Daily Authority: 🔋 Is Facebook Killing Phone Batteries?

😎 Good morning and welcome to Tuesday’s Daily Authority. It’s the last day of the month and while January wasn’t bad, today we’ve got not one but two top stories for you, including some of the Facebook controversies.

If you’ve noticed that Facebook is a battery hog, you might be on to something a former Facebook employee claims the company can secretly drain your phone’s battery.

• Data scientist George Hayward told the New York Post that Facebook participates in ‘negative tests’.
• This is a form of software testing that applies unexpected behavior and conditions to an app or software to see how it handles.
• The former employee was fired for refusing to participate in the practice, believing it could be harmful.
• However, we may never know if Hayward’s claim was true, as he only mentioned seeing a document titled “How to Take Thoughtful Negative Tests,” but did not reveal any examples from the document.
• However, negative tests are also not uncommon or controversial Facebook deliberately drains phone batteries, that’s a clear no-no that could endanger people, say, if they can’t use their phone in a life-or-death situation.
• Draining the battery in this way also means more frequent charging, which contributes to battery degradation.
• If you notice that the battery is draining faster than usual, you may want one of the best battery saver apps.

The fourth quarter of 2022 was a tough quarter for Samsung the company posted numbers that suited him gloomy forecasts profit drop from January 2022.

• It’s fair to say that things haven’t been going well for the world’s largest smartphone maker, with uncertain economic times, reduced demand for chips and a reduction in the number of customers buying new gadgets all to blame.
• Company shared weak earningsbut the hardest hit was Samsung’s chip division, which saw profits fall by more than 90% in the fourth quarter of 2022.
• Forecasted demand for Samsung smartphones will not pick up until the second half of 2023 despite tomorrow’s Galaxy S23 launch.
• It’s not all doom and gloom, however, as the Galaxy S23 series and an enhanced product portfolio, including new PCs, wearables and tablets, should help expand sales this quarter.
• And it could mean we’ll see the Galaxy Watch 6 land earlier than expected this year…

Speech AI startup ElevenLabs’ beta Prime Voice AI platform only launched a few days ago, but it is already being used for nefarious purposes (h/t engaged).

• Company tweeted it sees “an increasing number of instances of vote cloning abuse”.
• Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that “deepfake” audio clips are just the new deepfake videos.
• Motherboard revealed several 4chan posts featuring clips featuring voices generated by speech AI tools that sound like celebrities — including Emma Watson and Joe Rogan — saying or reading questionable things, though it’s not clear if all of the clips used ElevenLabs’ technology.
• There will always be people using the latest technology to spread homophobic, racist, transphobic or violent messages, but that doesn’t mean these kinds of tools can’t be used for good.
• AI speech generators can be used for movie and game voiceovers, audiobooks and more, and it looks like 2023 could be the year we see more of them popping up.
• ElevenLabs is already coming up with ideas to prevent misuse of its technology, including requiring payment information or ID from users, extra layers of account verification, or even requiring users to verify that they own the copyright for the voice they want to clone.
• That’s why we can’t have nice things.

Have a good week!

Paula Beaton, editor.