• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 1, 2016

Voice search got a boost Tuesday with the official release of Hound, a voice-powered digital assistant for iOS and Android devices. The platform from SoundHound has been in beta for the past year and now is faster than ever, with Yelp and Uber partnerships to compete with Amazon Echo, Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana, and Google Now.

The software has the ability to understand and perform tasks with accuracy and speed, but it still requires the user to open the app before verbalizing a query. It produces near real-time translations of entire sentences in other languages, and it returns complete data sets within a fraction of a second.

Hound’s speech-to-meaning technology allows the app to answer complex questions in a matter of seconds, such as "Show me hotels in San Francisco for tomorrow that cost between $200 and $300 per night and have free WiFi." 

The app now provides information on Uber rides, such as destinations, times, and costs. The integration tells the user the types of nearby vehicles, how long it will take to get from one location to another, and the cost with very vague information from the person querying the ride.

Technology on the phone works with the app to detect the person's location, schedules the ride, and determines the cost. It also provides an estimate of the time it will take for the driver to arrive and transport the passenger to their location.

Voice searches on Uber and Yelp allow the person querying the information to ask the question in a continual sentence or build on the query each time Hound retrieves the information. For example, "OK, Hound, I'm hungry." Hound replies with several restaurants open nearby. "Okay, Hound, only show restaurants open in the next 45 minutes."

The app will also sort query results by distance, highest price, hours of operation, and more, as well as remove a specific ethnic food.

Partners using SoundHound's technology, Houndify, include NVIDIA, which is incorporating it into their DRIVE CX platform in car dashboards. Samsung also is building it into their ARTIK Platform to power Internet of Things devices.