Voice captioning comes to Google Glass

Google Glass can now be an appealing option for the hearing impaired, as the headset can now caption words as you speak them.

Google Glass’s microphone is not suitable for hearing voices from front far away (it’s designed to only hear your voice), so an app called Captioning on Glass uses a smartphone to have the speaker speak into, uses Google’s speech recognition software, then sends it to the actual Google Glass wearer using Captioning on Glass glasswear.

This software is being developed by a team lead by Professor Jim Foley who realized Google Glass should be able to help his hearing problems.

“This system allows wearers like me to focus on the speaker’s lips and facial gestures,” Professor Foley said. “If hard-of-hearing people understand the speech, the conversation can continue immediately without waiting for the caption. However, if I miss a word, I can glance at the transcription, get the word or two I need and get back into the conversation.”

“It’s not ideal for strangers, but we designed the program to be used among friends, trusted acquaintances or while making purchases.” Professor Thad Starney added, “For both uses, the person wearing Glass has to hand their smartphone to someone else to begin a conversation.”

It’s great to see more and more uses coming out of Google Glass, with features and abilities being worked on everyday by not only Google, but professional teams such as Starney’s.

via CNET