captions
Latest
TikTok now lets you turn on captions for any video
TikTok now offers auto-generated captions you can use with any video.
Microsoft unveils system-wide video call upgrades for Windows 11
Live captions for all audio and an AI-powered feature that improves eye contact are on the way.
Twitter is finally rolling out auto-captions for voice tweets
Over a year after it launched voice tweets, Twitter is finally rolling out automatically generated captions.
Instagram rolls out its auto-captioning sticker in Stories
After some people got a chance to see the feature early, Instagram is adding a new sticker to Stories that allows English-speaking users to add auto-generated captions to their videos.
Google's Live Caption feature comes to Chromebooks
Google is adding its auto-generating Live Caption system to Chromebooks by way of a new Chrome OS release.
TikTok is finally adding automatic captions
TikTok is taking a big step toward making its app more accessible: the app is adding automatic captions, which allows video makers to create subtitles for their clips.
Chrome can now caption all audio playing through the browser
Google is bringing one of its most useful Android accessibility features to Chrome. The company announced today that its browser can now caption any audio and video you play in it.
Instagram starts rolling out an auto-caption sticker for Stories
The feature should make Stories more accessible for hard of hearing users.
Otter launches live transcription for Google Meet
Otter.ai offers live transcriptions via its own Chrome extension.
Twitter says two new teams will address its accessibility issues
Twitter vows to make its service more accessible.
Google rolls out captions for audio and video messages on Duo
That particular tool is capable of real-time transcription for calls on select Pixel phones.
Google rolls out real-time captioning starting with Pixel 4
At I/O in May, Google showcased its Live Caption tech, which provides captions for all audio on your device in real-time, except for voice and video calls. Google has now revealed when you'll be able to take advantage of the accessibility feature.
Microsoft brings live captions and subtitles to PowerPoint
Microsoft is rolling out a new accessibility feature for PowerPoint, one that stands to help speakers ensure their presentations are understood by their entire audience. The company notes that in cases where audience members are hard of hearing or speak a different language than the presenter, the speaker's presentation may not be fully communicated, but a new tool aims to solve that problem. Soon, PowerPoint will be able to transcribe and caption what a speaker is saying in real-time, giving audience members the option of reading what a presenter is saying. And the tool will also be able to translate speech into different languages, subtitling the presentation into a language of the speaker's choice.
Google Slides automatically captions your presentations
If you want to caption a presentation for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, you typically have to do it yourself. Google might just save you that trouble -- it's launching an automatic closed captioning feature for Slides. Plug a microphone into your computer, hit a "CC" button and Slides will automatically caption your speech as you walk through the presentation. As the captions arrive in real-time, you don't have to worry about stopping on each slide to give your audience a chance to read.
Snapchat lets you create personalized Lenses for parties
If you post to Snapchat without a dancing hotdog or puppy face, did you even Snapchat? The platform already offers a baffling range of filters and AR novelties to play with, and now it's getting even more. From today, users will be able to create their very own personalized face lenses for events and celebrations, and have access to a whole bunch of new caption styles.
YouTube automates sound effect captions with AI
YouTube has used algorithms to automatically caption speech for eight years now in an effort to make its billions of videos more accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing. While the feature was pretty rough at first, it has significantly improved it over time, getting "closer and closer to human transcription error rates," Google said in its developers blog. Since speech is just one part of the audio picture, though, YouTube has launched automatic sound effect captioning for the first time.
Facebook makes it harder to ignore video ads
As often as Facebook likes to push video ads, they've been relatively easy to ignore. The sound is usually off until you click, so you can scroll by to whatever you really meant to look at. However, it might be tough to completely gloss over them in the near future -- Facebook is rolling out a tool that automatically captions video ads. Whether or not they appear is up to the advertiser, but the hope is that you'll stop (if ever so briefly) to read what a promo is saying instead of skipping to the next post.
Microsoft's imaging technology can automatically caption photos
Microsoft's already demonstrated how its computer vision technology can recognize objects even better than humans, now it's onto the next frontier: Interpreting elements of a photo and automatically generating captions. That may not exactly sound exciting, but being able to accurately explain an image could be essential for artificial intelligence. It's also yet another sign of the power of neural networks, or computer models that try to mimic the way the human brain works. Microsoft's technology starts by identifying everything in an image, then it generates sentences around how those objects interact. For example, in the image above it came up with "A purple camera with a woman"; "A woman holding a camera in a crowd"; and "A woman holding a cat." Two of those sentences don't make much sense -- it somehow identifies a bundle of hair as a cat -- so it eventually settled on "A woman holding a camera in a crowd" as the best way to describe the scene.
Amazon adds closed captions to select Instant streams
Amazon is finally catching up to the rest of the streaming industry and adding closed captions to some of its Instant Video selections. For the moment the library of CCed content is pretty slim, with only 169 shows and 74 movies, but we'd expect that to grow pretty quickly. That does put the burgeoning media giant quite a bit behind competitors like Hulu and Netflix, who have been catering to the hearing impaired for some time. For now, captions are only available when streaming from Amazon's website, but the company promises to expand support to "additional devices" soon. For more info check out the Amazon help page at the source and the email notice forwarded to us by a tipster after the break. [Thanks, Linda]
YouTube gains translated caption support, tears down another language barrier
Aside from being powered by memes, likes and tweets, today's internet is strongly fueled by viral videos. King of the latter, YouTube has added yet another trendsetting feature to its repertoire. The Google owned video sharing service now gives its content producers the ability to add subtitles to their videos in over 300 languages. Leaning on Google Translate's software, this new feature gives YouTubers the option to add or request translated captions for their videos anytime during the content's lifespan. So, whether you're a casual vlogger, or an aspiring director hoping to have your recent short reach a broader audience, you now have to opportunity to snag some views on a global scale. Just be sure to remember us little people when those awards for best foreign film start rolling in.
