English Bixby lacks big data: Report

The English version of Samsung’s voiceassistant, Bixby, has been delayed because the company “lacks accumulation of big data”, which is key to deep learning technology, reported The Korea Herald.

Bixby is Samsung’s latest voice-assistant service unveiled in May along with Galaxy S8 and S8 + smartphone. The service was touted to be the highlight of the flagship smartphone launched earlier this year. However, it failed to get recognised in many markets due to its continuous struggle over learning the English-language. The release date for the service in English language has been pushed twice, so far, and is said to roll out fully not until end of this month. However, it is available in Samsung’s home market and functions well in the Korean-language. A beta test for the English version was made available late last month to select Samsung galaxy S8/S8+ customers in the United States. “Developing Bixby in other languages is taking more time than we expected mainly because of the accumulation of big data,” a Samsung spokesperson told The Korea Herald.

Apart from it, the communication between Samsung’s engineers working at Samsung Research in California and the ones headquartered in Korea has also been cited as the cause of delay for an English Bixby. “Many engineers in the US are making full efforts to develop the English version of Bixby. But, (due to geographical and language barriers) their frequent reports and communication with the management located in Korea makes the progress much slower than developing the Korean version here,” another source reported.