South Korea’s tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. plans to upgrade software feeding its voice-activated personal assistant Bixby to present it more formidable against Amazon’s Alexa and make its hardware devices all cloud-based smart and connected.

Samsung Electronics on Wednesday detained out its outline for an open and connected world through its IoT and AI technologies at the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC) 2017, held at Moscone West in San Francisco, the United States.

The Korean tech giant introduced Bixby 2.0, the upgraded version to the digital assistant active on latest Galaxy phones. Bixby 2.0 is mountable on a variety of devices ranging from Samsung Smart TV to Family Hub refrigerator. To enable this, Samsung Electronics plans to apply the upgraded version to the Samsung Smart TV that is scheduled to be launched next year. It also applied technologies of Viv, which was taken over by the company at $215 million in October 2016.

Bixby 2.0 of Samsung Electronics will allow the users to control speakers, TV, refrigerators and lightings with the smart software. For example, people can ask the Bixby 2.0 fitted in their refrigerator to order food. Cars can also be connected.

In addition, Samsung said it would combine its IoT services - Samsung Connect, ARTIK, etc. - into one united IoT platform SmartThings Cloud to accelerate the development of products and divided standards. Developers will be able to design and offer solutions for SmartThings-compatible products by using only SmartThing Cloud.

DJ Koh, the president of mobile communications business at Samsung Electronics, said all Samsung Electronics hardware from notebooks to home appliances will become smart and connected.

By Sohn Jae-gwon and Lee Ha-yeon

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