Samsung Draws a Line in the Sand with Google by Acquiring Viv
Back in May Patently Apple posted a report titled "Video: Siri Creators Demo New Viv, the Next Generation of AI." We noted in the report that Siri's Co-founder and CEO Dag Kittlaus provided developers at the TechCrunch Disrupt NY event back in May with a demo of Viv as noted below. Late this afternoon it was surprisingly revealed that Samsung has acquired Viv.
The timing of the news of this acquisition is interesting considering that Google rolled over Samsung yesterday during a special Google event. I noted that in a report posted after the Google event titled "Google Introduces Pixel the Smartphone and other Hardware Devices Squarely Aimed at Amazon and Samsung." It was clear that Google's new Pixel smartphone would likely be a challenger to Samsung's Galaxy smartphones and the introduction of their new VR headset would be challenging Samsung's Gear VR.
This afternoon, Samsung wanted to send Google a message loud and clear: Good luck with Google Assistant but we'll be using Viv. While it was thought that Apple would be the one acquiring Viv, being that it was a spin off of sorts from the original Siri team, it was Samsung in the end who was able to grab this AI start up. While that news was a little disappointing, we'll see what Samsung will be able to do with Viv in the year ahead. For now the race to the AI market starting line just got a lot more interesting.
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