Since the spring of 2019, Google has been increasing its voice-themed user assistance to make Android devices comfortable for people with hearing impairment.
On Aug. 21, Google Japan explained to reporters its goal of enhancing user assistance and two new features planned for the year.
Google voice-to-text conversion application expands its function
Android Accessibility is a variety of auxiliary functions provided for more comfortable operation of the user interface of Android devices. Google genuine mobile phones "Pixel3" and "Pixel3a" (including XL) devices are pre-installed, and other Android devices can download and use applications from the Google Play store.
Brian Kemler, who is in charge of Accessibility at Google headquarters, explained: "so far, we have installed accessibility features for people with visual and physical disabilities into all Android products, but because the technology is mature and foolproof, we are now focused on supporting hearing impaired features." In February 2019, the functions of "voice-to-text conversion" and "voice amplification" have been launched first.
Add subtitles to all audio content on the phone
"Voice character conversion" is to monitor the surrounding sound through the microphone of the Android phone, and convert the text in real time, while picking up only human conversations.
Supports more than 70 languages, including English and Japanese. Can be used on Android 5.0 or later devices. Through the function update implemented in June 2019, we can also identify more than 60 surrounding sounds such as animal calls, whistles, applause and so on, and visualize them to the terminal screen. Kemler explained that the function is expanded by considering that "people with hearing impairment not only have conversations with people, but also have the necessary functions to master their surroundings through sound."
Voice conversion function is developed by Google's latest speech recognition, artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, which is characterized by the ability to accurately recognize other people's voices and environmental sounds.
In actual use, Japanese text conversion processing has some ambiguity compared with English (especially in the case of sound away from the microphone). "We recognize that there are still biases in machine learning algorithms for every language," Kemler said. Google will try its best to improve the processing accuracy of various languages. "
At the presentation, the new user assistance function "Live Caption" derived from this voice-text transformation is now under development and is being promoted again. This is "the ability to add subtitles to voice content accessed by Android devices", such as videos posted on social networking sites and voice attached to messaging applications, which seems to be a broad goal. Availability is expected to start this year, but the first available is expected to come from English. The Japanese counterpart has not yet been determined.
Enhance the "sound amplification" of the sound picked up by the mobile phone
"speech amplification" is a function that amplifies the voice picked up by the microphone of the Android phone to the sound that the user wants to hear in order to hear it more clearly. You can use the 3.5mm headphone Jack with Android version 6.0or later or the wired headset on the USB terminal.
The author has also tried this function on Pixel3a XL, but due to the integration of the function of filtering ambient noise that is difficult to hear, we can feel the unique effect of human voice stereo approximation. It can also be said that it is similar to the active noise cancellation function, external sound absorption and voice clearing function installed in the recent wireless headphones. In the case of Google, the human voice is selected with high precision by using the machine learning algorithm developed by ourselves.
Next-generation Android Q cooperates with hearing aids
Kemler again introduces that we are developing a new feature, "Hearing Aid Support (hearing aid collaboration)," which is based on the same concept as voice amplification (announced with Live Caption at the developer event "Google Imax O 2019" in May). It is expected that the next version of Android, "Android Q", which will be officially released this year, will be available.
We pair Bluetooth hearing aids with Android devices to help you listen to calls and voice content. Traditionally, special accessories with heavy connection and low battery consumption efficiency are needed between hearing aids and Android devices. With the collaboration of new hearing aids, hearing aids can be connected to the Android platform in the same sense as Bluetooth wireless headsets, and power consumption can be reduced due to the use of BLE (Bluetooth low Power) channel protocol.
In order to achieve this function, Google has been working with the world's leading hearing aid manufacturers to improve the function. Kemler has stressed that the result is less delay, stable wireless transmission and comfortable use.
Can sound amplification be used in ordinary headphones?
"our biggest task is to make any information accessible to people around the world using Google's products," Kemler said.
For example, voice amplification will be more convenient if Android terminals and wireless headphones can also be paired. Built-in microphones, such as smartwatches and headsets, will also be popular with users when deployed to proprietary wearable devices that can be used by mobile phones.
I asked Kemler, "I can't say when this will happen in the near future, but I think this is definitely where our technology should go." I think the performance of hardware and chipsets will be further improved in the future. It is hoped that the ecosystem that enables user assistance through Android Accessibility can also achieve the company's mission while expanding to more devices and services. In addition, for people with all kinds of obstacles, they also actively pursue the ambition of expanding user assistance functions. "
For example, Google Assistant also uses natural language processing technology in voice-to-text conversion, and Andorid-related technologies are changing with each passing day while being closely related to all devices.
The breakthrough features that are easy to use for all users of Google devices are originally generated by user assistance, which fully takes into account what will happen next.
