It uses your computer’s microphone to detect your spoken presentation, then transcribes-in real time-what you say as captions on the slides you’re presenting. The closed captions feature is available when presenting in Google Slides. The feature will gradually roll out to all Slides users starting this week. This work has moved from a passion project to our full-time job, and today we’re officially launching automated closed captions in Google Slides. Upon observing that presentations can be challenging for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing to follow along, we both teamed up with the idea to add automated closed captions to G Suite’s presentation tool, Google Slides. Recently, an internal hackathon led us to work on a project that is deeply personal. We’re also involved with the American Sign Language community at Google, which promotes inclusivity among all Googlers through shared language. As part of this team, we've improved screen reader, Braille and screen magnifier support on Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, and we have represented the Google Accessibility team at external conferences. When we landed at Google, we both independently joined the G Suite accessibility team.
This work not only made us see what an impact technology can make on people with accessibility needs, but also motivated us to focus our careers in this area when we graduated. Laura researched a new signal processing algorithm for hearing aids in noisy environments, built an app for residents in a neurological disease care facility to call for help in a more accessible way, and worked on a hands-free page turner for individuals unable to use their arms. We met earlier, through the accessibility community at MIT, where we studied computer science with the hopes of using our technical skills to make a difference in people’s lives.ĭuring our time at university, Abigail built a solution that helped a blind man use his touch-screen oven, led a team that enabled blind individuals to sign legal documents independently, and co-founded an assistive technology hackathon. In high school, she worked in a biology lab at the National Eye Institute where she researched retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disorder that causes loss of vision.įlash forward to today where we, Laura and Abigail, work at Google, building products with accessibility features that help billions of users across the globe.
GOOGLE CLOSED CAPTIONING HOW TO
However, they didn’t work very well, particularly in noisy backgrounds, so she eventually stopped wearing them.Ī few years later on a school bus in Bethesda, MD, nine-year-old Abigail sat next to a classmate who taught her how to communicate using American Sign Language. It’s easy to activate live closed captions, and there are lots of ways to use them in class.Ĭheck out this tutorial video to see it in action and see how you can start using live closed captions.Years ago in a Long Island doctor’s office, four-year-old Laura was fitted with her first pair of hearing aids, customized to compensate for her specific hearing loss.
GOOGLE CLOSED CAPTIONING TV
You can turn on closed captions at the bottom of videos you watch on TV and online. Check out the how-to’s and those ideas in this video. Google Slides now creates closed captions on the fly! Google Slides transcribes your speech live and displays it at the bottom of the slides in your presentation.