It’s just mid-January, but we already seem to have two clear trends for high-end smartphones this year. Whether it’s the iPhone 8, the Galaxy S8, or any other flagship, they’re likely to come with bigger screens than ever before and powerful built-in artificial intelligence. The latter isn’t new, but Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana and Alexa are only getting smarter. Moreover, Samsung is about to launch its Bixby assistant, the half-sibling of Siri. And the Galaxy S8 might have a few AI tricks up its sleeve that your iPhone’s assistant can only dream about.
According to SamMobile’s sources, Bixby will have access to the Galaxy S8’s camera for visual search and will offer text recognition features. The camera app will have an integrated Bixby button, giving users access to a search tool that can process what the user sees through the camera. Bixby will analyze the image, and it’ll be able to identify objects and text.
Furthermore, Bixby will be able to assist you with finding that object online so that you can buy it. It’ll also use optical character recognition to process any text you point the camera at, and then digitize it. The report goes on to say that Bixby will probably also be found on the Galaxy Note 8 later this year, as well as on older Samsung hardware following future software updates.
Finally, Sam Mobile says that a button on the side of the phone might give you direct access to Bixby and its many functions. The new button is supposed to replace the physical home button that would normally be found on the front side of a Galaxy S handset, as that button is going away to make room for the Galaxy S8’s bigger screen.
