Samsung will delay the full rollout of the Bixby virtual assistant on its upcoming Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone series, but if you want to change the S8's dedicated Bixby button to do something else? You'll likely be out of luck. Samsung is disabling third-party workarounds that previously allowed users to customize what the Galaxy S8's Bixby button could do, according to XDA Developers. On the left side of the phone, the S8 has a physical button that is used to activate the Bixby assistant. As XDA Developers reports, the closed loophole comes as part of a pre-release update patch from Samsung. By using the free All In One Gestures app on Google's Play Store, early Galaxy S8 users could previously reset the phone's Bixby button to perform tasks like opening the camera or launching a preferred app.

Samsung's new virtual assistant won't be able to respond to voice requests when the Galaxy S8 launches later this month, the company confirmed to TIME on Wednesday. Such capabilities will be coming to the S8 later this spring, while the digital helper's other features will be available when the phone launches on April 21. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The smartphone maker has flaunted its new Bixby digital aide as one of the Galaxy S8's standout features, along with a nearly borderless screen and compatibility with a dock that allows the phone to function as a desktop computer. But the English language version of Bixby's voice recognition technology hasn't performed as well as the Korean edition during internal tests, the Journal reported.

Samsung has delayed the launch of its new voice-activated personal assistant feature on its latest smartphone. Voice-powered assistant Bixby - which allows users to search and categorise photographs and information by using voice commands - was due to debut on the electronics giant's new Galaxy S8 smartphones as an answer to Apple's Siri. The South Korean company announced that the much anticipated Bixby feature was being dropped just days before the launch of the S8. Samsung's eagerly anticipated iPhone rival the Galaxy S8 (left) and Samsung Galaxy S8 (right) were launched at joint events in New York and London last month The global roll out of the phone will take place on 21 April. While Samsung did not give a reason for the delay, previous reports have suggested the software was lacking in the days ahead of its launch.

The good: Sharp screen; Compact design; Wide front facing camera; Good battery life The bad: Easily picks up fingerprint smudges, Power button and fingerprint sensor placement can feel awkward; Lacks other new features that differentiate it from other new smartphones Who should buy: Android loyalists who want more screen space in a smaller device will be happy with the G6. But it may be worth waiting to check out the Samsung Galaxy S8. With Samsung on the proverbial ropes following its Galaxy Note 7 fiasco, rival Android smartphone makers like HTC and LG had a rare opportunity to leapfrog the perennial market leader. The former's effort, the HTC U Ultra, largely failed in that regard. LG's new G6 Android phone is radically different from last year's G5, which was designed around a customizable "modular" concept that never caught on with consumers.

UK mobile phone carrier Vodafone has announced the launch of a new artificial intelligence chatbot called TOBi. TOBi is designed to help customers and act as a virtual customers service agent, it will be available soon in the My Vodafone app and also online. Vodafone UK has launched TOBi – the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot – as an innovative way of offering our customers a quicker web chat service. TOBi, a virtual customer services' agent, can handle a range of customer queries including device troubleshooting, usage and order tracking amongst many others. TOBi is already available to some customers through our online web chat service.

Vodafone UK has launched TOBi – the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot – as an innovative way of offering our customers a quicker web chat service. TOBi, a virtual customer services' agent, can handle a range of customer queries including device troubleshooting, usage and order tracking amongst many others. Recent research shows that 55% of UK consumers say that the most important factor in the ideal customer experience is getting a prompt and effective response to queries[1], highlighting the need for companies to provide faster and more integrated customer service responses. With 75% of all consumers aged 18-25 already using instant messenger everyday [2], TOBi is our answer to providing customers with the quick and easy web chat service they want. TOBi is already available to some customers through our online web chat service. Later this month messaging will also be available through the My Vodafone app, so customers will be able to speak to advisors whenever they want and while they are on the go.

When Samsung introduced the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 to the world, the company proudly shared that the Android devices will have their own voice assistant called Bxby. Unfortunately, consumers shouldn't expect to get their hands on the new Siri rival as it was recently found out that Bixby will not ship with the flagship phones. On Tuesday, CNET learned that the key feature that was supposed to debut when the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 start shipping at the end of the month will not come with the handsets. The South Korea giant has confirmed that its new voice assistant will not be operational out of the box, so consumers won't be able to use it starting April 21. Samsung said that while key features of Bixby will be functional at launch, the voice assistant will not be available for use until the later part of spring. "Key features of Bixby, including Vision, Home and Reminder, will be available with the global launch of the Samsung Galaxy S8 on April 21.

Don't expect to start talking to Samsung's Bixby voice assistant when you fire up your new Galaxy S8 later this month. The key feature was expected to debut on the new flagship handset, but the electronics giant is now saying Bixby won't be operational on the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus when they ship to consumers April 21. Bixby's voice assistant will be delayed, the company warns. "Key features of Bixby, including Vision, Home and Reminder, will be available with the global launch of the Samsung Galaxy S8 on April 21," Samsung said in a statement. "Bixby Voice will be available in the US on the Galaxy S8 later this spring."

With the recent development in mobile computing devices and as the ubiquitous deployment of access points(APs) of Wireless Local Area Networks(WLANs), WLAN based indoor localization systems(WILSs) are of mounting concentration and are becoming more and more prevalent for they do not require additional infrastructure. As to the localization methods in WILSs, for the approaches used to localization in satellite based global position systems are difficult to achieve in indoor environments, fingerprint based localization algorithms(FLAs) are predominant in the RSS based schemes. However, the performance of FLAs has close relationship with the number of APs and the number of reference points(RPs) in WILSs, especially as the redundant deployment of APs and RPs in the system. There are two fatal problems, curse of dimensionality (CoD) and asymmetric matching(AM), caused by increasing number of APs and breaking down APs during online stage. In this paper, a semi-supervised RSS dimensionality reduction algorithm is proposed to solve these two dilemmas at the same time and there are numerous analyses about the theoretical realization of the proposed method. Another significant innovation of this paper is jointing the fingerprint based algorithm with CM-SDE algorithm to improve the localization accuracy of indoor localization.

Samsung would have you believe it has redefined smartphone design with its latest top-end handsets, the Galaxy S8 and the S8 . It's true they appear sleeker than before thanks to a decision to elongate their screens, make the home buttons "invisible" and put the fingerprint sensors on the back. But for all the talk of "infinity displays" and "works of art", they remain oblong mobiles that are hard to mistake for anything else. Potentially more groundbreaking is the inclusion of a new virtual assistant - Bixby - that can see as well as hear. Samsung now plans to roll it out to its TVs and other electronics.