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Microsoft's Acoustic Caller ID Patent

Posted by samzenpus on Wed Jun 13, 2007 07:46 PM
from the who-do-you-sound-like-today dept.
Patents Microsoft Technology
theodp writes "A new patent granted to Microsoft Tuesday for automatic identification of telephone callers based on voice characteristics covers constructing acoustic models for telephone callers by identifying words or subject matter commonly used by callers and capturing the acoustic properties of any utterance. Not only that, it's done 'without alerting the caller during the call that the caller is being identified,' boasts Microsoft in the patent claims."
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  • Only Innovation: Real Time versus Offline? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2007, @07:49PM (#19499727)
    The only difference here (aside from what agencies have been doing since the 1960's) is that this analysis seems to be done in real time, rather than offline? I mean, haven't monitoring people been able to tell who is speaking based on sound synthesis since forever?
    • I dunno how useful this is. I usually just recognize the voice myself. Our wetware has some wonderful capabilities.
      • It might not be useful in a home environment, but how about in an office where after the initial greeting the customer details are popped on-screen without you typing anything?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Ctrl-Z (28806)
          Isn't that why they ask for my account number?
          • You haven't had to ask a lot of people for account numbers have you?

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Nasarius (593729)
              I have. As I remember, it's one of the least painful parts of working tech support.

                  • Re:Only Innovation: Real Time versus Offline? (Score:5, Insightful)

                    by Yoozer (1055188) on Thursday June 14 2007, @03:07AM (#19502305) Homepage

                    Me: "Thank you for calling, may I have your store's telephone number, area code first please?"

                    You're the kind of rude, arrogant bastard that loses companies customers.
                    Yeah, but only if he adds the insulting part to the call or changes tone with "your phone number?" (but that could indeed benefit from a "please").

                    Part of the problem is that when you call any company, you generally get a barrage of useless information such as "This is Quux speaking, Foo and Bar suppliers, we now have a wonderful FooBar for only $39.95, how can I help you?" - which is swiftly (and rightfully) ignored because it's just noise; it does not solve the customer's problem. Make enough calls like that and they become a protocol.

                    By trying to cut short and asking the phone number and area code, the call is made longer; for the customer it belongs to the last part of the first sentence and is therefore ignored, hence people will ask for it again. People generally want to identify themselves first after hearing contact has succeeded. To put it in computer terms; the AC is trying to cram the payload in the header of the packet and is then pissed off that the protocol doesn't support it.

                    More effective would probably be "Thank you for calling, I'm Anonymous Coward, how can I help you?" - the latter part of this sentence ("I'm Anonymous Coward, how can I help you") will be ignored, but at least that information is completely irrelevant to the rest of the call. Then ask for important information, since that's actual payload.

          • Re:Only Innovation: Real Time versus Offline? (Score:4, Funny)

            by omeomi (675045) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @11:07PM (#19501093) Homepage
            Isn't that why they ask for my account number?

            Good Lord, no. They ask for your account number just to irritate you because both you and the person you're talking to know damn well you had to key in your account number just 2 minutes ago.
    • NSA has had real-time voice ID since before '96 and possibly longer. How MS got this patent is beyond me. Our system is soooooooo broken

  • Can they detect how pissed off i am? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grahamsz (150076) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @07:49PM (#19499731) Homepage Journal
    Anecdotally I feel like some companies answer the phone quicker if you talk to their automated system in an irate and condescending manner. Could just be me though :)

  • Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aoreias (721149) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @07:50PM (#19499747)
    What's the purpose of caller ID after I've picked up the phone? I'm not going to talk to some challenge response bot if I'm someone who needs to be IDd and screened anyway.

    • Verification of identity (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nymz (905908) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @07:58PM (#19499815) Journal

      What's the purpose of caller ID after I've picked up the phone?

      If someone had acquired some of your personal information, and then tried to impersonate you, an automated voice recognition system could be useful by raising an alarm, or at least giving a percentage of how much their voice is like yours.
    • this is to shunt the really annoying tech support callers quickly to the waste bin ....
    • I'm sure identifying the speaker phone conversations in live phone conversations isn't the only use. It probably works on any sort of audio - radio broadcasts, recordings, etc.
    • I think the purpose is so you can have a contact lookup while you are on the phone. Your computer would show you relevant details about the person. For example, if you were an account manager, you would get information about the client's account. The automated caller ID via voiceprint would avoid the need to type in information while you were on the phone
    • One word: Wiretapping Now they can verify in real-time whether they're listening in on the right person.
  • that when someone calls me and says "Hi, this is John Smith," I will not be able to use that info to figure out that he's John Smith without violating Microsoft's patent? (Ditto when someone I know well says "Hi, it's me.")

  • NOW I get it... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Penguinisto (415985) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @07:54PM (#19499789) Journal
    ...they're looking to patent-troll the CIA!

    Brilliant!

    /P

  • How is this different from existing voice recog? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ngarrang (1023425) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @07:55PM (#19499793) Journal
    I read the patent, but I guess I don't get it. How is what Microsoft claiming to do different from existing voice recognition systems?

    You have to train current voice systems so they recognize your voice pattern (or, acoustic ID) and translate it to text or action. Take that and add a system that keeps profiles for a more advanced version of caller ID. It seems like a natural evolution of the technology.
    • "How is what Microsoft claiming to do different from existing voice recognition systems?"

      Existing voice recognition systems might be more acurately called speech recognition. They don't recognize the voice (who is speaking); they recognize the speech (what is being said). They can be categorized as speaker dependent or speaker independent.

      Speaker dependent speech recognition (type 1) requires complex training by each user. It needs to know all the ways a person pronounces every possible phoneme. During
    • That makes no sense. Just because you can train a system to work better at converting speach to text if it knows your voice pattern, doesn't mean that it can uniquely identify someone from the voice pattern. Those are two different things.....you can't just tell it to run the algorithm in reverse and expect there to be enough information. In fact, you aren't even running it in reverse if you don't have the text version of what they said.

  • Err (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OverlordQ (264228) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @08:02PM (#19499833) Journal
    Wont this most likely violate wiretapping laws in two-party states?
    • yes, that is just what i was thinking, in order to do this acoustic caller ID thing they would have to record the caller's voice and recording people in telephone conversations is illegal unless the caller is notified of the call being recorded...
      • Not necessarily. The only "recording" going on is a few kbytes of data temporarily buffered for analysis: if it is immediately discarded and never available to be listened to by a human, I doubt there'd be a problem. The RIAA tried to make a deal out of the temporary storage of music data in a satellite receiver as being a "recording" but that didn't fly either, if I remember correctly.

  • For real? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "Developers, Developers, Developers. I love this company, yeah" ** Sounds of flying chairs **

    Welcome to Microsoft patented caller Identity v1.0 beta
    Caller Identified: It's Steve... again

  • Worse than IP broadcast TO THE WORLD! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I had no idea someone I might call might be able to indentify me.

  • The sort of processing this patent covers is something that hasn't been possible until recently, but I think, in principle, is something absolutely necessary for robust AI, and that is doing recognition simultaneously on both low level features and high level features of data and on intersections of the two.

    By "high level" I mean things like word choice, language etc. By low level I imagine they mean things like the specific resonance characteristics of a voice. In voice there are intermediate levels of f
    • The sort of processing this patent covers is something that hasn't been possible until recently, but I think, in principle, is something absolutely necessary for robust AI.

      Do you know if there are medical applications for tech like this? For example, could it warn "life-line" support for seniors, the 911 dispatcher or EMT of patterns or changes that are probably significant but not obvious to the layman?

    • Do a Google search on "voice recognition" and as a starting point try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_recognition [wikipedia.org] however I don't think a patent is justified since a quick Google search with "patent" added on will give you 1,140,000 hits. Still it appears if you patent anything in the US and have the money it normally gets granted.
      • >We will have a patents that covers not-being-evil and one on not-being-an-asshole.

        AHA! That explains Bender. I guess Farnsworth couldn't afford to license the necessary patents at the time.

        Always wondered about that.

  • Working implementation? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by asifyoucare (302582) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @08:07PM (#19499873)
    Do they have a working implementation? Or is this just an IP land grab?

    I think I'll patent an automatic car accident risk detector/alarm - no details, just the idea.

  • Maybe... (Score:3)

    by theantipop (803016) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @08:10PM (#19499909)
    /. should just put an RSS feed to newly issued patents on the front page. Would cut down on the number of stories per day though.

  • Wiretapping law (Score:3, Insightful)

    by w9ofa (68126) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @08:12PM (#19499927) Homepage
    It is my understanding that recording a telephone conversation is against the law in most states, without notifying the other parties on the line.

    Thus, a practical device for this patent would most likely be illegal.

    • That's not the case. In most states [callcorder.com], you only need the consent of one party to tape record the call. Hence in most states, you can tape your calls without notifying others.
    • It is my understanding that recording a telephone conversation is against the law in most states, without notifying the other parties on the line.
      Thus, a practical device for this patent would most likely be illegal.

      Do you have to notify a caller that you are using caller ID? Do you have the right to make an anonymous phone call?

      This guide for journalists may be helpful: "Can We Tape?" [rcfp.org] But I am not sure that any existing law is a good fit for this new tech.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by VisceralLogic (911294)
      If it processes it in real time, it doesn't need to record it, really. Just pass through in and out.

  • Thus proving the rule (Score:5, Funny)

    by killmenow (184444) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @08:33PM (#19500065)
    To patent anything, follow these steps:

    1. Choose something already being done in the real world, anything really
    2. describe it with maximum verbosity
    3. add "on the Internet" at the end

    Tada! PATENT!
  • "Do you have the box?" 5+ geek creds to anyone who also immediately thought of the same movie :-) Remember, kids. They're the US government. They don't DO that sort of thing. But they'll try.
  • What this amounts to is the ability of MS to tell people they have to pay a royality if they identify who they are talking to upon receiving a phone call.

    Ring Ring

    joe: hello

    Hello joe.

    joe: Who is this?

    You know who this is, so hows it going joe?

    Joe: Who is this?

    Stop fooling around Joe, Are you going to visit soon?

    Joe: Who is this?

    Well if you don't want to talk then good bye.

    click

    From the other end. My own son doesn't recognize his own mothers voice...

    From Joes end: Must have been some crazy lady with MS stock
  • Inventors: Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick

    First publication: 2001 A Space Odyssey (Released 1968). Heywood Floyd checks in to the space station:

    Female voice: "Thank you. You are cleared through Voiceprint Identification."

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/quotes [imdb.com]

  • So ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Shadowlore (10860) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @09:42PM (#19500569) Homepage Journal
    According to this:
    Not only that, it's done 'without alerting the caller during the call that the caller is being identified,'

    They are describing a means to RECORD callers without their knowledge, and hence without their consent. So would this software be illegal in some jurisdictions? You bet yer ass it would be.

    Wonder how it handles people who say "uhm" or "uhh" a lot. ;)

  • Sneakers (Score:3, Funny)

    by Loconut1389 (455297) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @09:55PM (#19500665)
    My name is Werner Brandes, my voice is my passport. Verify me.

  • Without the caller's knowlege? OMG! (Score:3, Funny)

    by TheTranceFan (444476) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @10:11PM (#19500759) Homepage
    ...it's done 'without alerting the caller during the call that the caller is being identified.

    ...Sometimes...when the phone rings...
    ...I answer it...and just listen...
    ...I hear the caller's voice and identify them by their voice...
    ...Then hang up without saying anything.

    How insidious!
    What. Is. The. Difference.
    • Them: "Is [insert partners name here] home?"
      Me: "Oh, hi [insert partners' friends name]. I'll go get her."
      Them: "How'd you know it was me?"

      Sheesh do anything with computers or on the internet and you can patent it.

  • 4th Amendment? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ivanmarsh (634711) on Wednesday June 13 2007, @10:57PM (#19501033)
    Should I even ask? Does the 4th Amendment mean anything anymore?

    Cops bust a guy for video taping them and charge him with wiretapping and Microsoft is going to be recording my voice and compiling a profile of me and that's okay?

    Words I'm guessing it will be looking for by default: bomb, liberal, weed, nuke, bush, 1st Amendment.

    My tinfoil hat is starting to look stylish.

  • Haven't I done this before? (Score:3, Funny)

    by gringer (252588) on Thursday June 14 2007, @04:08AM (#19502569)

    A method and apparatus are provided for identifying a caller of a call from the caller to a recipient. A voice input is received from the caller, and characteristics of the voice input are applied to a plurality of acoustic models, which include a generic acoustic model and acoustic models of any previously identified callers, to obtain a plurality of respective acoustic scores. The caller is identified as one of the previously identified callers or as a new caller based on the plurality of acoustic scores. If the caller is identified as a new caller, a new acoustic model is generated for the new caller, which is specific to the new caller.
    Hrm, sounds familiar for some reason. Oh, wait... there's a phone call. I'll just go and pick it up.

    me: hello?
    caller: Hello, I'm Suzi Cheatem from Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe. I was wondering if you'd like to answer a few questions about your behaviour while using the Internet.
    I think hrm, this sounds like one of those annoying telemarketers
    me: Sorry, I'm not interested in speaking to telemarketers
    caller: It seems like you have identified me from a previously identified acoustic model. I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell Microsoft that you have stolen their idea. You can expect a bill from them within two weeks.
    <hangs up>

    Gosh, those telemarketers get stranger every time they call me.

    • Does an ear count ?

      I assume you mean "does the human brain count" as the ear doesn't identify sounds. There is a lot of research into the human brain, and how it does what it does so well, but I doubt MS's latest innovation would match the intelligence methodology of the human brain.

      Remember, patents require more than an idea, otherwise every Sci-Fi movie in history that has an AI identify the main character when they use a phone would be prior art. You must also explain how it's done.

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