Does your digital assistant know who it’s talking to? A wearable device prototype could let voice-controlled assistants like Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa recognize their owner so they don’t take orders from anyone else. The VAuth device, developed by U-M computer scientists Huan Feng and Kassem Fawaz, uses an accelerometer hidden in a pair of glasses or earphones or worn around the neck. The accelerometer measures vibrations created as the wearer speaks. An algorithm then compares those vibrations with the audio signal received by the digital assistant. If the vibrations and the audio match, then the voice command is received as normal. If not, the assistant is blocked from responding. Testing by Feng and Fawaz showed that VAuth was able to match speech vibrations with audio signals 97 per cent of the time, and did not act on commands issued by someone other than the device owner. Although they tested VAuth only with Android assistant Google Now, they are confident it could work with other voice assistants if their manufacturers allowed it.
