August 20, 2008, 5:16 PM — A voiceprint technology developed by Singapore's Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) has clinched the number one spot in the US standards agency rankings.
According to I2R, its team beat 45 international institutions to emerge 1st in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 2008 Speaker Recognition Evaluation.
I2R is a member of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) family. NIST develops technologies, measurement methods and standards that help U.S. companies compete in the global marketplace. NIST's annual benchmarking provides a worldwide platform for the calibration of speech technology capabilities participated by academia and the leading institutions from the industry.
Technology can identify hoax call makers
I2R's winner technology can identify and spot the pranksters who make hoax calls to emergency services, the agency said.
The agency claimed that the technology is now able to detect, with 97 per cent accuracy whether two voices were from the same speaker. This allows for the verification of voiceprints for large scale deployment in adverse acoustic environments.
Professor Lye Kin Mun, I2R's deputy executive director (research) said: "I2R has always been pitching our own capabilities in technology against other industry players through participation in global challenges. It is through this that we can learn more and improve ourselves, eventually winning international acclaim."
The I2R team is led by Dr Haizhou Li, Department Head of Human Language Technology, with members, Bin Ma, Hanwu Sun, Donglai Zhu, Kong-Aik Lee, Khe Chai Sim, Changhuai You, Rong Tong, Ismo Kärkkäinen, Vladimir Pervouchine, Yijie Li and Susanto Rahardja.
