The race for artificial technology in mobile devices is now on. Reports indicate that Samsung is on the cusp of introducing its own proprietary technology that could very well provide the upcoming Galaxy S8 not only with AI credentials but also with a gender.
Patents For Samsung AI
Rumors about Samsung's own virtual assistant began swirling several weeks ago after the South Korean tech company acquired Viv Labs, a California-based startup. It is known for its development of intelligent interfaces that can be applied to everything. Most importantly, it is credited for creating Siri before Apple finally acquired the technology for its own devices.
Now, Samsung's virtual assistant recently popped up by way of several trademark applications submitted to the European Union Intellectual Property Office. The patents involved a payment processing technology based on voice commands.
These applications reveal that the payment tool is being called Bixby Pay. Samsung watchers should already know by now that Bixby is the rumored codename of the company's virtual assistant.
What is particularly interesting is that Samsung appears to be developing another AI that will ship with the other half of the Galaxy S8 devices. This time, its gender is female and would purportedly answer to the name Kestra. This female assistant and Bixby could effectively allow the upcoming Samsung devices to assume different gender identities.
Galaxy S8 Gets Gender Identity
The EU patent application has been corroborated by similar paper works submitted in South Korea. These documents shed more light on the smart assistants since they include several name variations such as Bix-by and Bix-bee, among others.
The patent applications all purportedly cited that Bixby and Kestra are softwares that can control mobile devices via voice commands.
"[It is a] computer software for enabling hands-free use of a mobile phone through voice recognition," said one description in a document obtained by the Galaxy Club.
Smart Assistant Debut
There is no official word yet coming from Samsung about Bixby or Kestra but the smart assistants themselves will probably debut when the Galaxy S8 is released in the early part of 2017.
For those wondering why Samsung chose the names, they are said to be identified with Star Trek. If you haven't gotten the hint, that show has the entire galaxy as its playground.
Samsung used to include the voice command app S-Voice with the bloatware that ships with its Galaxy devices. Now this app is already optional and is perhaps on the way out since a number of Samsung handsets are now equipped with Google Now by default. The birth of Bixby and Kestra is sure to shake things up a bit on the AI front.
