Artificial intelligence is on the verge of entering almost every aspect of our digital lives, and one of the ways it is already doing so is via virtual assistants. Samsung is reportedly working hard on its own solution, and an exclusive report from SamMobile is sheding some light on the situation…

Following the acquisition of Viv Labs earlier this year, the Korean giant made it clear that a revamped AI companion would make its way to its forthcoming devices, and the Galaxy S8 is seemingly going to be the debuting platform. As per SamMobile, in fact, Bixby(the assistant’s rumored name) will be baked into “almost all the native apps” that come preinstalled with the device.

Unlike Samsung’s current solution, S-Voice, Bixby won’t just be decidedly more advanced and capable, but also fully integrated with the device’s overall software, in a way reminiscent of Google‘sAssistant and Apple‘s Siri. “For example, it might come in handy inside the Gallery app, where you can ask Bixby to show you pictures and videos that satisfy particular criteria,” reads the report.

To better give an idea of cohesion and thoroughness to its often-criticized software, Samsung will also reportedly give its apps’ UI a graphic revamp, so to make them look more consistent and part of a unified system where Bixby swiftly works as the underlying connective tissue.

Considering just how important the Galaxy S8 will be for Samsung — taking the infamous Note 7‘s fiasco into account — we certainly believe that whatever’s being done may end up being of massive importance for the firm, likely way beyond the just the S8 itself; and with Google’s hardware invasion, it’ll be interesting to see how things ultimately pan out.

The Note issue WAS NOT THE MOST important new item of '16 for SEC, VIV was

AI Assistant In Smartwatch

Samsung May Use Bixby AI Assistant in All Apps on Gear S4 after Galaxy S8

Samsung Electronics will use its artificial intelligence (AI) assistant named “Bixby” in wearable devices including smartwatch.

SEOUL,KOREA

29 December 2016 - 10:45am

Cho Jin-young

New rumors suggest that Samsung Electronics will use its artificial intelligence (AI) assistant named “Bixby” in wearable devices as well, including smartwatch, after the Galaxy S8, expanding its service areas. As Google is also seeking to expand its voice assistant “Google Assistant” service, the AI competition between Samsung and Google seems to be expanded to the wearables beyond smartphones.

According to foreign news reports and industry sources on December 28, Samsung Electronics will use Bixby in the Galaxy S8 to be released next year as well as its next-generation Gear S4 smartwatch.

Bixby is the name for Samsung Electronics’ AI voice-guided assistant service. Samsung has been making an every effort to develop AI technologies after acquiring Viv Labs, a U.S.-based startup founded by a group of three people who created Apple's voice assistant Siri.

Bixby will be available in all apps that would come pre-installed on the Galaxy S8, which is to be its first test platform. Samsung’s existing voice assistant “S Voice” is likely to be replaced by Bixby and users can operate all apps in the Galaxy S8 using Bixb with voice commands, according to foreign news reports.

In addition, some say that Bixby will be used in new wearable devices to be launched starting from next year. Samsung’s next “Gear S4” smartwatch is likely to be installed with Bixby. Users will also be able to use the latest AI service in the Gear S2 and Gear S3 through software updates.

When more and more people use Bixby service, the competition in AI services between Google and Samsung will also expand from smartphones to wearables. Previously, Google adopted its AI voice assistant “Google Assistant” in its high-end Pixel smartphones released in the second half of this year. Starting with its first Pixel smartphones, Google is planning to launch two smartwatch models in the first half of next year. Google Assistant functions will be available in these smartwatches.

An official from the industry said, “The movement that expands AI from smartphones to wearable devices and even home appliances will be accelerated even further next year.


This is a BIG pic item, and we want small devices, like wearables that have listening

“The movement that expands AI from smartphones to wearable devices 


Nice.  :-)  Now who can really help make something like this possible? Only a very FEW.
Commentary.  Some nice things in this item.  Mainly wearables that have an assitant will be right up QUIKs true expertise, A smartphone might decide to do listening on the APs DSP, just try that on a wearable. ;-).

Now I only use the lens of Steven Johnsons writing on The Adjacent possible to evaluate what is going on.  For several years now and the events all fit well within his writings.

Most everyone will say the biggest Samsung event was the Note 7 failure, but NOT from the S Johnson lens.  Not even close.  From that point of view the really HUGE samsung news, bigger by far than the Note was that they went out and got an A team-VIV

https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/05/samsung-acquires-viv-a-next-gen-ai-assistant-built-by-creators-of-apples-siri/

They put this piece on their bench, and now we read of Bixby.  Now IoT is in the news, look at Sumsung's ecosystem of all the things they make.  They got themselves an important seat for the next evolution,  they really do get it and this WAS the BIG news of '16 for them.



A snip from A sensory Blog

From small footprint neural networks for noise robust voice triggers and phrase-spotted commands, to large vocabulary recognition leveraging a unique neural network with deep learning that achieves acoustic models an order of magnitude smaller than the present state-of-the-art, to convolutional neural networks deployed in the biometric fusion of face and voice modalities for authentication, all on device and not requiring any cloud component, Sensory continues to be the leader in utilizing state-of-the-art machine learning technology for embedded solutions.

One other thing QUIK's B Faith has spoken of the increase we will see this yr in partnerships with Apps folks.  They will be adding voice to those apps....Samsung will start by

using Bixby on a payment app.  No don't expect QUIK to be in this one just use it as a mental model, foreshadowing of somethings we will read later on in '17.

 very nice read here...read it more than once. 5 starrs


http://www.eejournal.com/archives/articles/20170110-iot-administration/

2017 - The IoT Administration Begins

A New Leader for Electronic Design

It is nice to read it, especially if you already heard todays presentation....

At the base semiconductor level, the challenge is no longer “Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits.” Instead, it’s more subtle - like “cramming more different types of highly-efficient components into smaller, cheaper modules.” Many IoT edge devices need to sip the tiniest rations of power while keeping at least some “always on” monitoring of MEMS and other sensors. This means integration of digital, analog, and even MEMS into low-cost, small-form-factor, ultra-low-power packages. The ability to stitch disparate types of technology together on one silicon substrate or interposer - logic, memory, analog - perhaps even MEMS - is a formidable weapon in the IoT edge war.

In fact, one of the most critical concepts in IoT may be heterogeneous distributed processing
Decomposing complex, system-level algorithms into pieces that can run in parallel on application-appropriate optimized hardware accelerators of various types (FPGAs, GPUs, MCUs, real-time processors, low-power application processors, and big-money server processors), putting the appropriate types of workloads onto the correct processing nodes at the correct place in the signal chain (optimizing computation, networking, and storage resources) is a daunting challenge that we have only begun to address in the most primitive fashion.

Samsung confirms it’s working on exciting new wearable tech
Read more at http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/samsung-confirms-it-s-working-on-exciting-new-wearable-tech#sKIvp0GekM6I07d3.99

Giving an insight into what the firm is working on, Samsung has suggested that next-generation wearables will be able to monitor everything from your mood to the conditions surrounding your latest fitness session.