Rovi has announced that it will soon add advanced voice search to its portfolio of tricks, through the acquisition of video discovery startup Veveo. Rovi will pay $62 million in cash for the company and its IP at closing, and up to $7 million in additional payments based on certain performance milestones.
With Veveo’s technology, Rovi will be able to add a whole new voice search capability to its video discovery platform. The startup, which was founded years ago, uses a mix of natural language processing and semantic technologies to plug intuitive search and recommendation features into video discovery applications.
The voice search engine can follow a wide range of conversational commands and learns as it goes, so that users don’t have to keep repeating themselves when searching through a bunch of videos. It can understand when users are searching for a specific movie, cast member, or genre, and can refine searches within those parameters based on additional information that the user provides. Over time, it can even offer personalized recommendations based on previous searches.
In short, Veveo is basically like Siri, if Siri actually worked.
techcrunch.com |
