According to a new Korean report today, Samsung Electronics' upcoming Galaxy S8 is expected to feature a new shortcut button for quick web searching and watching videos that will eventually support the artificial intelligence assistant Bixby, possibly within the first half of this year with a simple software upgrade.

A telecom official told the publication that "A new button has been added on the left side of the device. The button will be used for Bixby in the long run." The official added that "The Galaxy S8 has one volume control button unlike the previous two. The Bixby button will be located below the volume button."

Originally the button was planned to support the voice-controlled Bixby right out of the gate but the smart assistant functions won't be ready at launch – at least in the early days of the phone's launch due to the still ongoing development work.

Samsung acquired the U.S. startup Viv Labs, the company originally behind Apple's Siri assistant in October last year with aims to develop its own version of an AI assistant.

Patently Apple posted a report in February that the Galaxy 8's Bixby would support up to 8 languages. The Korean report today claims that the delay of Bixby's launch may have been because the services in more diverse languages wasn't ready as hoped for. At the moment Google Assistant is only available in English with German next. So Bixby offering many more languages is a strategic advantage that Samsung wants to promote to the Android community around the world.

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