We had only heard rumors up until now about Samsung's upcoming virtual assistant and the artificial intelligence that powers it, but it has now been confirmed by Samsung officially. Previously, Samsung had filed for patenting the name "Bixby" and reports are suggesting that's exactly what the AI assistant will be called on release. Also, the good news is that it will be launched along with the upcoming S8 as expected.

In the official statement by Executive Vice President Rhee Injong, "Developers can attach and upload services to our agent,"

"Even if Samsung doesn't do anything on its own, the more services that get attached the smarter this agent will get, learn more new services and provide them to end-users with ease."

Although this means that third party services will be supported, Samsung did not specify any details about which ones it will work with or how exactly it will work with them. It will be interesting to see how the AI developed by the Korean electronics giant manages to stack up against the competition and especially the likes of the mighty Google Assistant that is now exclusively available to the Pixel phones.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

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Allo was announced earlier in 2016 at the Google I/O and the new messaging app is finally becoming available to Android and iOS devices around the world. If you are not aware about what makes Allo special in a world that's filled with messaging apps from different developers, let us enlighten you. Allo will work in perfect coordination with the new Google Assistant. In other words, Google Assistant is embedded as a part of the new messenger, which will allow users to reply to conversations based on the suggestions by the Google Assistant and perform in-app searches through both your personal data on the phone and also the internet.

Google Assistant is said to take digital assistance to another level through direct interactions with the evolving AI incorporated into the program. It will take the experience you had from Google Now and raise it up by quite a few notches. Now that Allo is finally here, we will learn about new ways to utilize the digital assistant. Keep in mind though, Allo is strictly limited to mobile devices only for now and won't be available on desktops for a while. Download it and give it a try now, it's free!

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

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Up until yesterday, Google's new voice assistant was exclusively available to the Pixel and the Pixel XL. However, Google has now made it official that the company is currently rolling out Google Assistant to multiple devices that are running on Android Marshmallow 6.0 or higher and Android Nougat 7.0 or higher. We knew that some of the upcoming devices like the LG G6 and the Moto G5/G5 Plus were going to come with the AI powered voice assistant right out of the box, but this is a pleasantly surprising and new development. The original announcement was made at the MWC earlier and now it's happening as you read this.

The United States is of course the first to get the personal assistant, but Australia, Canada and the UK should also start to receive the same soon enough. By the way, in case you are wondering if a package will need to be downloaded via OTA, let us assure you that it won't be necessary. The eligible devices will simply see Google Assistant show up on their phones. Long pressing the Home button on an updated device will bring up the AI assistant, actively replacing Google Search. Is this good news to you or do you simply not care about it? Let us know in the comments.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

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It is now official, all iOS devices will be getting Google's latest AI powered voice assistant. It looks like Siri's days of monopoly are finally over for iDevices. No date was confirmed but the news was made official at the I/O earlier. It would have come as a complete surprise, had it not been for an earlier report by Android Police which hinted at the same. According to Android Authority, "it will "likely" combine its voice command features with the chat functions found on the Google Allo version of Assistant." It would be interesting to see how they implement it on the iPhone.

Microsoft Cortana is already available on both the Google Play Store and the App Store, but till date, the Google Assistant had been exclusive to certain Android smartphones only. It looks like the competition is about to get really hot for AI assistants on both platforms sooner than we previously thought. If only Bixby (outside South Korea) had a bit more to bring to the table, things could have been even more interesting.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

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In a recent digital Assistant showdown conducted in between Siri and Google Assistant the iPhone, it was proven beyond doubt that the newer AI powered voice assistant is indeed bad news for Siri. In the comparison done by CNBC, Google Assistant managed to win most rounds convincingly, displaying surprising accuracy in almost every aspect. Nevertheless, Siri did manage to tie and even win a few rounds, so props to the older assistant for that. Check out the full test here.

If you are wondering what this means for Siri now, well, we can tell you that it still can do a few things like waking up the iPhone or silencing an incoming call that the Assistant will never be able to do on an Apple device, but that's only because iOS won't allow it. To be honest, it is starting to look like the iOS needs a more advanced AI assistant or at least a more updated one.

Saikat Kar (tech-enthusiast)

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