Hangout Captions will display real-time text updates from professional transcribers of conversations that take place in Google+ Hangouts. Google+ Hangouts is the video chat feature of social network Google+ which allows up to 10 people to communicate through streamed video. The Hangout Captions app also allows users to type text versions of the conversation for friends who are Deaf or hearing impaired, providing captions for the conversation in real-time.
Announced on Google+ profile of Naomi Black, a member of Google’s Accessibility team, the app works with real-time streaming text service StreamText.
The Hangouts feature allows groups to take part in conversation via video. The main advantage of the captions addition is Deaf or hearing impaired users being able to talk to their friends without having to ask them to instant message.
This follows a number of accessibility improvements to the social network, including adding closed caption support for videos uploaded to Google+, announced earlier in June.
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