Galaxy S8's Bixby To Be Able To Identify Real-World Things

It's really no secret that Samsung wants in on the whole AI-powered personal assistant bandwagon. After all, it did purchase Viv Labs, founded by Siri's original creators. Rumored to be called Bixby, at least in one gender-based incarnation, Samsung's personal assistant is expected to debut on the Galaxy S8, which, in turn, is expected to be unveiled in just a few weeks. But when Bixby does launch, it might have an ability none of its peers currently have: recognizing objects and text via the Galaxy S8 camera.

According to the leak, the Samsung camera app on the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus will have a dedicated Bixby button. When tapped, the app will switch from taking photos to analyzing the objects in the frame, be it text for converting into digital form or an actual object. Once identified, Bixby will allow users to search for that object online or even buy it online.

Such a functionality isn't actually new and combines several existing technologies, like OCR (Optical Character Recognition) into a more coherent whole. In fact, we've already seen and heard of such things in Google's former Goggles app. The closest we got to a more advanced implementation was on the ill-fated Amazon Fire Phone's Firefly feature.

Bixby's functionality, however, isn't limited to simply searching online or shopping, though, according to the leak, it does do the latter. At launch, however, those might very well be the two things it will be able to do, with more to follow. That is, if Bixby really takes off.

Bixby, or its other persona, Kestra, is in for an uphill battle against more established personal assistants, and Samsung doesn't exactly have a track record in that area (remember S Voice?). Still, times have changed and Samsung now owns a lot more properties, technologies, and businesses, from SmartThings to, soon, HARMAN, which could give Bixby an edge over its rivals.

VIA: SamMobile