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We've heard a few rumors about Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S8 phone. It might have a larger, 4K screen and no headphone jack.
But a new report from Bloomberg says much bigger changes are in the works for Samsung's new flagship. The Galaxy S8, it says, will ditch the physical home button for an all-screen design on the front.

The home button would become a virtual one, buried inside the OLED screen, Bloomberg says quoting sources familiar with the matter.
The report has no further details about the phone's specs, but does say the phone might come out in March or April of 2017, possibly due to tougher testing procedures which Samsung is employing to avoid another Note7-like fiasco.
The report echoes numerous rumors that Apple's next iPhone will come with a similar, all-screen design.
If the reports are true, neither of these phones would be the first to feature such a design: Xiaomi's Mi Mix has incredibly thin bezels on the front, with the front camera being moved to the bottom and the standard top speaker being replaced with a piezoelectric one. And Sharp's Aquos Crystal had a similar design back in 2014.
As futuristic as they look, both these phones have a number of issues such as the awkward positioning of the front camera and unwanted screen touches. If Apple and Samsung can come up with better solutions for these problems, we might finally get a truly exciting new development in the somewhat stale smartphone market.
Samsung has officially announced its Galaxy S8 in November. The only official bit of info on the phone so far is its new digital assistant from Viv Labs — an AI company whose founders built Siri and which got acquired by Samsung in October.

 

 

Samsung announced this week that it will be incorporating digital assistant technology, named Bixby, into its upcoming products. This AI assistant was trademarked by Samsung last month and is created to act as a digital assistant for managing personal information.
Vice Chairman of Samsung electronics, Lee Jae-yong, explained the company’s goals of improving its position in the Internet of Things world by providing voice-assistant technologies in home appliances and wearable devices as well.
See Also: Check out the most innovative projects from Samsung’s C-lab
Last week, Jae-yong met with executives of Viv Labs.  He said the plan is to help consumers by providing ease with how they use Samsung’s products. However, it has not yet been announced what features will be added to the Galaxy S8. Also unclear is what name the personal assistant will officially go by, because it may be called, Viv, despite the trademark name.
Rhee Injong, Executive Vice President of Samsung, stated that the platform would be integrated with third-party services.  It appears that Samsung’s acquisition of Viv Labs is a large part of what makes this whole plan possible. Viv Labs is a company built by the creators of Siri, and Samsung will be looking to this company’s expertise for advice on how to design its first digita.

Expect to see Bixby around more often

Viv Labs CEO, Dag Kittlaus, explained that this AI platform will extend its abilities outside of smartphones, to home appliances that users interact with regularly. For example, the digital assistant could offer the opportunity for consumers to request photos to be sent to their phones from their fridges.
Outside of being used for home appliances and wearable tech, there are no apparent big differences between Samsung’s future digital assistant and ones already on the market. However, the incorporation of AI on future devices might be the way in which Samsung plans to move past its recent fiasco with the exploding Galaxy Note 7 and several hazardous washing machine recalls.