Google Aids Accessibility With ChromeVox Reader, Better YouTube Captions And More

Google engineers got hold of a booth at this year’s CSUN accessibility conference and they’re keen to talk up their latest efforts. For starters they decided to help the visually impaired with a Chrome screen reader called ChromeVox (now a beta version) plus improved shortcuts and screen reader support in Google Docs, Sites and Calendar. Also, YouTube boasts expanded caption support for the hard of hearing, with automatic captions enabled for 135 million video clips, a number three times more than their last year’s total.

Check this video for demo.

Video

From Google’s official blog, the improvements to the accessibility are made

• ChromeVox (in beta) provides a screen reader that’s built for the web, right inside Chrome.
• Improved accessibility for Google Docs, Sites and Calendar, including keyboard shortcuts and better support in modern screen readers
• Android 4.0 introduces touch exploration and out-of-box accessibility activation
• Expanded caption support on YouTubeimproving access to broadcast and direct-to-web videos for people who are deaf or hard of hearing

Click here to read more details about this at Official Google Blog. (http://googleblog.blogspot.in/2012/02/understanding-accessibility-at-csun.html#!http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/understanding-accessibility-at-csun.html)