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Live automatic captions for videos, podcasts, and phone calls were a main feature of Google’s Pixel smartphones last year, but thanks to a new Chrome update, the same accessibility option is now available on Mac.
Just update to the stable version of Chrome 89, and you can simply turn on the feature, which converts speech to text in a privacy-protecting way …
The new feature was first discovered by XDA Developers.
Google first showcased its amazing Live Caption accessibility feature at Google I / 0 2019. The feature was first rolled out to Pixel phones with the Android 10 update, and subsequently made its way to many non-Pixel phones, including the Galaxy S20 series, OnePlus 8 series, OnePlus Nord and more. As the name implies, Live Caption provides real-time captions for audio playback on your device. It works with videos, podcasts, and even phone calls. This is very useful if you are hearing impaired or want to watch a video with the audio turned off.
Although the feature has so far been exclusive to Android phones, we know that Google has been working to bring it to the Chrome browser on the desktop for some time now. And today, it’s finally available to users of the stable Chrome 89.
Once you’ve upgraded to Chrome 89, hit CMD-, to open Settings, click Advanced and then Accessibility, or just click this link. You will see two new options.
Live caption. Automatically create subtitles for English audio and video. Audio and subtitles never leave your device.
Subtitle preferences. Customize the size and style of captions for apps and sites that support these settings.
The feature is partly based on Apple’s built-in Accessibility features, so clicking Preferences will open the Accessibility tab in your Mac’s System Preferences.
Once enabled, play any video or audio source and you will get a subtitle box at the bottom of your browser screen. You can click and drag this to reposition it.
In my short test, it even works with the Spotify web player, transcribing song lyrics. Unsurprisingly, the transcript is not perfect, but initial testing certainly seems to indicate that it is impressive.
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