Hound Released to Public Via iOS, Android

Sound recognition specialist SoundHound has now officially launched its Hound app to the public.

Designed as an alternative to the likes of Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, the AI assistant launched as an invitation-only beta last summer. It features sophisticated sound and speech recognition technology, with voice command being the key mode of interaction with the app. Hound launches with the help of partners Yelp and Uber, allowing enabling voice-based interaction in accessing those services through a mobile device.

In a statement announcing the public launch, SoundHound CEO Keyvan Mohajer explained that the app “delivers a major step-change to both speed and accuracy, while doing something fundamentally different from previous voice technologies by allowing users to speak naturally and ask follow-up questions to further refine, change or complete their results.”

Its technology is based on SoundHound’s proprietary Speech-to-Meaning platform, which is also now being used by NVIDIA and Samsung, with the latter integrating it into its ARTIK platform for Internet of Things development. The IoT is expected to be a major market for voice command technology, and with Samsung’s ARTIK integration, SoundHound’s Speech-to-Meaning could gain a solid foothold for a range of other OEMs working in that emerging space.