Black Friday or Cyber Monday, take your pick; it's that time of year again. If you're in the market for a smartphone -- and it's statistically likely you are, given that 403.5 million handsets shipped last holiday season -- there's no better month to seek out promotions, discounts, and limited-time deals on new devices. Samsung is hosting a sale on Galaxy phones including the Galaxy S10e, S10, S10 Plus, and S10 5G, and OnePlus recently knocked $150 off the price of the OnePlus 7 Pro. Carriers like T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon are awarding up to $700 in trade-in credits, and as for retailers, there's the usual doorbusters. It's almost too much of a good thing -- particularly if you aren't committed to a brand, a model, or a manufacturer. Conventional wisdom would have you judge a device by its screen or perhaps its camera, but we took a different tack last year with our guide to the best phones for the AI enthusiast.

Samsung apparently has enough confidence in its half-baked voice assistant, Bixby, that it plans to open it up to developers, according to the WSJ. At its San Francisco developer conference next week, it plans to roll out new features for the assistant and open it up completely to developers, much as Amazon and Google have done with Alexa and Google Assistant. It will reportedly show developers how they can create Alexa-like skills for ordering food or hailing rides, called "capsules." The main problem with Bixby is that just 6 percent of American's use it, compared to 24 and 20 percent who use Alexa and Google Assistant, respectively. This is despite the fact that Bixby is built into numerous smartphones, TVs and even appliances that Samsung sells.

Samsung understandably focused most of its attention on the Galaxy Note 9 at its Unpacked event, but it also used the media gathering to unveil the next generation of Bixby, and... well, it's a mixed bag. The new AI helper delivers some sincerely helpful functional improvements. It can find events near you, and will not only attach Yelp ratings when you search for things to do, but deliver results based on your personal preferences. If you're fond of sushi, for instance, those restaurants will float to the top. You can also reserve restaurants, hail Uber rides and perform certain other tasks right from Bixby, with tight Spotify integration on the way. Adobe added that its document scanning technology was baked into Bixby Vision, helping you turn receipts and forms into easily readable files.

Samsung has faced a tough slog getting Bixby to the masses, but now its voice assistant is accessible in more than 200 countries including the UK, Australia, Canada and South Africa. It's been available in South Korea and the US since July, when it launched after months of delays. Part of Bixby's appeal is its positioning beyond that of a simple voice assistant. Samsung claims it learns over time, recognizing "natural language" to make interacting with your phone easier and more intuitive. It understands cross-application commands and thanks to deep integration it can be accessed without any interruptions to what you're already doing on-screen.

A new report claims that Samsung is working on a smart speaker that would directly compete with Google Home and Amazon's Echo devices. Samsung's speaker will be powered by Bixby, the digital assistant that was first introduced on the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus. The new report on Samsung's rumored smart connected speaker was made The Korea Herald. The news site said that Samsung has already been granted design patents for the new standalone speaker device, and that it will most likely be powered by the company's own Bixby assistant. The report is quite accurate as IBT reported last month that Samsung was indeed granted two patents: one for a Note-branded smartphone, and another that's only called as an "Audio Device."

While the rest of the world will have to wait a little longer, Samsung yesterday rolled out voice functionality for its new assistant Bixby to Galaxy S8 owners in South Korea – and it turns out the little virtual helper has some mad skills to show off. Though Bixby was mostly designed to perform simple voice commands like making calls, setting reminders and calendar appointments as well as launching apps, it turns out the assistant can also spit some fire raps for you. We've teamed up with Product Hunt to offer you the chance to win an all expense paid trip to TNW Conference 2017! South Korean residents are flocking to YouTube to upload videos showing Bixby rhyme over various beats – both old and new school – and it sounds surprisingly good, even though my Korean is practically non-existent. As you can expect from any voice-enabled virtual assistant, the lyrics hardly qualify as what you'd call quality hip-hop, but it's still entertaining to see your phone trying to rap.

One of the biggest talking points as far as the forthcoming release of the latest smartphone flagships from the South Korean major Samsung, has been its AI-based digital assistant'Bixby'. There were discussions on how it could be a game-changer in the industry and might set new standards in the industry. We had reported even in these columns that some experts felt'Bixby' might give Apple's Siri a run for its money. But it now transpires that the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 may not sport the'Bixby' assistant in its full form, when the phone reaches the hands of customers later in April'2017. In a statement issued by Samsung, it has been stated that there are some issues related to the voice detection module in Bixby, particularly when spoken in English. They would, therefore, like to work on it and the full function assistant will be made available only by spring this year.

The Galaxy S8 with Bixby will be the successor to last year's the S7 handsets. NEW YORK--Ahead of the March 29 launch of its next flagship smartphone, Samsung has confirmed that the Galaxy S8 will have a new voice-driven digital assistant named Bixby, molded by artificial intelligence. S8 owners will be able to summon Bixby on the phone at the press of a button. Samsung revealed some general details on Bixby in a blog posted Monday by InJong Rhee, the company's executive vice president and head of R&D, for software and services. Rhee did not mention in his post whether Samsung will leverage the conversational-based voice technology developed by Viv Labs, a startup Samsung bought in October.