Patent filings show multi-biometric conference calls from Microsoft and Apple Watch with Touch ID

The potential value of biometric voice and speech recognition for enterprise conference call tools has long been recognized, but a patent filed by Microsoft and spotted by MSPoweruser adds facial recognition technology to the mix to help identify who says what.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) published the patent application for “Computerized intelligent assistant for conferences,” which describes a system based on new hardware which performs both facial and voice biometric matching.

“A face recognition machine is operated to recognize a face of a first conference participant in the digital video, and a speech recognition machine is operated to translate the computer-readable audio signal into a first text,” the patent reads. “An attribution machine attributes the text to the first conference participant. A second computer-readable audio signal is processed similarly, to obtain a second text attributed to a second conference participant.” The system also includes transcription based on the speech attribution output.

Microsoft demonstrated a meeting transcription service last year which also combines facial and voice biometrics.

Apple Watch may soon include under-display Touch ID, as a patent application published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and reported by PhoneArena.com indicates.

The application to patent “Antena assemblies for watch bands” describes a system of flexible antennas embedded in watch band. It also notes that the display “may also provide an input surface for one or more input devices such as a touch sensing device, force sensing device, temperature sensing device, and/or a fingerprint sensor.”

The feature could be used to replace the four-digit password the Apple Watch currently uses to authenticate Apple Pay transactions, given the FBI’s recent warning that such systems are insecure.

PhoneArena.com notes that forthcoming iPhone SE 2 is expected to offer Touch ID with the return of the home button.

Article Topics

Apple  |  biometric matching  |  biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  fingerprint sensors  |  Microsoft  |  patents  |  Touch ID  |  voice biometrics