The Samsung Galaxy S8 integrated Google Assistant or Google Now, but it also comes with the new virtual assistant of Samsung called Bixby.
Bixby does not necessarily aim to compete with Google Assistant or Siri, but it focuses on helping you control the interface of the phone and perform tasks you could usually do with the touch screen.
In general, this artificial intelligence from Samsung focuses on three parts as voice recognition, Bixby Home panel and recognition of the objects and places, Bixby Vision.
Voice recognition allows you to ask Bixby to turn on the night mode or blue light filter on your phone. You can ask to find photos you took during your vacation, to zoom in on the photo, to simply rotate the photos or to place a photo as a wallpaper using just your voice.
In addition, with a single voice command, you can ask Bixby to play a video you recorded during that vacation, directly on the TV in your living room.
For its part, Hello Bixby, located in the left panel of the Samsung Galaxy S8 home screen works much like Google Now.
This panel integrates basic information such as weather, video recommendations and your physical activity. However, unlike Google Now, Bixby can integrate information from apps like Facebook, Spotify and Twitter and help you customize that screen.
Bixby also learns from your behavior to suggest different things to you. For example, if every day you call your girlfriend when you leave work or college, it will recommend you to make that call through a card.
For its part, Bixby Vision is also integrated into the Samsung Galaxy S8 camera, so you can receive information on what is in front of it and it works in a way very similar to what you can find in apps like Amazon Flow, Google Googles or Bing View. For example, Bixby can recognize a book or a glass of wine in front of the camera to offer you more related information and up to date price of that product on Amazon.
Bixby also has the ability to offer you information about a restaurant or tourist spot, when you point the camera towards it. Using Google Translate through the camera, Bixby has the ability to translate text in up to 52 languages in real time and can help you get information from photos you already have in the gallery.
Bixby Home panel may be useful, but Google Now works very similar and although Bixby Vision has worked well and it is sometimes useful, but you may not consider it to be a life-changing feature.
