Samsung reveals the Galaxy S8 will feature a new virtual assistant

[midian182]

Samsung really wants people to forget about its exploding Note 7s (and washing machines). The Korean company believes the best way to do this is by looking forward to its next generation of smartphones: the Galaxy S8. On Sunday, the firm said the upcoming handset would feature an all-new virtual assistant to rival the likes of Siri and Cortana.

It was only last month when Samsung purchased Viv Labs, a startup co-founded by the team that created Siri. The company will be integrating its newly acquired artificial intelligence platform into the next iteration of the Galaxy S series.

Reuters reports that Samsung hasn’t revealed many details about what services the virtual assistant will offer, though it did say it will feature third-party integration. "Developers can attach and upload services to our agent," said Samsung Executive Vice President Rhee Injong.

As noted by Engadget, it’s unusual for Samsung to talk about an upcoming handset’s features so far in advance. The company usually tries to build up hype through component announcements but, after an awful 2016, Samsung needs the Galaxy S8 to be a huge success, and hopes revealing its abilities at this early stage will help give the phone a strong launch.

Samsung traditionally unveils new Galaxy S handsets at Mobile World Congress in February/March, but the Wall Street Journal claims that the S8 reveal could be pushed back this year. Development of the new smartphone was reportedly delayed by two weeks while Samsung tried to discover the cause of the Note 7 battery fires.

Samsung’s smartphones already feature a voice-activated assistant – S Voice – but its abilities are limited. With Viv, the company believes it will be able to compete with AIs from Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon.

"Our Galaxy smartphones don't provide services that enable consumers to order pizza or coffee, but does provide third party applications. But the new AI platform will enable consumers to do things that they would usually do through a separate third-party application," Samsung said in a statement.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/66944-samsung-reveals-galaxy-s8-feature-new-virtual-assistant.html

 

[Uncle Al]

And comes with an asbestos liner?

 

[Bigtruckseries]

WARNING: critical systems failure... auto destruct in 10...9...8...

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Virtual assistants? How did I ever cope without them in the past? Very well in fact, considering the next time I use one (seriously) will be the 1st time. They've still got a helluva long way to go before they become truly viable.

 

[DLBU1]

I understand they also made the blast much bigger in the S8 when it explodes.

 

[Greg S]

I understand they also made the blast much bigger in the S8 when it explodes.

The Galaxy phones have always been a fairly good line and have not had any major problems yet.

 

[Wendy Oltman]

And no explosive technology as well.

 

[Teko03]

I can't help but find it hilarious that Samsung continues to try and create it's own ecosystem of services on top of Google's Android OS. How are things going with Tizen OS anyway?

 

[Kibaruk]

I think it would benefit us all to have a single "assistant" that they build upon instead of building off a brand new one.

They are quite useful for certain tasks, once we get used to them it will be even more useful, like everything in life they have a learning curve. And to make this more clear, I bet you can't believe how you had a phone at one point that didn't connect to the internet and how you made it so far =P (Generalizing, don't think you are unique).

 

[RebelFlag]

I understand they also made the blast much bigger in the S8 when it explodes.

The Galaxy phones have always been a fairly good line and have not had any major problems yet.

Unless you count catching on fire to be a problem.....

 

[Kenrick]

Awesome! Another bloatware in galaxy phones.

I guess the name of the assistant would be "firefly".

 

[Bigtruckseries]

I just read the comments to see how many times words related to fire and explosions were used.

 

[Raoul Duke]

Thinking of the other Techspot article on virtual assistants, what inquiring minds will want to know is "will it talk dirty to me"

 

[ghostf1re]

Sorry Samsung, after the headache of returning two Note 7's, I'm done with you as a company. It has been a pure headache the past few months dealing with the phone. I loved the phone in and of itself. It was the best phone out for sure (despite the obvious). Samsung is also recalling washing machines now too. The company has issues that are out of control and they don't even know how to handle them. So I will be moving to the Google Pixel phones from now on (as soon as they aren't sold out) and I will not be looking back anytime soon. Samsung will have to release something truly amazing to bring me back. Not only that, they will have to have a few years of a clean record to earn my trust back.

 

[sac39507]

The assistant yells just before the explosion