Google launches live captions on YouTube at Google I/O

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Wednesday, 11 May 2011 11:42am

For the first time, people who are Deaf or hearing impaired can watch the live video stream of Google I/O, Google’s developer conference, with live captions.

YouTube launched its live captioning feature with the Google I/O live video stream today. According to Naomi Black, Google’s Technical Program Manager for Accessibility Engineering, the feature will be available to all YouTube partners including competing live streaming websites.

The live captions for Google I/O are produced by Computer Assisted Realtime Transcription professionals, highly trained individuals who use a stenotype machine with a phonetic keyboard (as used by court reporters) to create live captions.

This is different to the auto-captioning service launched by Google last year. YouTube’s auto-caption service uses speech recognition software to generate captions for YouTube videos at the request of users.

However, with the auto-caption service, accuracy can be extremely variable, there is a delay between the time the request is submitted and the auto-captions are delivered, and captions cannot be corrected in real time.

In addition to live captioning, Google will use its auto-translate service to translate the captions into all languages supported by Google Translate.

You can watch Google I/O with live captions now. Keep an eye on the Google I/O YouTube channel for video recordings of the sessions that are not live streamed which Google plans to have available within 24 hours of recording.


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