Samsung rolls out Bixbys voice across the world, but only in English and Korean

Samsung BixbyBixby’s voice capabilities have been expanded to more than 200 countries and territories around the world, including the UK, Australia, Canada and South Africa. But, here’s the kicker: it can only currently understand US English and Korean.

Bixby’s voice functions have been available in the US since last month, and in South Korea since the launch of the Galaxy S8 and S8+. Now, the rest of the world gets to enjoy Bixby’s voice skills, though a large number of them won’t actually be able to interact with the virtual assistant through speech because they don’t know English or Korean.

“Now millions of customers worldwide have access to a new and intelligent way of interacting with their phone,” said Injong Rhee, Executive Vice President and Head of R&D, Software and Services of the Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics. “The expansion of Bixby’s voice capabilities is an initial step in the continued rollout of Bixby functionality. In the future, Bixby will have the learning power to offer more intelligent and personalized interactions and seamless connections across more devices.”

Samsung says it will continue to expand Bixby’s voice capabilities to additional countries, languages, devices, features and third-party applications over the coming months and years. For now, Bixby is available on the Galaxy S8 and S8+, and can be activated by holding the dedicated Bixby button or by saying “Hi Bixby”.

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