Video Captions for Hearing Impaired Coming to All YouTube Uploads

Google is making it easier for the deaf and hard of hearing to enjoy YouTube by adding automatic captions to videos.

There are millions of videos available to YouTube browsers, with thousands more uploaded on a daily basis.

In a massive experiment, Google will be using state of the art speech recognition software to generate text to display inside each video for the hearing impaired to follow along.

“A core part of YouTube’s DNA is access to content,” said the firm’s product manager Hunter Walk.

Up until now, captions have only been available on a select number of videos, but soon all videos uploaded to YouTube will have the service.

“It is not a complete solution but it is a step on the way to the real solution,” said software engineer Ken Harrenstien.

“It’s difficult to get every word exactly right but sometimes that doesn’t matter and other times it’s amusing.”

Initially the captions will only feature the English language.

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