Samsung's Galaxy Home smart speaker will go on sale by April, president DJ Koh told CNET today. The Korean tech giant's answer to the Google Home, Amazon Echo, and Apple HomePod debuted in August 2018, but no pricing or release dates were provided at that time. The news was shared today at Unpacked, an event at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco where Samsung introduced new devices like its flagship S10 smartphones, the Galaxy Fold that can unfurl into a 7.3-inch tablet, and Galaxy Buds with Bixby. Galaxy Home will be the first smart speaker to operate with Samsung's Bixby smart assistant. The speaker sits atop a tripod and includes spatial intelligence that ensures sound quality by taking into account the size of the room, as well as Spotify-enabled music recommendations.

Samsung has finally unveiled its own smart speaker in a bid to take on Amazon, Apple, and Google. At the firm's Unpacked event in Brooklyn, New York today, Samsung teased a look at its Galaxy Home speaker, equipped with the Bixby voice assistant. But, Samsung remained tight-lipped on most of the details. The firm hasn't yet revealed how much it will cost or when it will officially launch, but promised more information is to come at the developer conference in November. At the firm's Unpacked event in Brooklyn, New York today, Samsung teased a look at its sleek Galaxy Home speaker, equipped with the Bixby voice assistant.

Samsung's new high-end smartphone alerts owners to problems with their photos as soon as they are snapped. The Galaxy Note 9 uses software to identify if the images are blurry or whether the subject is blinking, among other issues. The innovation is one of several artificial intelligence-enhanced abilities the handset offers that do not rely on remote computer servers. Analysts say this should help tackle increasing competition from Huawei. The Chinese rival made much of its own flagship phone's machine learning abilities when it launched in March. The Note 9's other new features include a stylus that wirelessly communicates with the phone to act as a remote control.

Samsung's Bixby digital assistant is taking the next step in its challenge of Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Apple's Siri, and will soon be available in a high-end speaker with an integrated smart home hub. At the launch of its Galaxy Note 9 smartphone today in New York, Samsung said a Bixby speaker, called Galaxy Home, is on the way. The speaker will feature an integrated SmartThings hub, which will enable it to control the vast array of smart home devices in the SmartThings ecosystem. That should make it much more powerful than the Amazon Echo Plus, which is equipped with a ZigBee radio, but doesn't support the equally popular Z-Wave platform. We knew a smart speaker was coming from Samsung sometime this year, but not much else.