Hound, the Super-Fast Natural Language Virtual Assistant, Finally Out of Beta
Android / iOS: Hound is fast – very fast – and while your phone is likely already equipped with its own virtual assistant, Hound integrates with services like Uber and Yelp. The team behind it hopes more will follow and a truly cross-platform assistant will emerge that does the same job for you on any device.
The last time we looked at Hound , it was just a demo showing how quickly it performs calculations and extracts basic information and trivia. It’s still that fast, but SoundHound (which you’ll know as a song identification app, not Shazam) opens up the Hound API so other companies and services can integrate with it. You can already search restaurants by name and check their menus and reviews, and you can already get Uber fare estimates, request a ride, or indicate what type of Uber vehicle you want using your voice in plain language.
Hound can also handle complex and compound queries, listen for follow-up questions without pressing a button again, and more. As we mentioned the last time we looked at it, it may not replace Google Now or Siri if you use one of them all the time, but if you switch between devices or want something more consistent, they should be left with your own. phone once you need to find out something like “how many people live in Tokyo and what is the average population density per square meter?” Follow the link below to give it a try.