Testing Bixby, Samsung's Ambitious Plan to Make You Talk Like Iron Man

A new talking sidekick arrived Wednesday on millions of Samsung Galaxy S8 phones. To understand what makes chatting with Bixby different from Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant, Samsung would like us to picture Iron Man. Injong Rhee, Samsung's head of mobile software R&D, told me the electronics giant's late-to-the-game voice assistant was inspired by Tony Stark. In the movies, he just barks commands and his systems leap into action. Billionaire inventors don't have to tap through menus to fire their unibeam chest projectors. Samsung wants to make all kinds of devices conversational.