A standard 2021 Porsche Taycan has broken the Guinness World Record for the shortest charging time to cross the United States in an electric vehicle. It only needed a cumulative charge time of 2 hours, 26 minutes and 48 seconds to cover a 2,834.5-mile drive from Los Angeles to New York. While the record it broke is highly specific, there was a previous holder: A Kia EV6, which had to be charged for 7 hours, 10 minutes and 1 second to make a similar, but just slightly longer, trip from New York to LA. 

Wayne Gerdes, known for his efficiency driving and for coining the term “hypermiling,” was behind the wheel for the record-breaking journey. Hypermiling, as you may know, involves the use of adjustments and driving techniques to maximize the vehicle’s fuel use. Porsche told Engadget that Gerdes drove normal speeds and sometimes even went faster, depending on the charge level, for the duration of the trip. 

As for the vehicle itself, it was equipped with the company’s Performance Battery Plus, which has a higher gross capacity than the base battery option, and Adaptive Cruise Control. For the attempt to be recognized by the Guinness World Records, every mile of the journey had to be filmed and the vehicle’s GPS had to be tracked.

Gerdes said that the first time he charged a Taycan on a 350KW charger, its battery levels went from 6 to 82 percent in just 22 minutes. He relied on Electrify America’s CCS DC fast charging network for the trip, since the company is a partner for this attempt. Porsche first revealed the Taycan electric sedan in 2019 and started making deliveries in 2020. The automaker has released several variants since then, including the category-blurring Cross Turismo EV.

Source: Engadget – Porsche sent its Taycan EV cross-country to claim a ‘charging time’ record

An Ubisoft executive has responded to the backlash against the company’s push to add NFTs (non-fungible tokens) to its games. In December, the publisher announced Quartz, an NFT platform that lets people buy and sell unique digital items, which it called Digits. Both employees and consumers criticized the move, with many expressing concern about the environmental impact of NFTs and one Ubisoft developer saying they’re “just another way to milk money.”

The backlash to Quartz was swift. Within 24 hours of Ubisoft heralding the platform in a YouTube trailer, more than 35,000 people had clicked the dislike button, with just over 1,300 liking it.

Ubisoft’s first foray into NFTs hasn’t exactly gone gangbusters. It gave away some to players who reached certain play time or experience levels in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint. It offered players the chance to buy some NFTs, but sales have reportedly been very sluggish. Someone who bought one, which is a gun skin with a small, unique serial number, told Waypoint that “it didn’t feel different from using any other cosmetic but the custom serial and ability to view it outside of the Ghost Recon experience really added a level of ownership that I appreciate.”

Nevertheless, Nicolas Pouard, vice president of Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovations Lab, suggested that players simply aren’t understanding the utility of NFTs.

“I think gamers don’t get what a digital secondary market can bring to them. For now, because of the current situation and context of NFTs, gamers really believe it’s first destroying the planet, and second just a tool for speculation,” Pouard told Finder. “But what we [at Ubisoft] are seeing first is the end game. The end game is about giving players the opportunity to resell their items once they’re finished with them or they’re finished playing the game itself. So, it’s really, for them. It’s really beneficial. But they don’t get it for now.”

Pouard also said that Ubisoft considered announcing Quartz without making any reference to the fact that Digits are actually NFTs, but decided against it as players would have recognized what was going on anyway. “So, we decided it would not be very smart to try to hide it,” he said. “Our principle is to build a safe place and safe environment with Quartz. So, we need to be transparent on what we are doing.”

NFTs are essentially a certificate of authenticity designed to live on the blockchain. The idea is that an NFT is a public record of ownership of a digital asset. In reality, it’s a verified link to a file somewhere on the internet that the owner of the URL destination can alter or even delete.

Along with claims that they can be tantamount to a pyramid scheme, many critics have expressed concern about the environmental impact of NFTs. An artist who sold an NFT collection last year said the process used up more than 8,000 kWh of electricity, which is more than his studio’s power consumption from the previous two years.

Ubisoft says that the Tezos system it opted for requires less power consumption than other blockchains. It claims a Digits transaction uses around as much energy as 30 seconds of video streaming. In any case, Quartz doesn’t seem to offer anything different than say, the Steam marketplace, which has long allowed players to buy and sell virtual goods for real money without the downsides of NFTs.

Source: Engadget – Ubisoft executive complains NFT critics just ‘don’t get it’

When Jabra debuted its latest flagship true wireless earbuds in August, both models were packed with premium features like adjustable active noise cancellation (ANC) and ambient sound alongside a customizable EQ and in-app fit test. Now the company has added another key feature to both the Elite 7 Pro and Elite 7 Active that may not be as flashy, but it will offer a lot more convenience. Via a firmware update, Jabra has equipped those models with multipoint Bluetooth connectivity. 

Multipoint allows you to connect to two devices at the same time over Bluetooth. This means you can be listening to music or watching a show on your laptop and the earbuds will automatically switch over to your phone when you receive a call. Other earbuds and headphones do this, including Apple’s AirPods, but the handy connectivity isn’t standard across the board. 

This update also gives Android users the ability to select Google Assistant as their virtual helper of choice in Jabra’s Sound+ app. Before now, Alexa was the only option there, although the Elite 7 models would work just fine with your phone’s built-in companion. The company says it also made improvements to the MyFit feature that helps you find the proper ear tip size for a good seal, in addition to updates to overall connectivity and performance. We’ve asked for specifics on the changes for all three of those items, but have yet to hear back. 

The Elite 7 Pro and Elite 7 Active carry most of the same features, like Jabra’s smaller, redesigned earbud shape and eight-hour battery life. The key difference is the call quality on the Elite 7 Pro, thanks to what the company calls MultiSensor Voice. That setup uses a combination of traditional microphones with a voice pick up (VPU) unit to keep you sounding clear. On a windy day, for example, the VPU automatically activates bone conduction technology to monitor your voice via the vibrations of your jaw. The Elite 7 Active has a ShakeGrip coating to minimize slips during sweaty workouts that the Elite 7 Pro does not. Both the Active and the Pro are IP57 rated though, so either one is a capable gym and/or running partner. And the last difference is the price: the Elite 7 Pro is $200 while the Elite 7 Active is $180.

If you already own a pair of these, the firmware update is available now through the Sound+ app. 

Source: Engadget – Jabra’s Elite 7 earbuds now support multipoint Bluetooth connectivity