A set of new features for Android could alleviate some of the difficulties of living with hearing impairment and other conditions. Live transcription, captioning and relay use speech recognition and synthesis to make content on your phone more accessible — in real time.

Announced today at Google’s I/O event in a surprisingly long segment on accessibility, the features all rely on improved speech-to-text and text-to-speech algorithms, some of which now run on-device rather than sending audio to a data center to be decoded.

The first feature to be highlighted, live transcription, was already mentioned by Google. It’s a simple but very useful tool: open the app and the device will listen to its surroundings and simply display as text on the screen any speech it recognizes.

We’ve seen this in translator apps and devices, like the One Mini, and the meeting transcription highlighted yesterday at Microsoft Build. One would think that such a straightforward tool is long overdue, but, in fact, everyday circumstances like talking to a couple of friends at a cafe can be remarkably difficult for natural language systems trained on perfectly recorded single-speaker audio. Improving the system to the point where it can track multiple speakers and display accurate transcripts quickly has no doubt been a challenge.

Another feature enabled by this improved speech recognition ability is live captioning, which essentially does the same thing as above, but for video. Now when you watch a YouTube video, listen to a voice message or even take a video call, you’ll be able to see what the person in it is saying, in real time.

That should prove incredibly useful not just for the millions of people who can’t hear what’s being said, but also those who don’t speak the language well and could use text support, or anyone watching a show on mute when they’re supposed to be going to sleep, or any number of other circumstances where hearing and understanding speech just isn’t the best option.

Captioning phone calls is something CEO Sundar Pichai said is still under development, but the “live relay” feature they demoed onstage showed how it might work. A person who is hearing-impaired or can’t speak will certainly find an ordinary phone call to be pretty worthless. But live relay turns the call immediately into text, and immediately turns text responses into speech the person on the line can hear.

Live captioning should be available on Android Q when it releases, with some device restrictions. Live transcribe is available now, but a warning states that it is currently in development. Live relay is yet to come, but showing it onstage in such a complete form suggests it won’t be long before it appears.

Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | Live transcription and captioning in Android are a boon to the hearing-impaired

Last year at Google I/O, Google introduced a host of new digital well-being tools aimed at helping people better manage their screen time, track app usage and configure their device’s “do not disturb” settings. Today, Google is updating its suite of tools to include a new feature called “Focus Mode” that lets you temporarily disable distracting apps while not missing critical information, as well as a few new features for users of its parental control software, Family Link, which is now part of the Android OS.

With Focus Mode, a new feature for Android devices, you can turn off the apps you personally find distracting while you’re trying to sit down and get things done. For example, you could disable updates from distracting social media apps or email, but could choose to leave texting on so family members could reach you in an emergency.

Though not mentioned during the announcement, the feature also could help people enjoy their devices in their downtime — like streaming from Netflix without getting bothered by Slack notifications and work email. That’s not necessarily a way to reduce screen time — which is what a lot of today’s digital well-being features provide. Instead, it’s about finding balance between when it’s time to work and when it’s not, and what things deserve our attention at a given time.

Also unveiled today at Google I/O were new features for Family Link, Google’s software that lets parents control what kids can do on their devices, and track their usage.

Now, parents can set time limits on specific apps instead of just “screen time” in general. This is similar in a way to what Amazon’s FreeTime parental controls offer, as they allow parents to require that kids finish their reading before they can play games, for example. In Google’s case, it’s instead allowing parents to limit certain apps they believe are distractions to children.

Another new feature will allow parents to give kids extra screen time, or “bonus time.”

This could help kids who need just a few more minutes to wrap up what they’re doing on their device, or could be doled out as a reward, depending on how parents wanted to use the feature.

The company also announced it’s making Family Link part of every Android device, beginning with Android Q. That means Family Link will become accessible from device settings, instead of being an optional app parents can choose to download. You’ll find it under the “digital well-being and parental controls” in Android Q devices rolling out later this summer, says Google.

“We’re spending a lot of time on phones, and people tell us, sometimes they wish they spent more time on other things. We want to help people find balance and digital well-being. And yes, sometimes this means making it easier to put your device away entirely, and focus on the times that really matter,” said Stephanie Cuthbertson, senior director for Android. 

She said these tools were already proving useful, as 90% of app timers helped users stick to their goals and there was a 27% drop in nightly usage thanks to Wind Down. However, the company didn’t share how many users were taking advantage of the digital well-being features as a whole.

Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | Google expands digital well-being tools to include a new ‘Focus mode,’ adds improved parental controls to Android

If you’re going to go carrier-exclusive, Verizon (Disclosure: our parent company’s parent company) is probably about as good as any. Ultimately, however, exclusives invariably do more harm than good when it comes to growing your footprint.

That’s no doubt a key part of why Google had a rocky financial quarter when it came to the Pixel line. Exclusivity coupled with all the other headwinds currently facing the smartphone industry spelled bad news for the reliable line. Thankfully, however, that’s starting to change with today’s arrival of the Pixel 3a.

The budget handset, along with its flagship brethren, are about to be available on a lot more carriers. Google’s keeping Verizon around and adding T-Mobile, Sprint, US Cellular, Spectrum Mobile (Charter) and C Spire. The devices will be available online through those carriers starting today, and will be hitting shelves tomorrow.

That means a heck of a lot more retail display space and ad dollars will be pumped into the product, which should help give the new handset and its six-month-old predecessor a nice little bump ahead of Google’s Q2 reports.

AT&T is notably the odd one out here. While the devices will support the carrier, they won’t be available through its retail channels — nor will they be available through contract. That certainly makes a difference here in the States, where contracts are still king.

Source: Tech Crunch Mobiles | Google’s Pixel 3 and 3a are coming to more carriers, including Sprint and T-Mobile