Google Glass can now subtitle conversations in real time

There are plenty of things that are worth paying £1,000 or more for, stuff that’s useful like a car or a house. Google Glass is not really one of those things, and still remains the plaything of tech lovers with too much money to spend. Well the ‘Captioning with Glass’ app buts the device to good use.

The app is fairly simple, using a smartphone and Glass’s display the app converts speech to text in real time, displaying it for the user to read. Essentially it’s subtitling the conversation, which could be a fantastic tool for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Jim Foley School of Interactive Computing Professor at Georgia Institute of Tech said:

“This system allows wearers like me to focus on the speaker’s lips and facial gestures. If hard-of-hearing people understand the speech, the conversation can continue immediately without waiting for the caption. However, if I miss a word, I can glance at the transcription, get the word or two I need and get back into the conversation.”

There are some flaws with the system as it is right now. For one thing you need to hand your phone to the other person in order for the subtitling to take place, and if you’re talking to a total stranger you’re not going to want to do that. But it is a great piece of tech still in the early stages. Give it a few years and we’ll probably have a more extensive version that doesn’t require £1,300 in gadgets to work.