The newest AI boom pitch: Host a mini data center at your home

The newest AI boom pitch: Host a mini data center at your home

fivenewscrypto    mai 13, 2026   

Data centers may be coming to your neighborhood as side installations associated with new homes—and in exchange would offer subsidized electricity and Internet access along with backup batteries to homeowners. The company behind the plan has already begun pilot testing in preparation for a 100-home trial run this year.

The “distributed data center solution” announced by the San Francisco startup SPAN would deploy thousands of XFRA nodes that contain liquid-cooled Nvidia RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs operating with minimal noise, according to a press release. By harnessing excess power capacity among US households, SPAN aims to quickly expand the available compute for AI workloads without the costs and delays associated with trying to build warehouse-size data centers.

“Data centers are loud, ugly, and often drive up local electricity bills,” said Chris Lander, vice president of XFRA at SPAN, in correspondence with Ars. “[This] is quiet, discreet, and makes energy more affordable for the host and community.”

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FDA chief resigns after Trump admin forced approval of fruity e-cigs

FDA chief resigns after Trump admin forced approval of fruity e-cigs

fivenewscrypto    mai 13, 2026   

Marty Makary on Tuesday resigned from his role as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, days after news broke on Friday that the White House had signed off on plans to fire him.

Trump confirmed Makary's resignation on social media, posting an image that appears to show that Makary resigned from his role over a text message. The text message begins "Dr. President Trump[sic], Please accept my resignation, effective today."

Trump wrote in another social media post that Makary had "done a great job at the FDA," and that he was "a hard worker, who was respected by all, and will go on to have an outstanding career in Medicine."

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Twin brothers wipe 96 gov't databases minutes after being fired

Twin brothers wipe 96 gov't databases minutes after being fired

fivenewscrypto    mai 13, 2026   

In the US, fired and laid-off workers often have their digital credentials deactivated before they learn about the loss of their jobs; indeed, the inability to log in to a corporate system may be the first an employee knows of the situation.

Although not a generous or humane approach to staff reduction, it does follow from the simple fact that a fired employee with access to company systems is a security risk.

Just ask the Akhter twin brothers, accused of wiping out 96 databases hosting US government information in the minutes after both were fired last year from their shared employer.

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Android is getting a big AI overhaul in 2026

Android is getting a big AI overhaul in 2026

fivenewscrypto    mai 13, 2026   

Google's I/O conference is next week, and we expect to hear a lot about the company's AI endeavors. The company says there's so much to talk about that it's spilling the Android beans a little early, and yes, a lot of AI is involved. In the coming months, Google will roll out more smartphone AI features under the Gemini Intelligence banner, bringing more automation and customization to your phone.

App automation will be a major element of Android going forward, Google says. Automation for apps is expanding after Google began testing it earlier in 2026 with DoorDash and Uber on Pixel and Samsung phones. It was a very frustrating experience at launch, but Google says it has spent the intervening months fine-tuning the system.

Google promises that Android will be able to handle more complex automations across apps. For example, the robot could find a course syllabus in Gmail and then hop to a shopping app to add the necessary books to your shopping cart. Google also suggests taking a picture of a travel brochure and telling Gemini to book something similar in the Expedia app.

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Data center guzzled 30 million gallons of water, and nobody noticed for months

Data center guzzled 30 million gallons of water, and nobody noticed for months

fivenewscrypto    mai 13, 2026   

A curious case in Georgia serves as a warning for many parts of the US hastily approving data center developments without first updating their water systems to better monitor for severe upticks in usage.

On Friday, Politico reported that one of the country's biggest data center developments had guzzled nearly 30 million gallons of water without paying for it. Even worse, the water grab came at a time when nearby drought-stricken residents were warned to restrict their personal water consumption, and some reported sudden decreases in water pressure.

An investigation conducted by utility officials in Georgia's Fayette County found that the Quality Technology Services (QTD) facility had two industrial-scale water hookups that weren't being monitored. "One water connection had been installed without the utility’s knowledge, and the other was not linked to the company’s account and therefore wasn’t being billed," Politico reported.

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Passengers from hantavirus ship arrive in US; 3 people in biocontainment

Passengers from hantavirus ship arrive in US; 3 people in biocontainment

fivenewscrypto    mai 13, 2026   

The cruise ship rocked by an unprecedented Andes hantavirus outbreak arrived in the Canary Islands off the coast of Tenerife Island over the weekend and is being evacuated. At least one new case has been identified amid the disembarkment.

As of Monday morning, officials for the World Health Organization reported that the last of the passengers of the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to be evacuated today. Thirty crew will remain on board and see the ship back to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Prior to the evacuation there were 147 people on board.

All of those evacuated from the ship are being transported off the island on specially arranged repatriation flights, not commercial flights. The evacuations and flights are being coordinated by Spanish authorities as well as the WHO and other national health officials.

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Starlink shuts down its GPS-style cheat code. Researchers may unlock it anyway.

Starlink shuts down its GPS-style cheat code. Researchers may unlock it anyway.

fivenewscrypto    mai 12, 2026   

Starlink is unceremoniously shutting down a GPS-style feature that most of the Internet satellite provider’s customers probably never realized existed. But that won’t stop broader momentum toward harnessing Starlink’s satellite constellation as a navigation alternative—especially when GPS jamming and spoofing have become more widespread.

The Starlink satellite constellation owned by SpaceX is designed to provide communications services first and foremost, rather than pinpointing users’ locations like GPS and other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). However, SpaceX publicly acknowledged in a May 2025 letter to the US Federal Communications Commission that Starlink could deliver positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services. A handful of savvy Starlink customers had even been accessing Starlink PNT capability for several years until Starlink recently decided to shut down access, according to PCMag.

“The beauty of Starlink as a backup to GNSS is that it's such a different system—frequencies 10 times higher, bandwidths 10 to 100 times wider, power 100 to 1,000 times stronger, satellites 100 times more proliferated,” said Todd Humphreys, director of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group (WNCG) and the Radionavigation Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin, in correspondence with Ars.

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