It has been only four months since Korean tech giant Samsung launched its voice-enabled digital assistant, Bixby. However, the company is now set to unveil the next generation for the software next week.
According to the South Korea-based Korea Herald, Samsung plans to unveil the upgraded version of the software assistant, Bixby 2.0, on Oct. 18 at its annual developer conference in San Francisco.
The company also recently appointed a new executive to head the development of Bixby, following the unenthusiastic reception of the product compared to other competitors like the new Amazon Alexa.
Last week, the company confirmed that Samsung Research America's Vice Chief Chung Eui-suk has been appointed to head the service intelligence group at its South Korea headquarters.
Rhee In-jong, the chief technology officer of Samsung mobile, previously spearheaded the development of Bixby's Korean and English version. With the new appointment, he will be in charge of smartphone development excluding Bixby.
Despite the delay of Bixby's English language release, the software was launched to lackluster reviews, with many citing the unpolished state of the product as reason for negative reviews. Many critics consider it a beta product instead of a fully launched release, due to various issues, including frequent misinterpretation of commands.
Samsung's mobile business head Koh Dong-jin acknowledged Bixby's need for development. With the upcoming release of Bixby 2.0, the company expects better performance from the software assistant. "We will supplement the incomplete parts of Bixby 1.0 at Bixby 2.0," said the executive.
The company also hopes that the use of Bixby 2.0 will expand from smartphones to other third party products and services. Dong-jin added that "outside developers will participate in the development of Bixby 2.0 although they could not for Bixby 1.0 due to time shortage."
The upgrades that will be rolled out are expected to allow Bixby to stay on par with competitors like Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Alexa, and the Google assistant.
