by The Echo Nest has issued a challenge to music identification services like Shazam and Soundhound with the launch of Echoprint, an open-source music fingerprint service that will let any developer create comparable apps. To create this free music ID technology, music intelligence company the Echo Nest partnered with 7digital, giving developers access to 13 million songs. That catalog is expected to grow as more partners are added. According to the Echo Nest, EchoPrint, as an open-source offering, will improve in functionality the more developers and app users play with it. The Echo Nest’s partners have already been using EchoPrint for 18 months, so it’s not coming out of the gate untested. The Echo Nest also partnered with the open music encyclopedia MusicBrainz, to make more music-resolving apps Echoprint-aware in the near future. EchoPrint could be a big game-changer in the music ID sphere. Shazam and Soundhound are constantly innovating — Read More

SoundHound launched a new mobile app for Android and iOS-based devices to allow users to search for music information using their voice. Sounds easy and easy it is. Simple fire-up Hound (that’s the name of the app), say the name of a song, artist or band and let the application do its magic, returning instant results with artist info, previews of top songs, lyrics, videos, sharing features and more. You may be thinking something like “that’s cool, but I can do most of it with the Google voice search.” Exactly, I do agree with that statement and honestly can’t imagine myself “hounding” for songs. Using the “classic” SoundHound app (which works like Shazam) makes perfect sense, but searching for music information with voice isn’t as appealing… or at least me thinks so. And this is especially true for Android smartphone users who usually have Google search widget (which comes with the Read More

Browsing the App Store this weekend?  If so, here are ten applications released recently. A music search app where you speak the name of a song or band and get previews, tour details, album information and more.  Free. An unusual photography app which adds words to your pictures.  Images can be taken in-camera or from the gallery, then shared by email or Facebook.  $1.99/£1.19. A uniquely styled puzzle game where the object is to guide a spot of ink to the inkwell.  Also available for the iPad.  $0.99/£0.59. A universal puzzle platformer for the iPhone and iPad.  This dream-like game has stunning graphics, 40 levels, Game Center and Retina Display support.  $0.99/£0.59. The latest Glu Mobile freemium title is set in space shooter, so prepare for great graphics, intense gameplay and plenty of in-app purchases.  Free. A musical entertainment app, where you position note tiles on a board to create a Read More