With the Pixel 4 in 2019, Google introduced the ability to automatically subtitle playing audio and video. After expanding on Android, Live Caption is now coming to Google Chrome and later Chrome OS.
Captioning is helpful when you’re in noisy environments without proper headphones, trying to be discreet, or if you are hard of hearing. Some services today encourage creators to add subtitles, but it’s not universally widespread.
Google’s solution for the web is to make it a browser-level feature so that it works on social and video sites, podcasts and radio content, personal video libraries (such as Google Photos), embedded video players, and most web-based video or audio chat services.
In Chrome, visit Settings > Advanced (in the side drawer) > Accessibility to download the necessary resources for Live Caption. After that initial install, the automatic captioning works entirely offline. In fact, you can use Chrome to play audio and video files stored locally on your computer. When audio plays, a floating Live Caption box appears in the bottom portion of your screen.
Live Caption currently supports English and is available globally on the latest release of Chrome for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Make sure you’re on Chrome 89 and restart your browser if it’s not yet available. It’s coming soon for Chrome OS.
More about Google Chrome:
- You can now snooze Google Calendar notifications in Chrome
- Google details recent memory savings in Chrome for Mac, Windows, and Android
- Chrome for Android now lets you preview a page before fully opening
Author: Abner Li
Source: 9TO5Google
