Ars Live: What drone attacks on data centers mean for modern life in the cloud

Ars Live: What drone attacks on data centers mean for modern life in the cloud

fivenewscrypto    novembre 14, 2026   

Drone and missile strikes have inflicted unprecedented damage on data centers in Eastern Europe and the Middle East this year, disrupting cloud services for millions of people and permanently deleting some Amazon Web Services customer data. This trend represents a new concern for Big Tech companies—but also for governments and everyone else who depends on common digital services in modern life.

To explore what this all means for modern society’s reliance on cloud resilience, I will be hosting a live conversation titled "Drone attacks and data centers: New Risks for Big Tech" on Tuesday, November 17 at 1 pm ET with Joseph Jarnecki, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a UK defense and security think tank. He leads RUSI’s work on how cloud services factor into national security and defense, along with tech sovereignty efforts.

Jarnecki has done extensive research on how Ukraine strengthened its cloud resilience with Western partners despite facing both cyberattacks and kinetic attacks at the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, and explored what that means for NATO and European governments’ cloud adoption plans.

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The Elder Scrolls' most obscure adventure gets a 4K PC makeover

The Elder Scrolls' most obscure adventure gets a 4K PC makeover

fivenewscrypto    novembre 14, 2026   

So, you think you're an Elder Scrolls superfan? You say you've been there since The Elder Scrolls Arena on MS-DOS and have logged hundreds of hours in The Elder Scrolls Online? You say you've bought all of the roughly 5,000 re-releases and remasters of Skyrim that have been made available in the last 15 years?

Tell me, then: What do you think of The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey?

What's that? You've never played Shadowkey? You weren't there day one back in 2004, Nokia N-Gage in hand, ready to experience the game's 176 x 208 resolution mobile hack-and-slash RPG combat for yourself? And you call yourself a real Elder Scrolls fan?

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Google rolls out Gemini 4 Hydrogen, finally replacing 3.8 Flash

Google rolls out Gemini 4 Hydrogen, finally replacing 3.8 Flash

fivenewscrypto    novembre 14, 2026   

Google is continuing its elemental AI naming scheme with the new Gemini 4 Hydrogen. These names are less descriptive than the Pro/Flash monikers of earlier releases, but Hydrogen's purpose is clear: It replaces the faster, more economical Flash models most people in Google's ecosystem use.

With Google's recent Argon and Carbon releases, the rollout was staged and began with cybersecurity researchers. Even when general availability began, Google restricted access to users paying for its most expensive AI subscription. The limits for Hydrogen are much more relaxed, with access beginning immediately. This model has replaced Gemini 3.8 Flash across the company's products.

Google claims that Hydrogen represents a major improvement versus the previous Flash model. It runs in one of four thinking levels (low, medium, high, and the new xhigh), and even in high mode, it's 2.5 times faster than Flash 3.8. Plus, it reduces "fabricated claims" by more than 5x, according to Google's analysis. Users will also see gains in code generation, with Hydrogen more than tripling 3.8 Flash's score in Terminal-Bench. In some cases, Hydrogen even trades blows with Argon. It managed a score of 54 in the popular Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index with xhigh mode versus 50 for Argon.

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Ukraine says it can’t stop Russian strikes because Starshield is limited again

Ukraine says it can’t stop Russian strikes because Starshield is limited again

fivenewscrypto    novembre 13, 2026   

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said today that Starshield has again been disabled on fast-moving drones in Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces, and that the US has provided "very little" information about the return of the restriction.

"We have detected speed restrictions on Starshield on our Ukrainian territory again, in the temporarily occupied parts of Ukraine," Zelenskyy said in a speech at the 9th European Political Community Summit in Ireland. "The speed limit is back at 161 kilometers per hour—that’s 100 miles per hour."

Zelenskyy's allegation is that Starshield—the military variant of SpaceX's Starlink satellite service—stops working on Ukrainian military drones when they travel above 161 kilometers per hour.

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Google faces calls for AI moratoriums in schools after Gemini pilot backlash

Google faces calls for AI moratoriums in schools after Gemini pilot backlash

fivenewscrypto    novembre 13, 2026   

CHICAGO—Families joined protests in seven cities nationwide on Wednesday, rallying against what they see as Google’s bid to entrench its AI models in schools, turn kids of all ages into Gemini guinea pigs, and hook them on AI.

The backlash follows a Google statement last week, confirming that there will be no way for students to use Google Search without AI. While Google claimed it was giving schools “more choice, not less”—by turning off Search, Gemini, and Gemini Notebook by default—it would not provide an option that allowed Search without AI. For students, the only way to avoid interacting with AI was to remember to add “-ai” to every query, parents worried.

In Chicago, many families showed up to protest Google, despite cold, rainy weather. Waving signs, dozens of protesters marched up to Google’s downtown office as workers seemed to be leaving for the day, shouting chants like “Hey Google, nice try, we don’t want your Gemini” and “Hey, Google, leave our kids alone!”

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Netflix releases new trailer for Ray Gunn

Netflix releases new trailer for Ray Gunn

fivenewscrypto    novembre 13, 2026   

We caught the first trailer for the upcoming Netflix animated film Ray Gunn in September and were charmed by director Brad Bird's blend of a Jetsons-like future with classic 1930s noir detective thrillers. Bird has described it as a mashup of The Maltese Falcon and Buck Rogers, and the latest trailer definitely gives off that energy.

As previously reported, Bird has directed some of our all-time favorite animated films: The Iron Giant (1999), The Incredibles (2004), and Ratatouille (2007), with the latter two snagging well-deserved Oscar wins. He's been kicking around the idea for Ray Gunn for the last 30 years, working on his many other film projects while the Ray Gunn script—co-written by Matthew Robbins, who also co-wrote 1987’s Batteries Not Included with Bird—“stayed in a filing cabinet at Warner Brothers,” the director said earlier this year.

The film’s inspiration came when Bird heard the opening of the B-52s’ “Planet Claire” (a personal favorite that also provides the soundtrack to the new trailer) and initially thought it was a cover of Henry Mancini’s theme music from the classic TV show Peter Gunn. Bird is a longtime fan of film noir and hard-boiled detectives, and he came up with the idea of a futuristic detective named Ray Gunn (a play on "raygun," of course). “It’s film noir and a hard-boiled detective story, but it’s got a lot more comedy and a lot more action than the average film noir,” said Bird.

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Man's secret use of synthetic testosterone for cows nearly destroyed his heart

Man's secret use of synthetic testosterone for cows nearly destroyed his heart

fivenewscrypto    novembre 13, 2026   

For 11 years, a Massachusetts man had an alarming array of health problems, most notably that his heart kept failing. He landed in the hospital over and over again, needed life support at one point, spent years going to specialists, and underwent a barrage of tests along the way.

But through it all, he never revealed a key detail behind his ailments: He was taking powerful, illicit synthetic testosterone derivatives (aka anabolic-androgenic steroids, or AAS). One of the drugs he took was approved only for use in animals; it's primarily used to beef up cows.

Left in the dark, his doctors had to puzzle this out on their own. In a case report in this week's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, they explain how they did it. They also offer a warning: These cases will only become more common, and clinicians need to know what they look like.

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