Samsung will release its Galaxy S8 later than expected. The Korean company does not want to take any risk after the Note 7 battery exploding fiasco, which made it a laughingstock. With the delay, Samsung will now deviate from its tradition of releasing a new Galaxy device every year in late February ahead of the annual Mobile World Congress trade show.
Talking of Galaxy S8 to divert attention from Note 7
According to The Wall Street Journal, the launch date will now be postponed until April or maybe after that. The smartphone maker had to discontinue its Galaxy Note 7 following various “Firegate” reports. So the company is now trying to divert the attention of enthusiasts to the Galaxy S8 by talking about it a lot before the launch.
On Monday morning, the company even revealed one of the key features of the upcoming gadget. The company revealed that the Galaxy S8 will come with a new personal assistant feature to compete with Google Assistant, the iPhone’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. The Galaxy S8’s personal assistant will be based on Viv technology. This company, which was built by one of Siri’s co-founders, was recently acquired by Samsung.
The WSJ report also noted that the assistant feature will be so prominent in the S8 that it will be available all the time, and there will be a dedicated button for it.
“The latest internal prototypes of the premium Galaxy S8 handset include a button on the side edge of the smartphone that would be used to launch a beefed-up virtual assistant,” the report noted.
However, the report also said the final design of the smartphone has still not been confirmed, and therefore, the button could very well be removed. If Samsung does what the WSJ reported, then Android fans will have to wait longer to get an S8 for themselves.
Betting on artificial intelligence
The WSJ added that the Korean electronics giant is looking to cement its place among rivals and build its comeback around artificial intelligence, currently the hot property in the technology market. According to The WSJ, rivals are pouring cash into this field to come up with smart digital assistants that can answer most basic requests like calling a taxi and ordering pizza. So there is definitely a need for Samsung to up its game to edge ahead of rivals, and it is definitely working towards that.
Samsung says it does not want to merely put a digital secretary feature into the phone, but rather, it intends to interconnect all its devices into an Internet-of-Things-kind of network using artificial intelligence.
“The new AI functions of the S8 are not about its services, but the beginning of our vision,” said Samsung VP Rhee In-jong. “We are going to expand its presence into other devices ? including televisions, refrigerators and washing machines. Users will not have to operate any apps in the upcoming era, as the open AI ecosystem will allow agents to do tasks on their own.”
Jong added that the platform will be accessible to third-party developers to design new apps based on artificial intelligence. Samsung has not yet revealed what its artificial intelligence assistant will be called.
Galaxy S8 expected specs
A report from the Korea Herald indicated that Samsung will increase the resolution of the Galaxy S8 again to 4K. The company unveiled a prototype of this 5.5-inch display in the context of a screen for VR headsets, but whether the same screen will be used in the Galaxy S8 is unclear.
For the past two years, the Korean firm has launched two variants of the Galaxy S line: a flat screen phone and a curved-edge option. Speaking to reporters following the launch of the Note 7, Koh Dong-jin, Samsung’s head of mobile, said the company is thinking of bringing the Edge display option to all of its Galaxy line-up if it can offer consumers a differentiated user experience through software and user-friendly functions.
However, it’s unclear whether the company will adopt the curved screen for all its flagship phones starting with the S8. So far, the company has used both an Exynos processor and a Qualcomm chip, depending on the region, and the same is expected in the Galaxy S8.
