• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 2, 2015

SoundHound, known as the Shazam want-to-be app for searching music, has released a personal assistant called Hound to take on Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana, and perhaps Google Now. It may have found a niche in natural language search technology.

The technology used to search for music learned how to identify songs, and has a huge database of queries from its own music search engine. Now it’s taking machine learning techniques and applying them to natural language and actions.

The company has been working on the voice-controlled interface for more than a year, with hopes that consumers will soon see the app in every phone, tablet, car, and IP-connected device.

The app allows users to search with natural language by saying: "Okay, Hound, show me how to get from Union Square to Golden Gate Bridge," or "What's the weather like in Huntington Beach this weekend?"

Hound can also parse the data on more complex requests such as “I need two hotel rooms in Laguna Beach, California, to Tuesday from on the beach for less than $300, and it must have a gym and free WiFi."

Hound is in private beta for Android, and will come to iOS soon. It enters a space, voice recognition and processing technology, that has been part of a growing segment for search engine tools and marketing.