After a two-month delay, Samsung Electronics Co. finally begun English service for its voice-activated personal assistant Bixby mounted on Galaxy S8 series that was released in April.

Users in the U.S. and Korea will be able to activate English-speaking Bixby.

Bixby officially debuted in May 1 as Samsung’s answer to Siri of Apple and Google Assistant.

It performs various tasks on spoken orders given in natural language.

“We want to offer a truly multimodal experience, so that users can interact with their phone in many different ways - through sight, touch, typing or voice - all of the most natural ways to interact with the world, available on your smartphone,” said In-jong Rhee, chief technology officer of Samsung Electronics’ mobile communication business, in a statement.

The English service will be integrated into Galaxy S8 series’ nearly 10 application and functions such as gallery, calendar, texting, and camera. The support for additional Samsung-developed and third-party apps will also be available via Bixby Labs to have the digital assistant connected to Samsung’s mobile wallet, Facebook, Tweeter, and many others.

Samsung Galaxy S8 series users in Korea can switch to the English mode under Bixby’s setup menu.

The English-speaking Bixby has been delayed twice, pushing back the release of its versions in other languages like Chinese and Spanish.

By Lee Dong-in

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]