Google empowers hearing loss sufferers through new Android features
Apps
Google has launched two new features for Android phones destined to make life easier for hearing-impaired users.
The Google Play Store is now offering Android phone users two innovative software functions: Sound Amplifier, which filters and enhances sounds, increasing quiet sounds without raising louder sounds; and a Beta version of Live Transcribe, which picks up speech through the phone’s microphone, converting it to real-time captioning on the phone screen.
The evident boon of the latter feature is well illustrated by an“Android Accessibility YouTube video” starring deaf Google research scientist Dimitri Kanevsky, following him through meetings and everyday activities while he uses Transcribe to help him communicate. The video explains how Google worked on developing the app with the federally chartered private Gallaudet University for the deaf, in Washington DC.
Deaf Gallaudet Mathematics and Information Technology professor Dr. Mohammad Obiedat can be seen using the app with his hearing children, and explaining that he is comfortable using Transcribe when he does not have an interpreter available.
Source: TecNoticias
