Samsung targets 2020 for bringing its Bixby assistant to all its smart home products

Samsung’s Bixby might not be top of mind when it comes to digital assistants but that isn’t stopping the company from bringing it to more products. In fact, Samsung is hoping to bring the assistant t all its Internet of Things products by the year 2020. They aren’t going to stop with phones, TVs, refrigerators, and washers. They want even their ovens and robot cleaners to support the assistant to make sure you get a seamless experience with all its products. The year 2020 might be an ambitious deadline but Samsung says it’s partnering with AI research center competitors and looking for mergers to bring this initiative to life.

Source: Android Police

You can now fully disable Bixby on Galaxy S8 devices and Note8

It seems like a hard-fought battle but finally Samsung has acquiesced to the demands of the users of being able to disable the Bixby button. It can now be physically disabled so it would no longer summon up the Bixby Home screen. At first, they disabled it but it could still wake up the phone’s display like the power key would. The latest update though completely disables the button. The caveat, though, is you need to update all Bixby-related apps (Bixby, Bixby Home, and Bixby Service) on your Samsung Galaxy S8, S8 Plus, and Note 8 to the latest version to disable the feature.

Source: Android Authority

Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant comes to the US

While there’s still no sign of Bixby anywhere here yet, Samsung just launched its voice assistant in the US, a few months after it was introduced alongside the debut of the Galaxy S8 and S8+. It was released in South Korea in May and it looks like it’s finally ready to take on the English-speaking market in the US. Hopefully it makes its way here soon, too. With Samsung adamantly not letting users remap the Bixby buttons on the S8 devices, it would be better if the physical Bixby button actually served a purpose.

Source: Samsung