SoundHound has released its Houndify app to developers today, promising to add a "voice enabled conversational interface to anything."
SoundHound itself is better known as a music recognition service, however, it recently announced its ambitious plans to launch the private beta of the Hound app and the Houndify platform.
Hound works similarly to systems like Siri and the Amazon Echo, however, it has a focus on more complex queries. When it was launched, for example, SoundHound CEO Keyvan Mohajer asked the system, "When is the sun going to rise two days before Christmas of 2021 in Tokyo, Japan?" Houndify, as a platform, is aimed at bringing similar voice search capabilities to other apps.
According to a report from TechCrunch, initial response to the private beta of the app has been quite strong, and there have been over 300,000 applications to test out the app. Many of those are not unknown developers, either, but are instead large companies that may consider putting the service in their consumer electronics and even their cars.
As more things become connected to the Internet, Mohajer says that Houndify could help people more easily use those things and do so for more than they're meant to be used. For example, you might want to set the temperature using a smart thermostat, but while you're at it, why not also ask it what the weather is like?
Houndify is available in both free and paid versions. The consumer voice search app is still in private beta, however, that will change very soon.
Via: TechCrunch
