Can't quite remember the name of the song stuck in your head? Hum it and our AI will take a guess, says Google You can recall a song’s melody clearly in your mind though the name of it completely slips your tongue. What do you do? Well, now you can hum it directly into your smartphone and Google will try its best to detect what tune it is. "A song’s melody is like its fingerprint: they each have their own unique identity," said Krishna …
You wait until you try that on the the chaotic, gritty streets of Central London complete with manic, unlicensed JustEat delivery drivers, London Black Cab drivers who decide to do a 180 turn without signalling or buses that just pull out beside you without indicating etc. etc.
I wonder how well the whole driverless car thing will fare for the disabled. Can I, a totally blind person without a driver's license, hail such a ride & get taken to where ever I need to go? Will it have some way of signaling to me that we've arrived? Will it have a robot butler to handle a wheelchair? If it slams into something & the cops show up, will *I* be arrested for the actions of the car?
And for amusement value I'll counter your London traffic with that from Los Angeles. You have busses, they've got special snowflakes driving gigaton SUV's talking on their smart phones, not paying attention to their driving, and armed with bazookas, rocket propelled grenade launchers, & lawyers! =-)P
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You don't have SoundHound?
The problem with Google doing this is two fold. The first, as I'm mentioned, is that other companies like SoundHound have been doing this for years and now that Google gets in the act, everyone will run there as if it's the second coming. Leaving the other companies high and dry.
The second issue is that most suckers will gladly use the service whilst staying logged into their Google account, thereby giving those bloodsuckers even more information on you, certainly to help aim even-more directed ads at you.
Yes indeed, more proof that yes, Google needs to be broken up. If only DoubleCliick, a direct conflict of interest in terms of doing better for the user or doing better for Google - but you can't do both.
Oh, HOW USEFUL!!! Oh, HOW COOL!!!! I ABSOLUTELY MUST twitter about it! Let me SHARE this FABULOUS idea with ALL MY FRIENDS! I am SO GRATEFUL for google to make and share such a USEFUL, FREE technology. And lookie here, don't even need to lift your fat bum off your sofa, cause like, Google speaker!!!!
GOOGLE, True Saviours of Humanity, making YOUR life better and better and better and better and be
Behind the rant there is always the serious question as to "why" and for what purpose Google really built this app..
Not remembering a song and asking your friends to help whilst you hum along is actually quite a fun thing to do as it involves some of that old-fashioned "real world human interaction"...
Google is not known for doing things without a reason, so I would presume that they are doing it order to make a guess at what a muffled conversation might actually contain.. Muffled as in : Listening to the "hum" of a conversation in another room, listening to another conversation in a crowd which is also more of a "hum" rather than actual words etc etc etc
Can anyone recommend a device that detects when one of these google things are in operation nearby? I'm going to socially distance myself if I detect one!
"Muffled as in : Listening to the "hum" of a conversation in another room, listening to another conversation in a crowd which is also more of a "hum" rather than actual words etc etc etc"
You should check out an old film called the Conversation with Gene Hackman
Icon -> Tinfoil Hat
Google is not known for doing things without a reason
Huh? You mean the Google that did an 8-bit version of Google Maps? Or the Google that has ten different messaging apps? Or the Google that bought Boston Dynamics, never did anything with it and sold it a few years later? Or the Google that named its paying YouTube service YouTube Red?
Hum a copyrighted or even any tune (in the USA) and watch out for a lawsuit or at least a 'cease and desist' letter. Unauthorised copying in any medium is fair game for the Record Industry lawyers.
Then the performers will be after you for unlicensed performance of their work.
You can't win in the land of the 'Free' and a gazillion lawyers.
sic
Two points behind my rant. First, correct, to re-package the "why", second to bemoan the obvious typical focus on cool! cute! useful! free! This conveniently erases the split second required to pause and ask for the motives and intentions. But, before this is asked, we move on to another cool! cute! useful! free! and on and on.
I think the most obvious purpose is to attract people to the Google assistant: "Watch this! Alexa and Siri can't do this!", yadda yadda. The big companies are trying super hard to put every feature from the useful to the ridiculous in their assistants, because they're becoming a major entry point for user queries, and if people use theirs rather than another one, it means they can charge more for ads. It's like the whole Android thing, which technically is not making Google any money — it's free. It's only useful to bring more people to Google services.
Apart from that, I don't think humming recognition serves any useful purpose to Google. The commercially-important part was recognizing copyrighted performances, and that was done long ago.
For me at least, the most obvious answer as to "Why?" is obvious, if you only look long term:
Google wants to get [back] into the music distribution business.
Google sees Apple making lots and lots of money off of iTunes sales. Google tried but had to kill their own service off from lack of market penetration.
But if your phone could directly you to the music that directly interests you? Hum or listen to a tune, Google hears and points to a download of the source? All automagically?
Even better than iTunes. SoundHound meets Spotify meets iTunes - all in one servicing.
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