Skip to main content

Hum a song to your Xiaomi phone, and it’ll find the title in seconds

Have a tune stuck in your head but can’t seem to remember the lyrics? One of the most common first-world problems is finally getting a solution.

Privately owned Chinese company Xiaomi is introducing a new feature to its smartphones: a software designed to recognize songs based on your humming. Xiaomi partnered up with ACRCloud, a Beijing-based company that provides the music recognition software for the phones, reports Mashable. ACRCloud’s technology is integrated with popular music streaming services, including Spotify, iTunes, and Deezer, to help identify around 40 million tracks as they’re hummed.

Recommended Videos

ACRCloud can extract the person’s melody and isolate it from any background noise, while comparing it to the songs in the database. Songs that don’t match the humming sample get discarded quickly before the software minimizes its options. This feature comes to Xiaomi phones after Apple’s decision to integrate Shazam in iOS 8 allowed users to ask Siri what song they are listening to. Though Shazam has the ability to identify which song you are hearing, it doesn’t have the capability to tell you what song you’re humming. SoundHound can, though, so Xiaomi and ACRCloud have some competition.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

However, SoundHound asks its users to provide a humming sample to its database in order to identify music. ACRCloud hopes to identify songs through humming without having to use a base track.

Xiaomi is currently testing out the beta version with the help of several thousand users. Depending on how the trial period goes, the company will proceed with adding the feature to all of its current phone models by March. Mashable tested the feature and reported that it can identify what song is being hummed within 20 seconds.

Maria Mora
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Maria Mora is a creative, media professional fusing a background of audio production with editorial writing. Technology…
This Xiaomi phone concept is an engineering marvel — but do we want it?
xiaomi quad waterfall display concept phone 3

Xiaomi has a vision for the future of smartphones, and it involves a whole lot of screen. The company is showing off its latest concept device, and it's a phone with a portless design and a display that curves around all four of the edges of the device.

The concept, called the Xiaomi Quad-Curved Waterfall Display Concept, involves the use of what Xiaomi says is a "revolutionary hyper quad-curved 88-degree surface," and it was apparently not so easy to make. According to the company, the glass was built by hot-bending glass at an 800-degree temperature, and required the use of four different polishing tools, and up to 10 polishing procedures.

Read more
Xiaomi Mi 10 phones launch in China with Galaxy S20-baiting specs
xiaomi mi 10 pro china launch news camera

Xiaomi has unveiled the Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro smartphones at an event in China, giving us a look at what would have been coming at MWC 2020, had the event not been canceled due to concerns over the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The global launch of the two phones will still happen, but at a later date, with Xiaomi announcing it has delayed the European launch event.

Xiaomo Mi 10 Pro Image used with permission by copyright holder

Read more
This phone is a selfie superstar, but I can’t recommend it
The Huawei Nova 13 Pro's selfie cameras in action.

Selfies and vlogging are the Huawei Nova 13 Pro’s forte, and I apologize in advance for the fact that you’re going to have to look at my visage to see its ability for yourself. But thankfully, the rear camera is also really good, so our sample photos don’t only feature yours truly.

Spending time with it has been really interesting, as it has shown me that despite other factors, Huawei has lost none of its photographic ability. Still, I don't think it's a phone for most people. Here's why.
Lets talk selfies

Read more