If you’ve ever had a song stuck in your head but didn’t know the words or the artist, you know it can be an all-consuming mission to name that tune.
You’re hard-pressed to search for it when all you know is the chorus goes something like, “Hmmm, hmm, hmm-hmmm, dunnnn…” Yeah, that’s not searchable.
Well Google on Thursday added a “hum to search” feature on its mobile apps. At its virtual Search On event highlighting updates to its search engine, Google execs showed how a few seconds of humming or whistling can turn up real results.
On an iOS or Android device you can use the Google app, Search widget, or Google Assistant and ask, “What’s this song?” and start humming. There’s also a “Search a song” button, so click that and then start humming.
The Google app is able to detect the song just by its melody — no lyrics or pitch-perfect singing required. This is a pretty cool update and will surely come handy various times.