Samsung Galaxy S8 release date, specs, rumors: features in upcoming flagship include AI digital assistant

A visitor tries out a Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Note 7 at company's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea Reuters / Kim Hong-Ji

Samsung is finding ways to recover quickly from the Galaxy Note 7 mishap, and the company is now announcing the features that will land on its next flagship phone, the Galaxy S8. The company has confirmed that a new intelligent AI assistant will arrive together with its next phone.

Reuters has reported that Samsung acquired Viv Labs Inc. back in October, the developer studio that is partly responsible for Apple's Siri. Now, the South Korean manufacturing giant plans to integrate the Viv platform into the smartphone's operating system and extend its functionality to be used in home appliances and wearable devices.

Samsung Executive Vice President Rhee said that the integration of the AI assistant would also allow third-party services without a glitch. "Developers can attach and upload services to our agent," he stated.

Rhee also added, "Even if Samsung doesn't do anything on its own, the more services that get attached the smarter this agent will get, learn more new services and provide them to end-users with ease." The AI software is said to be capable of creating its own code in order to perform tasks that it could not do before. The process is called "dynamic program generation."

Trusted Reviews mentioned that a trademark filing in South Korea suggest that the AI that could arrive on the Galaxy S8 might be called "Bixby." The next flagship is also expected to be unveiled around February next year, during the Mobile World Congress that will happen in Barcelona.

With regards to the specifications, several reports suggest that the device will carry a 5.7-inch Super AMOLED force touch display and will have a 2560 x 1440 screen resolution. It is speculated to be around 6.5 mm thick and could weigh around 16 grams.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 will run Android 7.0 Nougat and will be powered by an Exynos 8890, 64-bit processor or a Qualcomm Snapdragon counterpart. The upcoming device will then be equipped with 4 GB of RAM, with 32/64/128 GB of internal storage. Its extended storage could offer up to 240 GB, while its cameras may arrive with 16 MP main and 8 MP front.

Samsung has not hinted any hardware feature of the upcoming Galaxy S8.

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