Google has introduced new AI and accessibility features for Android and Chrome.
One of the biggest updates is for TalkBack.
Users who are blind or have low vision can not only get AI-generated descriptions of images, but they can now also ask questions about those images.
Google has introduced new AI and accessibility features for Android and Chrome in honour of Global Accessibility Awareness Day. One of the biggest updates is for TalkBack. It now works better with Gemini. This means users who are blind or have low vision can not only get AI-generated descriptions of images (even when there’s no alt text), but they can now also ask questions about those images.
“That means the next time a friend texts you a photo of their new guitar, you can get a description and ask follow-up questions about the make and colour, or even what else is in the image. People can now also get descriptions and ask questions about their whole screen. So if you’re shopping for the latest sales on your favourite shopping app, you can ask Gemini about the material of an item or if a discount is available,” Google explained in a blogpost.
Also read: Google expands Gemini beyond smartphones to watches, cars, TVs and XR devices
Another upgrade comes to Expressive Captions. The tech giant has added a new duration feature that captures the way people say things—not just what they say. This helps better understand emotions and tone. For example, it can now tell if someone is shouting “nooooo” or saying “amaaaazing” during a sports match. There are also new labels for non-verbal sounds, such as whistling or throat clearing. This update of Expressive Captions is being rolled out in English in the US, UK, Canada and Australia for devices running Android 15 and above.
On the Chrome browser side, Google is making it easier to access scanned PDF files. Earlier, screen readers couldn’t interact with these types of files. Now, with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Chrome can detect text in scanned PDFs, making them searchable and readable with screen readers.
Lastly, Page Zoom on Chrome for Android is getting better. You can now zoom in on text without messing up the layout of the webpage. You can choose how much to zoom and whether to apply it to all websites or just specific ones.
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Ayushi Jain
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