Apple, Google, and Microsoft all each have their own digital smartphone assistant, and some are even available on multiple platforms. Today another big competitor has entered the digital assistant battle.
Soundhound today released Hound, its digital assistant, on Android and iOS following a beta test that kicked off last June. Hound works similarly to assistants like Siri and Google Now, letting you ask questions with your voice and then get an answer. One big feature that makes Hound notable, though, is its speed. Soundhound attributes that speed to its Speech-to-Meaning tech, which it says combines voice recognition with natural language understanding to provide speedy results.
As you can see in the video above, you can ask Hound natural language questions that include specific requests. You can also ask follow-up questions and Hound will remember what your original question was about and give you an appropriate response.
Soundhound says that Hound currently relies on 100 domains — or services — to power its results. These domains help hound to give you answers to questions regarding subjects like the weather, hotels, mortgage calculation, sports scores, and more. Yelp and Uber are two other domains that’ve partnered with Hound, with Yelp helping to give you detailed local business results and Uber letting you ask order a ride by using your voice to give your location.
Hound looks like a solid start for Soundhound in the digital assistant race. However, one big obstacle that’s in its way is that it’s not built into iOS or Android like Siri and Google Now. That means that users have to take an extra couple of steps to use Hound over Apple and Google’s assistants, which could cause some folks to use Siri and Google Now over Hound.
To try Hound for yourself and see if its worth using over Siri, Google Now, and Cortana, hit up the Android and iOS links below.
