One of the biggest talking points as far as the forthcoming release of the latest smartphone flagships from the South Korean major Samsung, has been its AI-based digital assistant ‘Bixby’.
There were discussions on how it could be a game-changer in the industry and might set new standards in the industry. We had reported even in these columns that some experts felt ‘Bixby’ might give Apple’s Siri a run for its money. But it now transpires that the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ may not sport the ‘Bixby’ assistant in its full form, when the phone reaches the hands of customers later in April’2017.
In a statement issued by Samsung, it has been stated that there are some issues related to the voice detection module in Bixby, particularly when spoken in English. They would, therefore, like to work on it and the full function assistant will be made available only by spring this year.
It appears Bixby will be partially seen in functions like Home, Vision and Reminder, but not beyond that. There is another view that Samsung desires to strengthen the app support to Bixby Voice through 3rd party apps before exposing it to the phone’s users.
According to analysts in this latest report, Samsung does not want to take any risks with its S8 and S8+ smartphones, especially after what transpired with Note 7. A lot rides on these phones for Samsung and Bixby was to have enhanced the perception and value for Samsung as a technology company. The last thing that the company would want is bugs, in its artificial intelligence assistant. From that angle, the decision to hold back the full functional Bixby appears sensible.
There are also those who say the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ are to run on the Android Nougat OS, which already has a fully tested Google Assistant. But still, Samsung wants to demonstrate its own capabilities and having raised the expectations, it might sound hollow if the Bixby were to be found wanting on certain fronts. Another interesting point mentioned in this same news report referred to above, is to quote a senior Samsung official at the time the announcement regarding Bixby was made. InJong Rhee, the Samsung EVP had said that the artificial intelligence assistant Bixby is expected to make intelligent machines (read smartphones) learn to adapt to humans rather than the humans learning how the machines interact with the world. This is a profound comment since this is precisely the reason why any malfunctioning of Bixby or a wrong understanding of a voice command could have landed the phone and Samsung into undesirable situations after a much-hyped launch.
The tech world is watching the developments very closely since no one underestimates the power of a successful Bixby.