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SoundHound's voice assistant lives inside its own speaker
Alexa and Google Home aren't the only pieces of voice-controlled assistant hardware available this holiday season. Today SoundHound announced the first third-party speaker to harness the power of its Hound platform. Built by Boombotix, the stand-alone device will not only play your music, but can answer your questions about the weather, flights, news, sports scores and more.
SoundHound adds voice search to its music discovery app
Last June, SoundHound revealed its plan to provide answers to more than just your music queries. It did just that with a universal search app called Hound, software with a feature that aimed to take on the likes of Siri and Google: voice commands. However, that handy tool didn't hadn't made the leap to the company's flagship app, but that changes today. The SoundHound software that finds music answers will now let you ask those questions with your voice.
Hound's voice-recognition technology books an Uber for you
Virtual assistants are getting better at their jobs. With Siri, Cortana or Google Now on your smartphone, it's not hard to pin down the closest artisanal coffee shop, set up a reminder to water your plants or calculate the quickest commute. But in this race for personal assistance, the service that requires the fewest steps can be expected to win. Hound, the latest natural language voice-recognition entrant, comes with the promise of a hands-free experience.
SoundHound takes on Siri and Google with new voice search app
While SoundHound hasn't seen the tune-searching success as Shazam, the company behind it is taking a similar stance as the competition. Like Shazam's recent addition of product queries, SoundHound is looking to tackle more than songs too, and it'll do so with a new app called Hound. It's more like Siri or Google Now (taking some design cues from the latter), handling searches for weather, directions, hotels, stocks and much more. And yes, the know-how from SoundHound is baked in as well, so you won't have to wield two apps just in case you need to identify a track by humming.
First Core Hound Pup adoption campaign winners announced
Blizzard's Core Hound Pup Adoption Campaign is giving players the chance to win an iPad as well as boost their own account security. In an effort to get more authenticators attached to accounts, Blizzard ponied up some iPads to get the job done. Each month, a screenshot entry is chosen to win one of 12 iPads. Just take a screenshot of you and your security pup companion doing something crazy, out of the ordinary, or just plain awesome, hit up the contest rules page, and you've got a shot at winning. The first four winners have just been announced and their screenshots released. %Gallery-122048%
Estonia joins the list of countries with Embassies in Second Life
Joining the ranks of The Maldives and Sweden, Estonia has opened a virtual embassy in Second Life. The Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet stated that the importance of the internet as a source of communication, and the growing number of countries interested in establishing a virtual presence in SL drove the decision to set up the embassy.There are plans for there to be regular events at the embassy, including art exhibits, conferences and lectures, with the first lecture scheduled for January and being delivered by the Estonian Ambassador to Great Britain. The design of the building, both interior and exterior, looks rather unique and sort of futuristic. One of the coolest parts of this news though, is a talking dog: "Visitors to the Estonian embassy will hear current news read by an Estonian hound". The TechCrunch article linked below has a picture of said hound, and I'm sure it eagerly awaits your visit so that it can fill you in on the latest happenings.There is a full gallery of the new embassy at the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' website.[Via TechCrunch]
