Google announced on Thursday that it’s rolling out new AI and accessibility options to Android and Chrome. Most notably, TalkBack, Android’s display screen reader, now permits you to ask Gemini about what’s in photos and what’s in your display screen.
Final 12 months, Google introduced Gemini’s capabilities to TalkBack to provide people who find themselves blind or have low imaginative and prescient entry to AI-generated descriptions for photos, even when Alt textual content isn’t obtainable. Now, folks can ask questions and get responses about their photos.
For instance, if a buddy texts you a photograph a their new guitar, you will get an outline of it and ask questions in regards to the model and colour. As well as, now you can get descriptions and ask questions on your complete cellphone display screen. So, when you’re purchasing in an app, you possibly can ask Gemini in regards to the materials of an merchandise you’re considering or if there’s a low cost obtainable.
Google additionally introduced in the present day that it’s updating Expressive Captions, Android’s real-time captions characteristic that makes use of AI to seize what somebody says, and the way they are saying it.
Google says it’s conscious that one of many methods folks specific themselves is by dragging out the sound of their phrases, which is why it has developed a brand new length characteristic on Expressive Captions. Now, you’ll know if a sports activities announcer is looking out an “amaaazing shot” or when somebody isn’t merely saying “no” however “nooooo.” You’ll additionally begin to see new labels for sounds, akin to when an individual is whistling or clearing their throat.
The replace is rolling out in English within the U.S., U.Ok., Canada, and Australia for gadgets working Android 15 and above.
Google can also be making it simpler to entry PDFs on Chrome. Up till now, you wouldn’t be capable to use your display screen reader to work together with a scanned PDF in your desktop Chrome browser. Now, Chrome robotically acknowledges most of these PDFs, permitting you to focus on, copy, and seek for textual content like another web page and use your display screen reader to learn them. That is due to the introduction of Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Google says.
Plus, Web page Zoom on Chrome on Android now permits you to improve the dimensions of the textual content you see with out affecting the webpage format. You may customise how a lot you need to zoom in after which select to use the choice to all the pages you go to, or simply sure ones. You may entry this characteristic by tapping the three-dot menu within the high proper nook of Chrome.