Trying to Make Reversal
Samsung Electronics and Apple, which failed to make a sizable profit with their flagship smartphones released in the second half of this year, are aiming to make a reversal.
Samsung Electronics plans to embed artificial intelligence (AI)-based personal secretary service to its flagship smartphones to be released starting from next year. The company recently acquired Viv Labs, a U.S.-based AI software startup founded by three inventors of Apple’s voice assistant Siri. Viv Labs has technology for “open AI platform” on which third party developers can add their service features and extend their service to customers. Samsung Electronics plans to lead the AI platform for smartphones in the future based on this as Google and Apple have led the smartphone platform through the application marketplace.
In addition, press media that specializes in information technology (IT) at home and abroad expected that the Samsung Galaxy S8 would have an edge-to-edge or bezel-less OLED display with a 95 percent screen-to-body ratio on the front. The upcoming model will also have a dual camera on the back to improve the image quality and give perspective while it allows users to take better selfies with its autofocus support to the front camera. It is also rumored that Samsung Electronics will remove the home button on the front but on the back.
Next year marks the 10-year anniversary of the Apple iPhone. Apple, which have received comments that it lacks innovation in iPhones over recent years, is putting a lot of work into making the iPhone 8 to be released next year. According to Apple news website 9to5Mac, Taiwan’s KGI Investment said, “Apple plans to launch three different variants of the iPhone 8 next year. The company will add wireless charging to the new iPhone models and choose a glass enclosure instead of current aluminum enclosure as well as upgrade its central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU).”
Apple will also upgrade its AI-based service Siri. Currently, Siri shows the limitations to come up with best responses itself to users’ requests and understand contexts with previous questions. Accordingly, Apple hired Ruslan Salakhutdinov, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University and its computer science school's machine learning department, as a director of AI research team last month. The company is now working on ways to improve Siri’s ability to understand human speech and to “speak” more naturally upon the questions of users.
Previously, Apple bought VocalIQ Ltd., a U.K.-based speech recognition startup, for US$100 million (120 billion won) at the University of Cambridge last year.
Some say that the iPhone 8 would be equipped with a curved display. Wall Street Journal reported on November 28 (local time), “Apple has recently asked its partners to improve the performance of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays. The iPhone 8 can come with a curved, OLED display screen.”