Samsung Galaxy S8 to come with 'Siri rival'

Samsung Electronics said on Sunday it would launch an artificial intelligence digital assistant service for its upcoming Galaxy S8 smartphone, seeking to rebound from the Galaxy Note 7's collapse and differentiate its devices.

The world's top smartphone maker in October announced the acquisition of Viv Labs, a firm run by a co-creator of Apple's Siri voice assistant programme. Samsung plans to integrate the San Jose-based company's AI platform, called Viv, into the Galaxy smartphones and expand voice-assistant services to home appliances and wearable technology devices.

Samsung is counting on the Galaxy S8 to help revive smartphone momentum after the discontinuation of fire-prone Galaxy Note 7s, which will hit its profit by $5.4 billion over three quarters through the first quarter of 2017. Investors and analysts say the Galaxy S8 must be a strong device in order for Samsung to win back customers and revive earnings momentum.

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Samsung did not comment on what types of services would be offered through the AI assistant that will be launched on the Galaxy S8, which is expected to go on sale early next year. It said the AI assistant would allow customers to use third-party service seamlessly.

"Developers can attach and upload services to our agent," said Samsung executive vice president Rhee In-jong during a briefing, referring to its AI assistant.

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"Even if Samsung doesn't do anything on its own, the more services that get attached the smarter this agent will get, learn more new services and provide them to end-users with ease." 

Technology firms are locked in an increasingly heated race to make AI good enough to let consumers interact with their devices more naturally, especially via voice.

Alphabet's Google is widely considered to be the leader in AI, but others including Amazon.com, Apple and Microsoft have launched their own offerings including voice-powered digital assistants.

Apple sets 'condition' to open manufacturing plant in India

US-based iPhone maker Apple has sought incentives from the government to set up a manufacturing unit in the country.

In a communication to the government, the Cupertino-based technology major has asked for incentives related to the Department of Revenue and Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeITY), an official told .

"They are doing their due diligence from quite some time. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) will write to both the departments regarding this communication for their views," the official added.

At present, to boost electronic manufacturing in the country, the government provides benefits under Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme (MSIPS).

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The scheme provides financial incentives to offset disability and attract investments in the electronics hardware segment. It also gives subsidy for investments in Special Economic Zones, among other benefits.

Currently, Apple's products are manufactured in six countries including Korea, Japan and the US.

Apple's communication regarding setting up of a manufacturing unit assumes significance as the Finance Ministry in May had rejected relaxing the 30% domestic sourcing norms, as sought by the iPhone and iPad maker as a pre-condition for bringing in FDI to set up single-brand retail stores in the country.

The company had sought exemption on the ground that it makes state-of-the-art and cutting-edge technology products for which local sourcing is not possible.

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The government had also turned down the firm's proposal to import refurbished phones and sell them in India.

The company sells its products through Apple-owned retail stores in countries like China, Germany, the US, the UK and France, among others. 
It has no wholly-owned store in India and sells its products through distributors such as Redington and Ingram Micro.

The government has announced incentives to promote electronic manufacturing in India and reduce the import bill.

Total import of electronics goods were valued at Rs 2.25 lakh crore in 2014-15 as against Rs 1.95 lakh crore in the previous year.

India's IT industry needs to be more innovative: Vice president Hamid Ansari

India's IT industry would need to be more innovative to cope up with the future challenges as clients would look for "innovative partners" rather than "software partners", vice president Hamid Ansari said after the inauguration of the new headquarters of Nasscom in Noida's Sector 126.

Backing the recommendation of an expert committee by NITI Aayog, which suggested the setting up of an 'Innovation Mission', he said that there is a lot of churn happening in the IT industry and companies will have to do a lot to address challenges put forward by cloud computing, evolution in software and service models, digital disruption and shrinking manpower needs because of software evolution.

Quoting a recent Nasscom-McKinsey report "Perspective 2025: Shaping the Digital Revolution", he said that the industry is well on track to grow from $132 billion in 2014-15 to $225 billion by 2020 and further touch $350 billion by 2025.

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"Even with the growth trajectory so well charted, below the calm waters, there is lot of churn happening as well and companies will have to do a lot to address the challenges as well," he said as he enumerated the challenges in the short and intermediate terms including cloud computing, evolution in software and service models, need to develop products, digital disruption and shrinking manpower needs because of software evolution.

Ansari told a gathering of Nasscom employees and young entrepreneurs that the future growth of our IT industry will be in being able to create futuristic business scenarios and engineering digital disruption rather than coping with its effects. "In short, you will have to be more innovative," he said.

Quoting former RBI governor who shared the idea of an "idea factory" at an event at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi last year, he said that a scientific temper and a conducive social ambience, is required for development of revolutionary ideas.

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"The former RBI governor listed out some of the ways for a nation to keep the idea factory open. That is the operative word. He suggested that the first essential is to foster competition in the market place for ideas by encouraging challenge to all authority and tradition an extremely difficult thing to do in our environment," he said. Even while acknowledging that the only way of dismissing any view is through empirical tests, imposition of a particular view of an ideology is ruled out and all ideas are subject to critical examination, he added.

"The second essential, according to him (Rajan) is protection not of specific ideas and traditions but the right to question and challenge, the right to behave differently, so long as it does not hurt others seriously. In this protection lies societal self-interest for it is by encouraging the challenge of innovative rebels that society develops," he said.