Perhaps we are having another war on the technological battlefield, although paradoxically less noisy. With the outbreak of virtual assistants it seems that there is another speaker, and after the latest proposal from Apple it seems that one of its direct rivals is brewing something and come information that Samsung is preparing a loudspeaker with integrated Bixby.
The assistant met him after months of rumors and was released with the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 +, although he has experienced some delays in terms of his functions since his departure. Now, while it is coming in other languages, it seems that the Korean company also prepares a hardware product focused on the use of the own assistant, thus facing those of Amazon, Google and Apple among others.
Sounds little, but it sounds like “Vega”
A little over a month ago some rumors began to sound a little louder, already pointing to this possible speaker for Bixby. Today it is the Wall Street Journal echoing supposed sources close by saying that Samsung works on a voice-activated speaker that would integrate Bixby, a project codenamed “Vega”.
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It is not known when it would be planned to launch or the design (perhaps the one whose patent was registered in May), but what is said is that it is not a recent idea, but the manufacturer would have been working on this smart speaker for more than a year. A project that seems to have a better end than similar ones that were previously worked on, such as the so-called internally called “Hive” that should have appeared in the Mobile World Congress of 2015, but which was finally canceled due to software problems that affected to voice recognition, they explain.
What would this “Vega” face? As we said, in the market right now there are different speaker proposals that integrate a virtual assistant, some of them being already iterations of previous releases …
- Amazon: The e-commerce giant unveiled a new home for its assistant Alexa in May with its new Amazon Echo Show, which unlike the previous one integrated a screen enhancing video calls and expanding the possibilities of interaction.
- Google: This year there was no renewal in Google I/O, but in 2016 the Mountain View featured Google Home, a smart speaker that makes home control center and integrates Google Assistant.
- Apple: One of the hardware announcements in the last WWDC 17 was the HomePod, a very Mac Pro style speaker that integrates Siri (and whose compatibility we do not yet know, to have with other music services) that will be available in white and space gray for $349 in the United States and globally in 2018.
- LINE: The messaging platform has also materialized a pair of loudspeakers in the purest style sticker with the form of two of its own characters (Sally the chick, and Brown the bear). They were introduced last month and integrate Clova, their own artificial intelligence platform, and are expected to hit the market in winter, without even knowing the price and distribution.
For its part, Microsoft has not yet announced anything officially, but Redmond is expected to present at some point Microsoft HomeHub, the solution they pose as a real alternative to the speakers so that any computer or tablet with Windows 10 could become a smart speaker to include the software platform in its next major upgrade for fall. We will see if it is also this year when we know the alleged speaker Samsung, although seeing that the things of Bixby go slowly maybe something more in the medium term.