Google has released the Genkit Extension for Gemini CLI, a specialized plugin that brings deep, framework-aware AI assistance directly to the terminal, aiming to streamline the development and debugging of Genkit-based applications. The…
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‘Complicated’ EPR packaging tax criticised by South West firms
George ThorpeSouth West and
Seb NobleCornwall political reporter
BBCBusiness owners think Extended Producer Responsibility would force prices raises for customers Businesses in the South West have raised concerns a new tax on packaging could force them to raise prices.
The government introduced Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) this month which required firms to cover the cost for collecting, recycling and disposing of packaging it produces, with the money going to councils which collected the waste.
Owners of businesses have criticised the tax which some described as “complicated” and could lead to customers having to pay more.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said EPR would move the cost of dealing with the waste away from taxpayers and generate more then £1bn for councils to improve recycling collections.
Sam Lindo from Camel Valley Vineyard, based near Bodmin, said the winemaker could process up to 4,000 bottles a day.
He said his main issue with EPR was the additional “bureaucracy” it brought.
“It’s incredibly complicated because it’s not just the different types of packaging, it’s whether it goes to household, non-household, branded, unbranded,” Mr Lindo said.
“My spreadsheet matrix is enormous.”
Sam Lindo from Camel Valley Vineyard said the tax would create more bureaucracy Joe Healey, managing director for trading at Healey’s Cyder near Truro, said he was concerned about the impact EPR could have on prices for customers.
“It is a new tax on manufacturing which is directly linked, in my view, to the currently high inflation on food and drink at supermarkets,” he said.
Caroline Voaden, Liberal Democrat MP for South Devon, said a businesses in her constituency were also worried about EPR.
“The New Inn, a historic pub in my constituency, has been informed by the brewery that supplies it that prices will increase by 7p per bottle of beer and cider and by 21p per bottle of wine,” she said.
“But the brewery won’t deal with the bottles afterwards, so they also have to pay for the disposal of the glassware.”
Defra said EPR underpinned “major investment” in the UK economy and would help create 25,000 jobs.
It said it had worked with businesses to ensure they were prepared for EPR’s introduction and would continue to listen to trade and industry bodies.
“Extended Producer Responsibility moves the cost of dealing with waste away from taxpayers and generate over a £1bn annually that must be spent by councils to improve recycling collections and thereby benefit every household across England,” a spokesperson said.
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Social media use linked to lower reading, memory scores in preteens : Shots
Juliana Belo Gutierrez/iStockphoto/Getty Images
Preteens using increasing amounts of social media perform poorer in…
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‘F1’ Sets Apple Streaming Release Date: How to Watch Online
“F1: The Movie” will zoom to the small screen around the holiday season. The sports drama, starring Brad Pitt as a has-been Formula One driver, is making its global streaming debut on Apple TV on Dec. 12.
“F1” was…
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NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet Switches Speed Up Networks for Meta and Oracle
Hyperscalers Broaden Adoption of NVIDIA Networking Solutions to Drive Giga-Scale AI Data Center Performance
News Summary:
- Meta to introduce switches built on NVIDIA Spectrum Ethernet for its Facebook Open Switching System platform.
- Oracle to build giga-scale AI supercomputers with Spectrum-X Ethernet switches.
OCP—NVIDIA today announced that Meta and Oracle will boost their AI data center networks with NVIDIA Spectrum-X™ Ethernet networking switches.
Meta and Oracle are standardizing on Spectrum-X Ethernet switches as an open, accelerated networking architecture that speeds deployment at scale, unlocks exponential gains in AI training efficiency and shortens time to insights.
“Trillion-parameter models are transforming data centers into giga-scale AI factories, and industry leaders like Meta and Oracle are standardizing on Spectrum-X Ethernet to drive this industrial revolution,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Spectrum-X is not just faster Ethernet — it’s the nervous system of the AI factory, enabling hyperscalers to connect millions of GPUs into a single giant computer to train the largest models ever built.”
Oracle will build giga-scale AI factories accelerated by the NVIDIA Vera Rubin architecture and interconnected by Spectrum-X Ethernet.
“Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is designed from the ground up for AI workloads, and our partnership with NVIDIA extends that AI leadership,” said Mahesh Thiagarajan, executive vice president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. “By adopting Spectrum-X Ethernet, we can interconnect millions of GPUs with breakthrough efficiency so our customers can more quickly train, deploy and benefit from the next wave of generative and reasoning AI.”
Meta will integrate Spectrum Ethernet switches into its networking infrastructure for the Facebook Open Switching System (“FBOSS”), a software platform developed to manage and control network switches at massive scale. This integration will speed deployment at scale to unlock gains in AI training efficiency and shorten time to insights.
“Meta’s next-generation AI infrastructure requires open and efficient networking at a scale the industry has never seen before,” said Gaya Nagarajan, vice president of networking engineering at Meta. “By integrating NVIDIA Spectrum Ethernet into the Minipack3N switch and FBOSS, we can extend our open networking approach while unlocking the efficiency and predictability needed to train ever-larger models and bring generative AI applications to billions of people.”
NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet Platform
Designed for the trillion-parameter model era, the NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet platform, consisting of Spectrum-X Ethernet switches and Spectrum-X Ethernet SuperNICs, is the first Ethernet platform purpose-built for AI, enabling hyperscalers to interconnect millions of GPUs with unprecedented efficiency and scale.Trillion-parameter models and generative AI are redefining the scale of data centers. Spectrum-X Ethernet enables AI at scale, delivering the performance and scalability needed to build the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure.
Spectrum-X Ethernet has already demonstrated record-setting efficiency, enabling the world’s largest AI supercomputer to achieve 95% data throughput with its congestion-control technology. By contrast, off-the-shelf Ethernet at scale suffers from thousands of flow collisions, limiting throughput to roughly 60%.
This leap in efficiency marks a breakthrough in the economics and performance of AI-scale networking. NVIDIA Spectrum-XGS Ethernet technology, part of the Spectrum-X Ethernet networking platform, enables scale-across capabilities to link data centers across cities, nations and continents into vast, giga-scale AI super-factories.
Spectrum-X builds on NVIDIA’s full-stack platform — including GPUs, CPUs, NVIDIA NVLink™ and software — to deliver seamless performance from compute to network. Its advanced congestion control, adaptive routing and AI-driven telemetry capabilities ensure efficiency and predictability for massive AI training and inference clusters.
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Chopin-mania grips Poland as pianists battle it out
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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Poland’s relationship with its most celebrated composer, Fryderyk Chopin, is so deeply woven into national life that…
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Leading Real Estate Lawyer Michelle Kelban Joins Kirkland | News
Kirkland & Ellis announced today that top real estate attorney Michelle Kelban has joined the Firm as a partner.
“Michelle is widely recognized as one of the preeminent lawyers in the real estate sector, representing leading private equity sponsors in the full range of transactions involving real assets,” said Jon A. Ballis, Chairman of Kirkland’s Executive Committee. “We’re very excited to welcome her to Kirkland as we continue to grow in strategically important practice areas like real assets.”
Ms. Kelban advises clients on a wide array of sophisticated real estate transactions, including private capital raising, financing, acquisitions, joint venture recapitalizations, and restructurings and workouts. She represents a diverse range of market participants, such as private equity firms, institutional lenders, U.S. and international investors, and family offices.
“I am thrilled to join Kirkland and its outstanding real assets team,” said Ms. Kelban. “The firm has an incredibly diverse platform for the type of transactions I handle and the clients with whom I work. I look forward to contributing my experience and working collaboratively with the team to help further grow and strengthen the real assets capabilities at Kirkland.”
Ms. Kelban has been recognized by publications such as Chambers USA, where clients commended her “great business judgment,” and The Legal 500 U.S. She was named one of the most influential women in New York commercial real estate by Bisnow this year. And last year, Law360 named her as one of their Real Estate MVPs. Ms. Kelban joins from Latham & Watkins LLP, where she was a partner.
Kirkland’s Real Estate Practice Group is made up of experienced, multidisciplinary lawyers who apply their highlevel real estate knowledge to a wide range of complex business transactions. The practice regularly represents the industry’s most active and sophisticated private equity sponsors, as well as publicly traded REITs, sovereign wealth funds, major pension organizations and other institutional investors in connection with their real estate and real estate-related activities from fundraising and structuring through deployment of capital and final disposition, mergers and take-private transactions and recapitalizing such investment entities to the extent necessary.
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MSP Execs Expect Windows 11 Migrations To Continue Long After Tuesday Support End Date – CRN Magazine
- MSP Execs Expect Windows 11 Migrations To Continue Long After Tuesday Support End Date CRN Magazine
- Windows 10: When you should update and what it means for you BBC
- Microsoft accidentally breaks Windows 10 to Windows 11 upgrade using MCT ahead of…
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DLR Delivers Callisto Landing Leg Prototype for Testing
Credit: DLR The DLR Institute of Structures and Design has delivered the qualification model of the Callisto reusable rocket demonstrator’s landing leg to the DLR Institute of Space Systems in Bremen for testing.
Callisto is an…
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