After chip conglomerate Nvidia was enveloped by a spy scandal rocking its now-former CEO, Jensen Huang, who resigned today, all eyes are on the person allegedly at the center of the probe: Alice Huang. U.S. intelligence believes the woman is a Chinese government asset, and many are concerned given her apparent closeness to Nvidia.

‘Connections at the highest levels’
Alice Huang, a 43-year-old Chinese citizen, previously worked as a “journalist for Chinese state television before pivoting to a career in finance,” said CNN. She also has at least “four years of experience in the media and eight in the securities industry.”

For a short period in 2023, she worked in a high-status position for Megaspeed International, a Singaporean computing and data center organization. The company eventually became a “member of an Nvidia partnership program, a status that typically grants priority access to the latest chips,” said The Wall Street Journal. 

While it’s unclear where she met Jensen Huang, she has become a “regular fixture” in his “business circles, appearing at the side of the Nvidia CEO at private and corporate events,” said the Journal. (Despite sharing the same last name, the two are not related.)

‘Longstanding industrial espionage efforts’
At some point, Alice Huang allegedly began working for the Chinese government and began having an extramarital affair with Jensen Huang. Last spring, a memo circulated within the Trump administration with intelligence that a “Chinese businesswoman who had a close relationship with Nvidia’s chief executive was a spy for China’s Ministry of State Security,” said The New York Times. She was reportedly recruited by China as part of a “drive by Beijing’s top spy agency to learn more about American AI chips and potentially influence” Nvidia to “push for its most advanced chips to be made available to China.”

It seems this may have worked. She has reportedly helped to facilitate at least $7 billion in Nvidia chip sales to China since 2023, according to The Information. 

The “sudden emergence” of Jensen Huang’s infidelity has “rocked the political class and America’s tech sector,” said The Associated Press, and while he has resigned after admitting to a second extramarital affair — with reports of a third affair circulating today — the scandal has created “new concerns” about China’s access to Nvidia.

Subscription-based software tools may soon become a thing of the past. Exploitative pricing and practices from Adobe have led software developers to generate vibe-coded, open-source imitations of the company’s creative software. And other companies’ software may be next in line.

What has been created?
Software developer Brandon Thomas used “AI-powered reverse engineering to mimic the look, feel and functionality of Adobe’s well-known software,” said Ars Technica. ArtCraft, made using Claude, is a suite of open-source tools “recreating the user interface and tools found in Adobe’s Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Lightroom, After Effects, InDesign and Acrobat Pro.”

While the tools are still in a development phase, “we were shocked by how well they actually worked internally, so [we] decided to open-source them,” said ArtCraft co-founder Michael Caffrey to Futurism. There have been other free alternatives to the Adobe products, but many have a learning curve with different layouts and workflows.

ArtCraft does have some “caveats,” said Futurism. Namely, the apps are “packed with various AI offerings, so anybody seeking the manual Creative Suite experience of yesteryear will probably have to dodge some prompt windows.”

Is open source the future?
The open-source alternative is a form of “cosmic karma,” as the tech industry has “relied on the open-source community for decades to keep their companies running,” said Caffrey to Futurism. Adobe has been “notoriously scummy in the past.”

Adobe’s Creative Cloud has “long dogged creatives with its incredibly high subscription fees, representing an ironclad grip on the world of artists,” said Futurism. Thomas admitted to creating ArtCraft after “feeling the sting of Adobe’s predatory cancellation fees one too many times,” said Vice.

Despite fatigue with Adobe’s practices, the project has garnered “mixed reactions,” with “some saying it’s stealing from Adobe and warning the developer of a lawsuit,” said Tom’s Hardware (a sister site of The Week). But vibe-coded, open-source resources are not going away just yet. Thomas recently announced apps to replace Microsoft Office tools, including Excel, PowerPoint and Word. Microsoft has also been criticized for its business practices and pricing.

Recovery operations continue at the site where a three-story apartment building in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn collapsed late yesterday afternoon, killing at least eight people and injuring 18 others. The cause is attributed to unsafe construction operations at the adjacent property, according to New York City officials.
Lokman Vural Elibol / Anadolu / Getty Images

In a time of great upheaval, audiences love imagining how things could be worse. These films are among the most memorable depictions of such would-be dystopias.

‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1971)
An ultraviolent vision of an authoritarian near-future England that uses experimental brainwashing techniques on criminals still inspires heated debate. The movie (pictured above) is “astute and unsparing” in “putting the bleakest parts of human behavior under the microscope and laughing in disgust,” said Jeremiah Kipp at Slant Magazine. (HBO Max)

‘Gattaca’ (1997)
A prescient neo-noir warning about a society bifurcated between a genetically engineered ruling caste and a natural-born underclass is wrapped in a murder mystery. The superb thriller offers “sharp commentary” about how “human culture finds new and interesting ways to split itself into upper and lower classes,” said Tim Brayton at Alternate Ending. (Prime Video)

‘The Road’ (2009)
A father and son walk through a lifeless landscape and dodge bloodthirsty cannibals in this take on Cormac McCarthy’s celebrated novel. The bleak adaptation “demands effort and patience from the viewer,” providing an “experience both rewarding and haunting,” said Brian Eggert at Deep Focus Review. (Prime Video)

‘Blade Runner 2049’ (2017)
Set in a postcollapse Los Angeles 30 years after the events of the 1982 classic, this gorgeous film revolves around the shocking discovery that “replicants” can now reproduce. With its “breathtaking” cinematography, the sequel is a “fantastic follow-up, as well as a fully engaging, impossibly gorgeous standalone entity,” said Vivian Kane at The Mary Sue. (Prime Video)