oxfam Novib. "Het is wat Oxfam betreft de hoogste tijd om het 'de vervuiler betaalt'-principe daadwerkelijk ten uitvoer te brengen, en de grootste en rijkste vervuilers hun eerlijke aandeel te laten betalen voor hun bijdrage aan de klimaatcrisis."

Oxfam wijst erop dat de gevolgen van klimaatverandering vooral in armere landen worden gevoeld, waar de inwoners juist minder bijdragen aan de uitstoot van broeikasgassen. Volgens de organisatie stoot een persoon uit de rijkste 1 procent van de wereldbevolking 34 keer meer uit dan een gemiddeld persoon.

JACKSON (ANP/AFP/RTR) - De Democraat Scott Colom heeft in de Amerikaanse staat Mississippi met een nipte meerderheid een senaatszetel binnengesleept bij de midtermverkiezingen, aldus Amerikaanse media, waaronder CNN en NBC. Daarmee is hij de eerste Afro-Amerikaan in Mississippi sinds meer dan 140 jaar die een plek in de Senaat verovert.

Colom (43) won van de zittende Republikeinse senator Cindy Hyde-Smith. Hij heeft volgens de laatste tellingen een voorsprong van 4500 stemmen.

Met de overwinning in Mississippi behalen de Democraten 55 zetels en de Republikeinen 44. Een zetel is nog onbeslist, die van Alaska.

Hyde-Smith feliciteerde Colom op X: "Hoewel dit niet de uitslag is waarop we hadden gehoopt, respecteer ik de beslissing van de kiezers in Mississippi", zei ze.

Zeker één persoon is om het leven gekomen toen een gebouw instortte in het New Yorkse stadsdeel Brooklyn, volgens de plaatselijke autoriteiten. Vier mensen werden in kritieke toestand naar het ziekenhuis gebracht en zes mensen hadden lichtere verwondingen.

De krant Daily Mail US meldde op X dat er zeker vier mensen onder het puin lagen. Volgens het plaatselijke medium PIX11 News werden er twee mensen vanonder het puin gered.

De oorzaak van het drama is nog onbekend. Volgens PIX11 werden naast het ingestorte gebouw sloopwerkzaamheden verricht en is het nog onduidelijk of die een rol hebben gespeeld.

In het gebouw woonden ook mensen. Het pand zou een "gebouw met gemengde functies" zijn geweest, aldus PIX11.

Russian cloud operator Yandex has admitted to data loss after a drone attack on one of its datacenters. The attack, which Ukrainian press said was ordered by Kyiv, happened in early October and caused a fire and subsequent outage at Yandex’s ru-central1-b availability zone. Subsequent strikes targeted more Yandex datacenters and disrupted more of the company’s cloud and payment services. On Tuesday, Yandex posted an update on its recovery efforts, which it spun as something of a triumph because it restored over 97 percent of customer data. Of course that also means the company lost 2.84 percent of customer data, which it blamed on “critical hardware damage and a lack of backups on the platform.” It’s unclear if Yandex’s use of the phrase “on the platform” indicates it doesn’t keep backups of its own cloud, if whatever resilience techniques it employs don’t create multiple copies of customer data, or if clients didn’t protect their data. Whatever happened, Yandex has decided to enable backups by default for all VMs customers create in its cloud. That decision will mean customers will consume and pay for more Yandex resources, unless they opt out of the automated backups. Given that drones damaged three Yandex locations, and the war with Ukraine continues, users have good reasons to consider alternatives to its services. Indeed, Yandex’s announcement of its recovery efforts links to a page extolling the virtues of a hybrid cloud when devising data protection strategies. That page also mentions Yandex’s own Stackland product, which brings its stack on-prem, as an example of a hybrid approach. On Wednesday the company also launched a new availability zone named ru-central1-f. Yandex didn’t say where it’s located, other than to say it’s in “a new location.” Interestingly, Yandex has imposed quotas that limit the amount of resources users can access in the new availability zone and says it can’t yet handle traffic to private endpoints at the new facility. Many nations have imposed sanctions that restrict sales of technology products to Russia. It’s therefore unsurprising that Yandex might struggle to provision enough infrastructure to allow untrammeled access to a new availability zone. ®

PARASOMA is a research project we're developing at NastPlas on the body an organism would have if it were formed by two biological systems in a stable association. What interests us is the boundary between them: one region densifies because it has to bear tension, another stretches into a membrane, an interface thickens until it becomes a compartment. We start from documented phenomena (lichenization, extracellular matrix, endosymbiosis, differential growth, structural color) and turn them into organizational rules. What comes out of those rules is speculation, and we keep it carefully separate from what has been established. None of these forms exist, but each one should be explainable. There are 21 open series. Each starts from a hypothesis, carries its own risk and its own palette, and we discard a lot. As the research moved forward, the rules started to feel too limited for a still image. So we developed two applications that are part of the project.

Fat Burns ☮ has added a photo to the pool:

Thank you very muh for the visits, faves and comments. Cheers

Black-fronted Dotterel
Scientific Name: Elseyornis melanops
Description:

The Black-fronted Dotterel is a small wader with a distinctive black face-mask and breast-band and prominent chestnut scapulars (shoulder feathers). In juveniles, the breast-band is initially absent but a brown band slowly appears as the bird develops. Legs are pink orange, and the bill is red with a black tip. The dark eye is ringed with red. In flight the wings look broad and the tail short, while the black and white contrast is striking. Flight is slow with almost hesitant wing beats. This species is also called the Black-fronted Plover.
Similar species:

The adult and immature Black-fronted Dotterel are unmistakable, though the juvenile could be confused with the juvenile and immature Red-capped Plover.
Where does it live?
Distribution:

The Black-fronted Dotterel is widespread throughout Australasia.
Habitat:

The Black-fronted Dotterel is found in the shallow margins of wetlands, lakes, rivers, sewage farms, storm drains and marshes. It is normally always near freshwater and is not often seen on the coast.
Seasonal movements:

Breeding resident.
What does it do?
Feeding:

The Black-fronted Dotterel eats small molluscs as well as aquatic and terrestrial insects. When it forages, it keeps its body horizontal while bobbing its head to look for food, often running then stopping suddenly to peck at food items.
Breeding:

The Black-fronted Dotterel lays its eggs in a shallow scrape, often on pebbly ground and quite close to water. It may have more then one brood per year. Both parents incubate the eggs and look after the young.
Calls: Sharp 'tip' call, singular or repeated three or four times.
Minimum Size:
16cm
Maximum Size:
18cm
Average size:
17cm
Average weight:
32g
Breeding season:
September to February
Clutch Size:
2 to 3 eggs
Incubation:
27 days
Nestling Period:
25 days
(Source: www.birdsinbackyards.net)


© Chris Burns 2026
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This image may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying and recording without my written consent.

Parent's won't let you have the normal pets? How about very own slime mold kit? Here•are•some•some•previous•posts•on•slime•molds

Greg Adams Photography posted a photo:

2008