One of the most significant issues users have with voice assistants is not their technical limitations, but rather the social implications of speaking out loud to a device in public. In quiet environments, users are afraid to bother surrounding people, and in all types of environments – even in homes, as Microsoft claims – users are afraid of diffusing their private information. To reduce these fears, Microsoft patented an idea for an ingressive whisper understanding technology.
This proposed invention provides a quieter method of using voice input technology that aims to protect private information. In short, users would place a device equipped with the voice input feature very close to their mouths (in some cases, just 1mm away) so that a small gap is created between the apparatus and the lips. Once in place, the microphone could theoretically "capture [a] stable utterance signal with a very small voice leakage".
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