Samsung Galaxy S8 may support voice-activated payments
The Samsung Galaxy S8 may allow users to make mobile payments using digital voice assistant Bixby after it acquired Viv Labs. It is unclear if voice alone will be used to identify the user or whether iris and fingerprint scans as well as voice-recognition technology will be used.

Right now how mobile payments are made are through phones or other devices like smartwatches. However this typically requires some kind of security check, like a fingerprint. However come 2017, Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S8 is apparently rumored to allow users to make mobile payments using their voice.

We have heard rumors that the Galaxy S8 could feature a new voice assistant called Bixby which is apparently a result of their acquisition of Viv Labs. Recently trademark filings were spotted that revealed that Samsung was filing a trademark for “Kestra”, which is apparently the name of a female version of its voice assistant.

According to SamMobile, one of the features of Bixby is apparently to allow users to mobile payments using voice commands. This means that you could command the AI to activate the mobile payment instead of navigating through the Samsung Pay app. This will be interesting and it remains to be seen how much more efficient this could end up being.

We’re also not sure how Samsung plans on securing the feature with voice. Could it be voice recognition technology that can identify the user? Or will users still be required to perform an iris/fingerprint scan? That remains to be seen, so take it with a grain of salt for now.

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