The Weather Channel and Trebble Score Bixby Capsule and Developer of the Year at Samsung Galaxy Store Awards
Samsung named The Weather Channel and Trebble.fm as Bixby Capsule and developer of the year, respectively at the 2021 Best of Galaxy Store Awards. The online award ceremony honored both creators in a live YouTube broadcast hosted by Samsung senior developer evangelist Tony Morelan.
Awarding AI
The Best of Galaxy Store Awards highlight apps, games, and design tools, appearing on Samsung’s platform. The winners are chosen to showcase innovation on Galaxy devices of all sorts, including Samsung’s voice assistant. Bixby’s two awards pick out a Capsule and a developer. Last year, Bixby developer of the year went to Big Sky Weather creator Steven Arkonovich, while Spotify earned the Bixby Capsule of the year spot. Samsung named The Weather Channel the best Bixby Capsule for the year for being the most accurate weather forecaster and its real-time radar updates and other features. Developer of the year went to Trebble.fm, a startup helping media organizations set up and share interactive newscasts. Trebble collected and distributes these brief audio reports into a feed of what it calls ‘shortcasts’ that can be accessed via Bixby and other voice assistants.
“Since our inception, our mission has always been to help people learn, relax, and stay informed by leveraging the top power of short-form audio,” Trebble CEO Armel Beaudry Kembe said in his acceptance speech. “One of the main reasons we’re excited to work with Samsung was the belief in the importance of empowering developers to unlock the full power of voice and voice interaction. This award is just a testament to that belief.”
Bixby Sticks Around
Samsung rolled out a lot of updates and new features for Bixby recently. The most significant is the new Bixby Home Platform, which developers can use as a language processing filter that lets the AI consider the context of commands it is given with regards to connected smart devices. The company also began integrating into SmartThings and Galaxy devices into the Matter open smart home application protocol shared by other major voice assistant developers. Earlier this year, the company rolled out a major upgrade to the voice assistant and adjusted it no longer require training to understand its wake word. The continued presence of Bixby on these award lists further buries the persistent rumors that Samsung had planned to drop Bixby in favor of Google Assistant or merge it into Google’s system in some way.
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