Take a look at Bixby, Samsung’s intelligent assistant. Voice recognition technology has drawn big crowds at recent home appliance and electronics exhibitions such as CES and IFA, but Bixby stands out in its ability to control appliances and TVs in optimized ways that fit users’ lifestyle. It’s natively embedded into some of the most important electronics or home appliances such as the TV and fridge, and it uses AI to be context-aware. In addition, an entire array of smart home gadgets, not just those made by Samsung, can be connected to the same connected network with just one click of an app. It has created a new way to experience and interact with the home.

No More Hassle in Front of the TV

The TV is one area that Bixby innovates and enhances entertainment. The boredom of channel surfing is banished once and for all. Many will already be familiar with searching for channels or shows with their voice. Bixby goes further by using the power of AI to recommend shows based on previous viewing habits and searching based on additional parameters beyond just the title or channel.

Bixby draws on information from set-top boxes and real-time TV channels Samsung Electronics has accumulated, thus recommending content that exactly meets users’ demand. It analyzes users’ voice commands to hear whether the commands include genre, cast, or title, thereby drawing accurate results. When a user plugs a set-top box into a TV, the TV automatically detects the brand of the set-top box and provides the user with customized content and channel information. So the user doesn’t have to command specifically by saying, “Find Suits.” Instead, if the user says, “Play TV series starring Meghan Markle,” Bixby analyzes the content and channels to deliver the desired result.

Bixby also gives information associated with the content while watching TV. When watching television, users are often curious about background music (BGM) or program details. If the user says “What is this song,” he or she can know right away. Searching information on BGM is possible in Samsung smart TVs, thanks to the collaboration with Shazam.

The viewer’s voice can also control a wide range of TV menu options, not just changing channels, but making sure everything is just right when sitting down to watch a movie.

Users can not only search content but also adjust TV settings using only their voices. Without having to fumble with the remote control several times over, users can change settings to fit their needs through voice commands such as “Make screen sharper,” and “Turn on Game Mode.” Samsung TVs went through the most rigorous tests to make sure TV use is made easy through Bixby.

Do More with Your TV

Viewers in the mood for a movie, or a particular show, may also want their TV to help them set the mood for a perfect night in. A simple command is enough to control the entire smart home, with the TV as the interface. For example, a viewer watching TV can see the contents of the fridge right on the TV screen through a simple voice command, and if it’s empty, can also order food on the spot, all without leaving the couch.

Bixby can also bring up weather information, favorite photos and play music on-screen without the need to open a standalone app. It’s an integrated way to use voice with the TV as the heart of the smart home. Now, commands such as “Show me photos from yesterday,” and “What’s the weather forecast in NY this week,” can become commonplace in the living room thanks to Bixby. These new features all come together in the 2018 premium smart TV. Through its most recent TV line, Samsung Electronics has focused on delivering the most optimal experience to TV viewers via Bixby.

Bixby Becomes Expert Home Assistant in Your Fridge

Taking into account that the kitchen is the ‘heart’ of the home where families and friends share warmth and social interactions, as opposed to just being a place for food and drink, Samsung installed Bixby in the 2018 Family Hub, the company’s smart refrigerator.

While other voice recognition platforms merely control refrigerator functions, Bixby in Family Hub learns and interacts with multiple users of the fridge and helps to manage the food inside. Bixby is an excellent home assistant that can even lend a hand when users’ hands are full with food or kitchen utensils.

Organizing the fridge inventory and preparing meals is easy and practical with Bixby. For example, after coming home with groceries, users can simply put everything away in the fridge and tell Bixby, “Move all items on Shopping List to the fridge.” With the list saved in the interface, Bixby can also help users find optimized recipes that work with the ingredients on hand while taking into consideration users’ dietary preferences. Users will then be guided on how to prepare the dish.

Another noteworthy function of the 2018 Family Hub is that it recognizes individual voices, so everyone gets the information they need. When a user asks, “Hi Bixby, what’s new today?” it will provide a readout of the news, weather and calendar updates specifically tailored to the user. Bixby’s role as a home assistant will continue to grow as it provides better, more personalized solutions in the future.

Bixby Connects the Home More Tightly than Ever

Bixby communicates with various appliances in the home. In fact, thanks to Samsung’s SmartThings IoT platform, all Samsung devices can be connected easily. Bixby handles simple voice commands to control devices and provide solutions based on what users need. It’s like having a normal conversation.

Samsung Electronics’ plan to upgrade Bixby is based on the company’s vision to maximize the usability of home appliances and is rooted in a deep understanding of consumer needs. Rather than simply executing the user’s commands on behalf of the remote control, Bixby will constantly evolve based on user experience so that it can understand and perform with more precision.

What’s more, as Bixby continues to evolve, users will be able to access and control various home appliances at once, all by simply talking to Bixby. For example, by telling Bixby “I’m going to bed,” users can automatically turn off the TV, dim the lights, and switch the air conditioner to sleep mode—all thanks to the fact that home appliances are becoming easily customizable through a connected learning system. Samsung Electronics plans to continue expanding Bixby to various home appliances in the near future.

^*Specific features and availability may vary by region and market

People in this situation aren’t alone. The average viewer spends almost an hour every day trying to find something to watch. But there’s a way that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help with content discovery, and it’s a function that’s already available on Samsung TVs.

Universal Guide Gives Smart TV the Power to Suit User Tastes

Samsung Electronics has introduced Universal Guide to its 2018 smart TVs as a way of helping users find content that fits their tastes. The clever AI deployed as part of the functionality can make suggestions of shows the viewer might like.

Universal Guide is an advanced program guide unlike any that came before. It learns a user’s preferences by watching for patterns over the space of a few weeks. It then uses the last two weeks of data to suggest suitable content on the smart TV including live channels. Although similar services have been available before, this is the first to use the power of AI to make intelligent content recommendations.

There are five tabs on the Universal Guide: For You, TV Shows, Movies, Sports, and Music. For You is the service that automatically recommends shows it thinks the user will like based on machine learning analysis of previous viewing habits. On the TV Shows, Movie, Sports, and Music tabs, the Universal Guide offers the latest trending content including Over the Top (OTT) content separate from the personalized recommendations on the For You tab.

Adding Simplicity to the Search for Shows

The profile of the average TV viewer is changing. It’s impossible to ignore the effect of Over the Top (OTT) streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. It has given rise to a generation of cord cutters – people who have severed ties with traditional cable suppliers. As a result, they have opened up new levels of flexibility where they can watch TV as and when they want. They can even binge-watch their favorite shows.

Responding to this trend, TV, which remains the most treasured watching platform, has been increasing its services. Samsung smart TVs provide video services from the likes of YouTube and Netflix and music services from Spotify. Additionally, thanks to the TV PLUS feature on Samsung smart TVs, viewers can watch video on demand without installing any extra apps. Everything is seamless and integrated. The AI-powered Universal Guide makes searching through this large amount of content intuitive.

Top Choices All Over the World

What makes Universal Guide different from other content recommendation algorithms? It reflects the latest trends, in addition to the user’s past viewing patterns. Universal Guide makes it easy to find the latest trending content no matter where the user is. After purchasing a Samsung smart TV, the user can input a regional code, which enables the TV to recommend the latest popular content based on the user’s location information. Combining viewer’s history and trending content in the area, Samsung 2018 smart TVs can recommend shows that would likely appeal to the user’s taste, anywhere in the world.

Taking AI to the Next Level

This is an experience that will only get better. Universal Guide already uses AI to grant access to content intuitively without a complex procedure. In the second half of this year, Samsung Electronics will further advance a content recommendation algorithm that will use AI to pick out not only real-time broadcast content but also OTT content. After that, the algorithm will evolve to be able to cater to individual user needs, instead of recognizing the viewing patterns of the whole family. In addition, Samsung plans to give the most optimal experience that a TV platform can bring by making the content viewable on mobile. The company also plans to add eSports and home shopping tabs to its smart TVs.

The needs of the content market and consumers are continuously changing. Universal Guide, with the power of AI, is changing things further still. But the mark of success will always be ease of use and an optimized viewing experience.

※ Content/specification availability may vary depending on region and/or content provider

Why Does the Family Hub Evolve to be Personalized?

The refrigerator is the most frequently used appliance in many households. However, as the refrigerator evolves into a smart device, each family member may also want different functions and information that suit their individual tastes. So the 2018 Family Hub uses AI to offer ‘personalized’ services.

The new Family Hub that will be introduced this year has a new feature called Meal Planner. It suggests optimal recipes for the user based on their food ingredient preferences and the expiry date of the ingredients in the fridge. Previous models of the Family Hub had a voice recognition feature. The 2018 Family Hub builds on that with a new VOICE ID feature that can identify a user by his or her voice. No other refrigerator on the market today supports these functions.

Catering to the Needs of Every Member in the Family

VOICE ID does more than just recognize what the user says. Previously, you had to manually enter information into the Family Hub to call up your personalized calendar or weather. Now, because it can determine who is actually speaking, it can call up user-specific information with just your voice.

After registering the sound of each family member’s voice, Family Hub analyzes the voice data to distinguish the speaker’s voice from other family members who have registered their voices. When you say, “Hi Bixby,” the Family Hub determines whose voice it is based on information stored in the cloud. ”Hi Bixby” is a trigger phrase that gets the fridge ready to recognize the user’s voice and reverts to the custom settings and features for that person.

Family Hub has three functions that can be personalized: Morning Brief, Calendar, and To-do List. If you say, “What’s new today?” after saying “Hi Bixby” to make the fridge recognize you, the Family Hub shows a personalized schedule.

Meal Planner’s Smart Algorithm Suggests the Optimal Diet

Not everyone in the family has the same eating habits or preferences. The 2018 Family Hub combines data from individual food preferences and shelf life for ingredients in the fridge to provide each family member with a personalized diet.

The 2018 Family Hub can hold information about the food preferences of each family member, and keep track of the expiry date of your ingredients based on the average shelf life. You can add the expiry date by entering the type of ingredients into your Family Hub or smartphone app, or just by saying out loud, “I’m going to put in an apple.”

Family Hub features a sophisticated algorithm that automatically suggests appropriate menus from a variety of recipes.

Personalized Recipe Recommendations Based on Data Analysis

The 2018 Family Hub employs AI-based technologies so that it can analyze data on each family member and selectively utilize the information. The refrigerator offers recipes that meet the needs of all family members, or provides family member A and B, or B and C, with personalized recipes. The fridge can provide a user with enough number of recipes so that the user can plan a whole week of meals. The user can select a recipe and register it to the calendar to arrange a healthy and optimized meal plan.

Let’s say the mother likes beef and hates carrots, and kids don’t enjoy salmon. This information is entered into the Family Hub and the Meal Planner function proposes menu options to keep everyone happy, while minimizing food waste. The Family Hub finds ingredients close to their expiry dates first. And it rules out carrots and salmon as ingredients and offers recipes for food that includes beef.

The 2018 Family Hub, which will be sequentially released in the first half of this year, will support VOICE ID. Meal Planner will be added in the second half of this year, and it will also be available on the 2017 Family Hub via software update. Samsung plans to expand the use of AI technology in other home appliances in the future, further tailoring services to fit users’ lifestyles.

The 2018 Family Hub helps family members stay connected with each other and serves as a personalized device that makes our lives more convenient. The Family Hub will make a difference in the kitchen and in our daily lives thanks to AI-based technologies that help the fridge deeply understand and relate to users. Stay tuned to see how Family Hub continues to evolve.

The new AI technology achieves close to 8K resolution and enhanced sound quality by aligning with the unique characteristics of the specific content, a step up from typical upscaling technology used to improve image quality. So how exactly does it work? Let’s take a closer look.

Enjoy any content in 8K through Machine Learning

The world’s first 8K AI Technology that realizes a definition nearly the equivalent of 8K is based on Machine Learning. Computers or smartphones run according to directive values that humans enter. In contrast, Machine Learning refers to the way AI learns certain patterns and gives optimized answers based on various examples.

Samsung’s Machine Learning Super Resolution (MLSR) utilizes AI technology to compare low and high-quality versions of the same content to learn the technological differences between the two and form a vast database. It analyzes millions of pieces of video content and finds a correlation. Based on its analysis, it can select the optimum filters that support brightness, the level of blackness, spread and other errors from all inputs, and transform low-definition content to close to 8K high definition.

The input content is recognized as ‘real-time’ based on a frame and is enhanced by scenes, which makes it possible to upgrade image and sound quality immediately, regardless of whether the video source is live streaming or OTT (Over The Top).

8K picture quality through AI, what’s the difference?

Other upscaling techniques require human input to compare low-resolution and high-resolution scenes and find ways to reconstruct them. However, Samsung’s AI Technology enables it to self-study millions of images on its own using MLSR, allowing much-improved accuracy compared to conventional technologies.

There are three elements to improving picture quality on displays. First is ‘Detail Creation’ that sharpens the detail of expression and improves the texture to areas with low definition that have become blurry after compressing the file. Second, ‘Edge Restoration’ defines the edges of text, people or objects in a video, moving pixels on the borders to thin them down to increase legibility and visibility. For example, if text context is spreaded along the edges, the video will be adjusted around the text for clarity. In a video that shows the moon, Edge Restoration improves details of the moon’s shadow and enhances the darkness of the background for a clear distinction. Lastly, ‘Noise Reduction’ gets rid of static noises generated during high compression or recompression of files. In order to transmit an image, it is necessary to compress the image. In this process, various ‘noises’ such as a jiggling point or a squared dot can be effectively removed according to the image characteristics.

AI delivers immersive sound effects

When watching dramas or movies, realistic, immersive sounds are as important as picture quality. Samsung’s AI technology not only transforms low-definition into high-definition, but also optimizes the sound quality of content.

Conventional TVs provide multiple view settings such as movie mode and sports mode according to the genre of content. With Samsung’s new AI technology, content can be automatically analyzed by characterizing scenes to provide optimum sounds.

For example, let’s say you were watching a movie that includes musical performances. AI technology can highlight the music in a way that allows you to experience the sound as the actual characters would. When the crowd applauds after the performance is over, you would hear the clapping the same way as if you were in the crowd in the movie. When characters are speaking, AI adjusts the sound to make sure the lines are communicated clearly.

Imagine you were watching a relay broadcast of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics that started last week. AI will enhance the voice of the announcer so that you don’t miss who’s up next. When a game has started, AI will increase the background sound to deliver the liveliness of the actual game. With this tailored sound adjustment scene by scene, audiences can enjoy the best sound quality for any genre of content.

Samsung developers plan to continue to improve sound quality according to the preferences of individual viewers so that each viewer can enjoy the best TV viewing experience, right for them. Because volume patterns differ for every user, and the viewing environment can change according to the time of day and other factors, the sound will be accordingly adjusted and optimized to provide the most enjoyable experience to each individual viewer.

Why does 8K AI technology matter?

As customer needs for high-definition TVs and content increases, some terrestrial broadcasting stations have committed to working towards UHD delivery, and various IPTV and cable channels have initiated 4K UHD (3,840 × 2,160) services. However, even as the TV industry begins to launch 8K (7,680 × 4,320) TVs, the reality is that 4K content is, as of yet, still not fully utilized in homes.

In this context, Samsung has proposed a new direction for TV technology by combining 8K UHD display technology and premiere content through AI. Samsung has developed an AI algorithm that automatically enhances picture quality to solve the problem of limited high-quality content. As example, AI technology plays a key role in the 85-inch 8K QLED TV technology that Samsung introduced at CES 2018.

Samsung will begin the process of applying AI technology to its 8K QLED TVs from the second half of this year, and viewers will soon be able to enjoy UHD quality video that is nearly 8K in resolution and delivers optimized sound for any type of content. A genuine 8K era is now on the horizon, and Samsung will continue to lead the way.

The potential of artificial intelligence (AI) is exciting and vast, with researchers just starting to understand all the potential applications. However, one solution which users can tap into now, to experience how AI can make their lives more convenient and easier, is Samsung Electronics’ HomeCare Wizard. The unique AI-based service solution, available on Samsung’s 2018 smart home appliances, essentially enables devices to diagnose themselves for not only system errors, but to enhance efficiency and to help users use their appliances better.

To provide an example of how HomeCare Wizard works, just imagine if a refrigerator starts to provide less cooling than usual. HomeCare Wizard will immediately detect and provide an alert that something is off, as well as diagnose the cause of the problem without requiring the visit of a technician. Through analysis of usage patterns, HomeCare Wizard will also help users better maintain and utilize their appliances, like reminding them when it’s time to clean the washing machine tub or providing tips to ensure the best energy efficiency.

Let’s take a closer look at HomeCare Wizard and the intelligent benefits it is set to provide.

What is it?

HomeCare Wizard made its debut with the recent launch of Samsung’s QuickDrive washing machines, and utilizes AI learning to offer users benefits that go above and beyond the scope of similar diagnostic services. Whereas similar services’ diagnoses are typically limited to cut-and-dry system errors, HomeCare Wizard’s advanced algorithm also alerts users of less obvious factors that may be affecting their device’s efficiency, in particular non-system related errors. For instance, if the air conditioner’s breeze isn’t quite cool enough due to something like a contaminated filter, which a user can easily clean on his or her own, HomeCare Wizard can quickly diagnose such issues.

Therein lies another of the solution’s key benefits. If HomeCare Wizard determines that a particular issue does not require a service professional to be dispatched to a user’s home, it will provide simple instructions to help users solve the problem by themselves. This reduces the need for users to schedule such visits, and helps them find the solutions they need faster.

Identifying and explaining an issue’s exact source can also be difficult at times and in such cases a user will need to call a Samsung service center to get to the bottom of the problem. As HomeCare Wizard sends the device’s diagnostic data directly to the service center, the service center will be fully aware of the nature of the problem before the call is even made.

Why is it So Compelling?

More often than not, when appliances don’t behave the way users are supposed to and it is difficult to figure out why, the result is hours spent scouring the web or contacting a service center for answers. In other instances, users are forced to wait for a technician to visit their home. The promise of HomeCare Wizard, through AI, is the potential to change this paradigm as smart devices and appliances essentially diagnose, and even give solutions, themselves.

HomeCare Wizard’s technology also has the added benefit of making it easy for users to monitor energy use and usage patterns, and utilize their devices more efficiently. Users have the option to receive regular usage reports through the mobile app, which in addition to offering 24-hour troubleshooting and diagnostics, will provide customized tips based on users’ usage patterns to help them get more out of a particular appliance. This means that, for example, a washing machine with HomeCare Wizard can determine which laundry cycles are used most frequently, notify users of how often they’re doing laundry, and present them with the option to save their top three most frequently used cycles as ‘favorites’.

How Does it Work?

To provide such deep-level analysis, HomeCare Wizard compares a device’s previous operation alongside its current status in order to diagnose recurring problems.  Through the constant study and improvement of algorithms by Samsung’s Digital Appliance development team, HomeCare Wizard has been developed to analyze and study changes in sensor data at the industry’s most comprehensive levels, while the appliances are running. The more often users use their devices, the more precisely HomeCare Wizard can suggest solutions.

Where Can I Experience it?

HomeCare Wizard will be available on a wide range of products in Samsung’s 2018 smart appliance lineup, including the company’s latest washing machines, Family Hub refrigerators, air conditioners, cooking appliances, and robot vacuum cleaners.