Google releases Gemini 4 Hydrogen, a faster, cheaper AI model replacing 3.8 Flash

Google says Gemini 4 Hydrogen is built for quick everyday coding and agent tasks, while its bigger Carbon and Argon models handle hard reasoning. It costs $1.50 per million input tokens and $7.50 per million output tokens, at the same price across its 1-million-token context window. Google claims it more than triples Gemini 3.8 Flash's score on the Terminal-Bench 4.1 coding test (57% vs. 18.2%) and finishes tasks 2.5 times faster. It is now the default model in Search's AI Mode, and Google uses it for the hardest questions in AI Overviews. Google says it handles multi-part questions and typos better, and adds more images, tables and maps to answers. Independent tester Artificial Analysis rates it just below Claude Sonnet 5.5 and GPT-6.1 Sol. It costs a third as much as Sonnet but about 2.5 times as much as Sol. Google also added Orchestrator to its Antigravity coding tool, which switches between Carbon and Hydrogen within one session. Ars Technica notes that Hydrogen is not getting the slow, security-focused rollout that Carbon and Argon got.

Analysis finds signs of banned Nvidia chips in six Chinese open AI models

Will DePue of Unemployment Labs published a forensic analysis of publicly released AI models. It says six models from DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, MiniMax and Ant Group, released since April, carry fingerprints of Nvidia's Blackwell GPUs. US export controls restrict those chips.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigns after affair reports; finance chief Colette Kress steps in

Nvidia's board says Jensen Huang has resigned as president, chief executive and board member, effective immediately. He co-founded the company in 1993. Finance chief Colette Kress is interim CEO, and former Synopsys CEO Harvey C. Jones becomes the board's first-ever chair. Huang left after reports of affairs, one with a woman US authorities believe was a Chinese spy and one with a senior Nvidia executive who reported to him. Reuters now reports, citing two people, that he also had a relationship with a second employee. In an email to staff, Kress called this "an extraordinarily difficult period" and set a company meeting for November 18. President Trump said Apple's Tim Cook is the "only one man" to replace Huang. The board will consider candidates from inside and outside the company for the permanent job.

Nvidia shares drop 14% after Huang quits, wiping out over $600 billion in value

Bloomberg reports that Nvidia's stock fell 14% when trading opened on Thursday, after Jensen Huang resigned. The drop erased more than $600B in value. It also took Nvidia's market value below $4 trillion for the first time since 2025. Bloomberg also reports that the FBI is investigating.

Investors want six times more Anthropic shares than its IPO offers, sources say

Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter, that orders for AI company Anthropic's stock market listing are about six times the number of shares on offer. Bankers have told prospective investors that existing backers will get priority.

AMD confirms a Radeon driver bug that constantly writes to SSDs; a free fix is out

A Radeon graphics driver service, atieclxx.exe, copies its own 660 KB file into a Windows system folder every second. The developer of a fix estimates that comes to about 56 GB of writes a day, and some users report as much as 432 GB a day. A free, open-source community tool blocks these writes using Windows file permissions. It leaves the service running, so features like FreeSync keep working.

Hack at AI cloud firm Fireworks let attackers see Notion customers' chat transcripts

TechCrunch reports that hackers who attacked Fireworks AI could access chat transcripts belonging to Notion customers. Fireworks runs AI models for other companies. TechCrunch says this is Fireworks' second data breach in two months.

Microsoft's Outlook, Teams and other 365 services go down in several regions

Since just before 1 p.m. ET, users around the world have reported that they could not reach Outlook, Teams and other Microsoft 365 services. Microsoft said many of its servers had become unexpectedly unavailable, and that part of its infrastructure was under "elevated load" in several regions. The Verge reported that Outlook was still down hours later. TechCrunch says Microsoft has not yet given a cause. Hacker News users reported that Microsoft's status page was down too.

Google and Samsung open preorders for Gemini AI smart glasses, from $395

Google and Samsung opened preorders for their Android XR "Intelligent Eyewear" smart glasses. Wired says frames designed by Warby Parker start at $395 and frames by Gentle Monster at $449. Samsung builds the hardware, and the glasses run Google's Gemini AI. Ars Technica says Google is stressing privacy protections. The Verge's hands-on praises local face redaction and real-time translation, and says Meta now has real competition.

Ex-Nvidia CEO Huang agrees to testify to Congress as Justice Dept probes widen

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast says Jensen Huang has agreed to testify under oath before Thanksgiving, probably behind closed doors. TechCrunch says he agreed after several senior lawmakers threatened to subpoena him. Democrats have opened a second congressional investigation, into Nvidia's China sales and its dealings with Trump. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department has not decided whether Alice Huang was a Chinese spy, and that "of course" the FBI is investigating. Semafor, citing two officials, reports that several Justice Department investigations could involve Nvidia: one on antitrust grounds and two focused on Megaspeed and Supermicro.

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