Arrangements for Using Voice Biometrics in Internet Based Activities

• US 20090187405A1
• Filed: 01/18/2008
• Published: 07/23/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Activision Publishing Incorporated (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kanevsky, Dimitri, Hamilton, Rick A. II, Pickover, Clifford A., Bhogal, Kulvir S., Sand, Anne R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,140,340 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/246
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 17/00 Speaker identification or verification techniques

Abstract

In one embodiment, a method for identifying a user of a virtual universe utilizing audio biometrics is disclosed. The method can include prompting a client application with a request for an utterance, processing the reply to the request and creating a voice profile of the user/speaker. The voice profile can be associated with an avatar and when an utterance is received, the avatar can be identified and in some embodiments authenticated. Other embodiments are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A method comprising;

transmitting an utterance request;

processing a reply to the utterance request to create a voiceprint;

storing the voiceprint;

associating the voiceprint with a user of a virtual universe;

receiving an utterance associated with the user; and

identifying the user based on the received utterance.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating a voiceprint in response to user settings.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting a prompt to the client application requesting an utterance to authenticate the user in response when to user interactions that control an activity related to an avatar.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting an utterance request based on an expiration of a predetermined time period.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising encrypting the utterance.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising time-stamping the utterance and comparing the timestamp to wall clock time to authenticate the user.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending an identifier with an utterance transmission to authenticate the utterance.

8. The method of claim 1, identifying comprises comparing the voiceprint to the received utterance.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein comparing comprises utilizing modeling.

10. A system comprising:

a processing module to provide transmissions to a client application and to provide an interactive environment having at least one avatar;

a voice biometric module coupled to the processing module to send an enrollment request to the client application, to receive a reply from the client application and to create a voice profile for the at least one avatar; and

an authentication module coupled to the voice biometric module to receive a transmission having an utterance from the client application and to compare the utterance to the voice profile and to authenticate the at least one avatar based on the compare.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the voice biometric module and the authentication module are a remotely located from the processing module.

12. The system of claim 10, further comprising a text to speech converter coupled to the voice biometric module.

13. The system of claim 10, further comprising a voice reconstruction module coupled to the voice biometric module to reconstruct a modified voice.

14. The system of claim 10, further comprising a voice modeling module coupled to the voice biometric module.

15. A machine-accessible medium containing instructions to operate a processing system which, when the instructions are executed by a machine, cause said machine to perform operations, comprising:

transmitting an utterance request;

receiving a reply to the prompting;

processing the reply to create a voiceprint, the voice generated via a user assembly process;

storing the voiceprint; and

associating the voiceprint with an avatar of a virtual universe.

16. The machine-accessible medium of claim 15, which when executed causes the computer to transmit a prompt to the client application and request an utterance to authenticate the participant when the avatar moves to a new medium.

17. The machine-accessible medium of claim 15, which when executed causes the computer to prompt the client application for an utterance to authenticate the participant based on a predetermined time period, to receive an utterance associated with the avatar, and to identify the avatar based on the received utterance.

18. The machine-accessible medium of claim 15, which when executed causes the computer to encrypt the utterance

19. The machine-accessible medium of claim 15, which when executed causes the computer to time-stamp the utterance and compare the timestamp to wall clock time to authenticate the utterance.

20. The machine-accessible medium of claim 15, which when executed causes the computer to attach an identifier to an utterance transmission to authenticate the utterance.