Captions

Kyoto University in Japan is trailing a new live captioning system for use in academic conferences, using an automatic speech recognition system to cut down on the amount of human input needed to deliver live captions.

Will machines take over the captioning world and automatically provide perfect captions on live programs, events, meetings and the classroom? Or are future changes going to be more subtle than that?

In June 2015, we launched our annual CAP THAT! campaign with a simple message: turn the captions on when watching video content in class. This year we focused on the significance of using captions to benefit even more students, including students with English as an Additional Language, those who have reading difficulties, children on the autism spectrum, as well as students who are Deaf or hearing impaired. Amongst Australian schools nationwide, this equates to over one million kids in total.

The new range of Apple products has been announced with upgrades of many of them including new iPhones, an iPad with a larger screen, and a significant update to the Apple TV. While many of the products include helpful accessibility improvements, users should also be aware of some potential challenges the new features may create.