Ever since 2011, when Siri first landed with the iPhone 4S, people were left awestruck at the new level of interaction that smartphones have achieved. In 2012, we saw Google now come with Android 4.1 and in 2014, we saw Cortana steal the show from both of them.
All 3 of the above, are Voice Assistants (VA) with proprietary companies only making it for their smartphone OS. Hound, however, could be the beautiful marriage of Wolfram Alpha and all the best components of the big 3 voice assistants combined. Hound is the product of the famous music recognition app – Sound Hound. According to them, Hound has been in planning and development for almost a decade.
The promotion videos are simply a glimpse and initial impression of the full potential and true capability of this magnificent app. The new VA is looking to rock the world of user – smartphone interactivity with being able to perform functions and computations which have yet to be seen in any other similar app.
The CEO of Sound Hound, Keyvan Mohajer, attributes the creation of Hound to fulfilling the need of increasing the interactivity between man and machine, this was in a time before voice assistants were limited to science fiction.
Currently, the only real qualm that users face with Hound is how rapidly the app communicates back to the user, break this down to the speed of the Big 3 and we have a potential app that can actually make Microsoft, Google, and, Apple go back to the drawing board with their VA.
Just in case if you are not able to play the videos, here is a sample script in the latter video.
Speaker: What time is it in Tokyo if it’s 2 PM in San Francisco, California.
Hound: It is 6AM in Tokyo when it is 2 PM in San Francisco, California
Too easy? Here’s a fun one.
Speaker: What’s the monthly payment on a million dollar home?
Hound: What is the down payment?
Speaker: 100,000
Hound: Okay, using a down payment of 100,000 dollars, what is the mortgage period?
Speaker: Thirty years and the interest rate is 3.95%
Hound: Okay, using a mortgage period of thirty years and an interest rate of 3.95%, your monthly mortgage payment is 4270 dollar and 84 cents.
Currently, Hound is still in internal testing, and in a closed Beta state for the Google PlayStore. but you can request for a code here. Hound, iOS version is also in the pipeline, but no proper date or testing has yet been mentioned.
Image Credits: PopSci
