Personal feeds like the Google Feed (formerly Google Now) and HTC BlinkFeed aren't a new idea, and phone makers never seem to tire of trying to collate all your personal info and updates into one place. "Samsung Hello" could be the company's latest attempt to do just that, and based on the timing of a recent trademark filing, a launch alongside the upcoming Galaxy S8 is a good bet.
The European trademark, first spotted by SamMobile refers to an app which "gives personalized features and information based on user's preferences in the fields of weather, music, entertainment, games, travel, science, health, contact, and social news via voice command and voice recognition." That sounds an awful lot like the Feed within the Google app, though it's unclear whether Samsung Hello would be entirely voice-only, or whether there'd also be some visual component.
Will Samsung Hello and the 'Bixby' AI be one and the same?
On a drier and more technical level, the filing also mentions "software that enable block users or computers and mobile devices to access, aggregate, organize and interact with content, information and images and topics of general interest to such users." (Read: showing you stuff you might be interested in — another central feature of the artist formerly known as Google Now.)
It's also not clear how Hello might tie into the Galaxy S8's rumored 'Bixby' AI assistant, or whether they're one and the same. Most of the features detailed in the trademark filing would seem to overlap with what you'd get from a voice-controlled assistant.
We should be careful about basing too much on a single trademark filing. While they can be useful indicators of what's to come, Samsung's past filings have included dubious marks like "Galaxy Fonblet," which never went anywhere. Regardless, with "AI" becoming one of the major phone trends of 2017, we'll be watching with interest to see how Samsung's AI efforts come into focus. The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are rumored to break cover at an event in New York City on March 29.
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