We were already fairly certain that Samsung would launch a new AI assistant on the Samsung Galaxy S8, but with the names Viv, Bixby and Kestra floating around we weren’t sure what it would be called. Now, thanks to Samsung’s Italian website, we know it will be called Bixby.
In a new version of its privacy policy, under the ‘voice services’ heading, the site mentions Bixby by name, basically confirming that’s what it will launch under, and confirming that it is, indeed, launching.
The site doesn’t go into much detail about what Bixby can do, but based on the translated page it seems that you’ll be able to control all operations of the touch interface using voice commands.
Previously we’d heard that it would also work seamlessly with a large number of third-party apps, so it sounds fairly powerful, which it will need to be if Samsung is going to convince people to use it over Google Assistant.
Not all man
There’s no other new information here, but previously there’s also been talk that there would be both male and female voices available, with the female one known as Kestra, and that you’d be able to launch Bixby with a dedicated hardware key on the side of the Galaxy S8, which we’ve seen in a number of leaked photos.
Whether those details prove true remains to be seen, but at least we now know the name of Samsung’s Siri competitor – and everything else should be revealed soon, as the Samsung Galaxy S8 itself is being announced on March 29.
- Via GalaxyClub
