Samsung introduced Bixby late last year. It's the company's new voice assistant that it launched with the Galaxy S8. Samsung says that Bixby allows users to do almost everything that they can do with a tap by just using voice commands on the handset. That being said, it rolled out Bixby before it was completed.
The company later rolled out the voice functionality for Bixby in South Korea where it can even be used to transfer money now. Bixby Voice is still unavailable in the United States because apparently, Samsung has been facing trouble getting it to work in the English language. Samsung has rolled out the functionality in beta to some users in the US, though.
We have seen reports in the past that Samsung is going to build a smart speaker of its own with Bixby which will rival the likes of the Amazon Echo and Google Home. The company even has patents covering such devices but it hasn't said officially if such a device is in the pipeline.
The Wall Street Journal reports today that Samsung has a new smart speaker in development which will be powered by Bixby. The project is reportedly codenamed Vega. The report doesn't provide any information about the design, features and specifications of this device.
It does point out that Vega's development is facing delays because of Bixby. It's still not ready for public release and according to the scribe, Samsung is not seeing the full release of Bixby Voice before the second half of July.
It can't be said for sure right now when Samsung might be able to bring this smart speaker to market. It's all contingent upon the company's progress with Bixby.
