Google introduced on Thursday that it’s rolling out new AI and accessibility options to Android and Chrome. Most notably, TalkBack, Android’s display reader, now permits you to ask Gemini about what’s in photos and what’s in your display.
Last 12 months, Google introduced Gemini’s capabilities to TalkBack to offer 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 accessible. 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 concerning the model and coloration. In addition, now you can get descriptions and ask questions on your complete cellphone display. So, in the event you’re procuring in an app, you possibly can ask Gemini concerning the materials of an merchandise you’re focused on or if there’s a low cost accessible.
Google additionally introduced immediately 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 categorical themselves is by dragging out the sound of their phrases, which is why it has developed a brand new period 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, comparable to when an individual is whistling or clearing their throat.
The replace is rolling out in English within the U.S., U.Okay., Canada, and Australia for units working Android 15 and above.
Google can also be making it simpler to entry PDFs on Chrome. Up till now, you wouldn’t have the ability to use your display reader to work together with a scanned PDF in your desktop Chrome browser. Now, Chrome mechanically acknowledges some of these PDFs, permitting you to focus on, copy, and seek for textual content like every other web page and use your display reader to learn them. This is due to the introduction of Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Google says.
Plus, Page Zoom on Chrome on Android now permits you to enhance the dimensions of the textual content you see with out affecting the webpage structure. You can 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 can entry this characteristic by tapping the three-dot menu within the high proper nook of Chrome.
