Polestar-1st 10 Minute Charge EV; ChatGPT Saves Chat History Even if You Said No; Elon Cans Tesla EV Charging Team; Twitch New Discovery Feed Apes TikTok

In a big, big first, Swedish EV maker Polestar has revealed the first 10 minute charging EV. Thenextweb.com reports that Polestar is using a so-called ‘silicon-dominant’ battery built by Israeli startup StoreDot. The battery uses silicon anodes instead of graphite. They can store 10 times the amount of lithium ions that graphite can, and take up much less space. This makes batteries that last longer and charge faster. Polestar dropped one of the battery packs in a working prototype of a Polestar 5…which is the model due out next year. It charged from 10% to 80% in under 10 minutes. This is what you call a game changer! The CEO of StoreDot, Dr Doron Myersdorf, said “Drivers can now truly travel long distances with the same freedom and convenience as traditional petrol-powered vehicles.” The batteries can be dropped into existing EV bodies, and can be charged using regular DC chargers.

ChatGPT now saves your chat history, even if you opted out of sharing your data to train the model. According to mashable.com, up to now, your chat history was only saved if you allowed OpenAI to use your conversations to help train the model…which forced users to to decide between keeping their data private and unrestricted functionality of the app. OpenAI has also released a Temporary Chat option…kind of a stealth mode for ChatGPT, which won’t show up in your chat history. If you are cool with the app keeping more tabs on your chat, you can turn on a Memory feature, and it will remember specific characteristics it has picked up from your conversations…oh, that’s not creepy at all. 

In his continuing rampage after a down quarter, Elon Musk has continued laying off staff. Over 10% worldwide have already gotten the chop, and now yesterday, Musk fired virtually the entire EV charging team…the folks responsible for the Supercharger network. Reuters.com notes that this surprised and shocked other car makers who have deals with Tesla to give their customers access to the network. It also calls into question whether Tesla can keep federal subsidies it is getting to expand the reach of its North American Charging Standard system. As usual, Tesla has had no comment on the layoffs. GM and Ford have both announced that they will continue to equip EVs with connectors to use Tesla Superchargers. 

Twitch has introduced its Discoverability Feed, that lets you scroll through live streams like on TikTok. Androidpolice.com reports that users can easily find personalized content on Twitch by scrolling vertically through live streams and clips…and also avoid ads. Even though it has been owned by Amazon since 2014, Twitch has heavy competition from YouTube Live, Kick, Rumble, and other platforms. The Discoverability feature should help small creators to grow their audience more quickly. The future is live on both iOS and Android right now.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.