Five months after the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ went on sale, Australians will finally have access to the voice capabilities of the on-board intelligent assistant Bixby to take control of the device just by talking to it.
From today, anyone with a Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8+ will be able to install Bixby by pressing the dedicated Bixby voice key on the left edge of the device.
Users can also access Bixby by swiping right from the home screen and following the update prompts.
Once installed users can activate Bixby by holding down the dedicated button or by simply saying “Hi Bixby”.
“Bixby is an intelligent way of interacting with your Samsung smartphone,” said Garry McGregor, Director, IT and Mobile, Samsung Electronics Australia.
“With the introduction of Bixby voice, our Australian customers with a compatible smartphone will be able activate the power and functionality of the Bixby experience simply by speaking with their device.”
Bixby has been optimised for Australian customers so we can understand our accents and complete tasks, find information and get things done faster and easier.
Samsung says anything you can do on the phone can now be accomplished using just your voice with Bixby.
Bixby will only work with the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+.
It is also expected to be compatible with the upcoming Galaxy Note8, which will be unveiled at a launch in New York City this week.
Bixby voice capabilities are now available in more than 200 countries around the world.
Rather than going through the menus and apps to get things done, Bixby allows you to use your voice instead.
The deep learning is also built into the smartphone’s settings so you can change options just by talking to the device.
For example, you can say you “turn on wi-fi” or “turn on the torch” or “turn on blue light filter”.
Bixby is designed to get to know you and the way you speak and the way you ask questions and uses natural language understanding to make it even more intuitive.
It works as an intelligent interface and not a standalone app and works already with Samsung’s native apps.
When apps are Bixby-enabled, almost every task in that application usually completed by touch or text can now be performed using your voice.
