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Nuance's Dragon ID unlocks mobile devices by voice command

Watch out, Siri. Nuance's Dragon ID is being unleashed to unlock mobile devices with just the recognition of one's voice.
Written by Rachel King, Contributor

Nuance has introduced Dragon ID, a new voice biometrics solution that further reveals how much closer we are to operating mobile devices just with our voices alone.

The idea behind Dragon ID is simple. It is designed to allow users of mobile devices and other consumer electronics to be able to unlock said devices with just their voices. Dragon ID is built to understand individual, unique "voiceprints" (think like a fingerprint, but for voices) to lock and unlock devices more quickly.

The voiceprints even offer the potential to automatically "wake up" personalized user accounts and home screens. Thus, in theory, different voices could easily call up different user accounts on the same device but still keeping them separate.

Nuance argues that the voiceprint method is actually a better and more secure alternative to relying just on pin numbers and passwords.

Reps for the company believe this so much that they asserted in a press release that consumers can just "'forget' their passwords and simply create a spoken password or passphrase." That still sounds a little careless and risky, but the point is that no one should be able to replicate your voice while a password (whether it is made up of numbers, letters, or both) is always more vulnerable.

Beyond the consumer sector, Nuance is positioning Dragon ID for a bigger roll out. Nuance’s voice biometrics authentication technology is already being used widely in the enterprise world as well as financial and government institutions with over 20 million voiceprints enrolled globally.

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