Shazam, the maker of an application that identifies the artist behind a song, said on Wednesday it has added a feature that shows scrolling lyrics as a tune is playing.
Shazam said the technology, LyricPlay, comes from its first-ever acquisition of a company called Tunezee earlier this year. The feature has been incorporated into Encore, Shazam’s premium, paid-for application, and Shazam Red, a version of the application of which 20 percent of its sale price goes to HIV and AIDS programs in Africa.
Since acquiring Tunezee, Shazam said it has improved the accuracy of LyricPlay while adding animations and visualizations. It has also built a database of lyrics with a catalog of 25,000 of the most popular songs on Shazam.
To use LyricPlay, a user taps a LyricPlay icon that appears in a tag result and then turns their device horizontally to a landscape position. The lyrics can scroll, jump or slide across the screen in time with the song and are shown using color from the album art. The feature can be stopped by tapping the lyrics, which then display options to return to the tag results for the song.
LyricPlay is available for Encore and the Red applications for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch in the U.S. and Canada and will then roll out to other countries such as the U.K., France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Australia and New Zealand, Shazam said.
Shazam Encore and Red costs US$3.99 for a one-year subscription or a one-off fee of $5.99.
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