Amazon picked up a little piece of voice-recognition software called Yap that some pundits are saying could eventually be their answer to Apple’s Siri. Whatever the story is, Amazon has kept it quiet: The acquisition occurred in September, but nary a word was said… and Amazon isn’t even mentioned by name in the filing.
Though the Yap voice-to-text service was available to the public as a beta, reports say that the scope of Yap goes beyond only that. Founded by Igor and Victor Jablokov back in 2006, two years later Yap managed to drum up a$6.5 Series A round from SunBridge Partners.
“Yap is truly a leader in freeform speech recognition and driving innovation in the mobile user experience,” Paul Grim, General Partner at SunBridge Partners, said at the time. “It is increasingly clear that the fastest, easiest, and safest way to interact with services on a mobile device is using your voice, and Yap makes this both possible and intuitive.”
The Atlantic explains that this can easily be the beginning of responses to Siri from big-name players in the tech field. There’s little question that Siri makes for a pretty formidable killer app and that there’s little to challenge it at this time (and, no, it’s not just voice-to-text software, so you’re gonna need a bit more than that). Without a doubt, the big boys will be coming back at Apple with their own nefarious plans, so expect to be sick of the buzz-phrase “Siri Killer” by mid-2012.
Source: The Atlantic
