BURLINGTON, Mass., June 6 (UPI) -- A new smartphone app will allows users to unlock their phone with a simple voice command, its U.S. developer says.
Nuance Communications of Burlington, Mass., said its Dragon ID voice identification application is the first such use of the technology in consumer phones, GigaOm.com reported Tuesday.
Typical phone unlocking programs require a user to enter a short code or trace a pattern on the device's touch screen, but Dragon ID has two layers of security: biometrics, which recognizes the user's unique "voice imprint," and a spoken password or pass phrase.
Nuance has been selling the technology for years to businesses and governments for use in their own biometric security systems, but has adapted it for mobile devices, Nuance Senior Product Manager Kenneth Harper said.
Dragon ID will support English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Korean on Android devices, although support for more operating systems and more languages will come, Nuance said.
Dragon ID will not be available as a download from the iTunes App Store or Google Play, though Nuance said it is offering the technology to smartphone manufacturers for implementation at the factory level.
