Apple’s Siri could recognize voice patterns for user identification in future hardware

“Apple is continuing to come up with ways to secure its devices while still making it as easy as possible to use, with one concept involving unlocking an iPhone or iPad and performing a Siri request, but only if the voice it hears matches that of its owner,” Malcolm Owen reports for AppleInsider.
“Granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday, the patent for ‘Device access using voice authentication’ is relatively straightforward, namely detecting the speaker’s voice for a vocal request and determining if it is the main registered user,” Owen reports. “According to the patent, a device capable to receive speech input from a user could conceivably create a ‘voice print’ for the owner, using multiple examples of their speech. This text-independent voice print would determine characteristics of the user’s voice to create a model, either on the device or via an external service, with the result being the point of comparison for future checks. ”
“This patent is one of a number Apple has filed in the field, and it certainly isn’t the first to surface from the company. For example, a 2011 patent application for “User Profiling for Voice Input Processing” suggests virtually the same idea as the newly-granted patent,” Owen reports. “In August, it was revealed Apple was looking into using voice prints for a slightly different purpose: differentiating between multiple users.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: One product in which such capability is sorely needed is HomePod, as anyone with a family and at least one of Apple’s semi-smart speakers can attest.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]