Watch the Samsung Developer Conference 2018

The Samsung Developer Conference 2018 is scheduled to kick off today, and we expect the manufacturer will have several products, innovations, and milestones they'd showcase during the event. One thing the tech world is eager to learn more about is Samsung's foldable phone, which we may see presented during today's keynote.

10 AM Pacific Time | 1 PM Eastern | 6 PM British Standard Time | 7 PM Central European Time

HIGHLIGHTS

During its 2018 Developer conference, Samsung is expected to unveil several of the technologies it has been working on over the past year. Here we will break down some of the highlights of today's keynote.

Samsung virtual assistant gains support for five languages and third-party Bixby Capsules

Samsung confirmed during their developer conference that their Bixby virtual assistant will gain support for five new languages within the "coming months." The new British English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish will complement the existing US English, Chinese, and Korean.

Samsung aims to bring its virtual assistant Bixby to a wide range of products besides smartphones. During the developer conference, the company announced that it will be opening up Bixby to developers so they could bring new skills to the assistant in what Samsung is calling Bixby Capsules.

Samsung will be providing developers with the Bixby Developer Studio in order to enable this. Much like Amazon's Alexa Skills, developers will be able to program Bixby to respond to their own voice commands on the services they offer.

these individual capsules will not be immediately present on Bixby-enabled smartphones. Instead, developers will need to upload the capsules to a new platform called Bixby Marketplace where users will then be able to download them.

While Samsung is late in a marketplace dominated by Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple's Siri, the company has the advantage of offering a wide array of products which could implement Bixby automation.

Samsung Infinity Flex Display

Today after years of research, Samsung unveiled a new type of device using their Infinity Flex Display. This device is capable of folding in half to fit into a pocket or purse and unfold into a large screen without any hinges. The device employs an in-folding design, with a second display on the outside when you need to glance at something quickly.

Samsung stated that they developed the very thin Flex panel with a brand new polarizer, cover layer, and substrates, so even when closed, the final handset should be able to stay acceptably thin. When unfolded you have a 7.3-inch display to consume media.

The Infinity Flex Display works with Samsung's new One UI interface to deliver a new navigation experience to customers, previously impossible with smartphones.

Samsung calls this the best of both worlds: "a compact smartphone that unfolds to reveal a larger immersive display for multitasking and viewing content." The app experience seamlessly transitions from the smaller display to the larger display as the device unfolds. In addition, users can browse, watch, connect and multitask without losing a beat, simultaneously using three active apps on the larger display.

We will likely get our first glimpse of a finished device with the Infinity Flex display by early next year, likely at the CES expo in Las Vegas. Samsung stated that the foldable displays will be in mass production "in the coming months."

Samsung One UI: A new user interface which will work with foldable devices

Samsung has been working on a new user experience which they demonstrated during their developer conference called One UI. This experience has been built in close partnership with Google and the Android developer community with a goal of minimizing clutter and reducing the number of distractions found within the software.

The interface has also been designed with the focus of keeping the most relevant content on the bottom half of the screen, meaning anything from app menus to pop-ups now appear at the bottom. According to Samsung, this makes the experience “more natural” and also allows for better one-handed use.

The interface offers a new Dark Mode, an updated lock screen, modified fonts, and new app icons, along with new more simplistic navigation buttons.

It’s a phone… It’s a tablet… It’s a phone that unfolds into a tablet! #SDC18 pic.twitter.com/FgwpJPjqTn

— SAMSUNG DEVELOPERS (@samsung_dev) November 7, 2018

The new software experience will be compatible with Samsung's Infinity Flex Display which allows consumers to have both a compact and large immersive experience on one device. In its large mode, the interface will allow for as many as three apps to be open at the same time. Each of Samsung’s own apps will adapt seamlessly to the display, regardless of if it’s folded or not. Although the company is encouraging developers to participate, so a number of third-party offerings will likely be compatible by the time of release.

Samsung will be offering an Open Beta of this software experience starting in November for consumers based in the US, Germany, or South Korea. It wasn't clear if it will be made available to other markets at a later date.

The final version of this user experience is expected to be packed in with Android Pie and be made available to the Samsung Galaxy S9, Samsung Galaxy S9+ and Samsung Galaxy Note 9 in January.